Category: Health Care
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Two Faces of the Face-Mask Mandate
by Sidney Bostian Governor Ralph Northam will announce tomorrow the details of a statewide mandate to wear masks in public spaces and businesses. “We are working through the policy. Obviously it’s an equity issue,” Northam said at his Friday news conference, adding that all Virginia residents would need access to face coverings and that he…
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Ralph Northam’s Sovereign Immunity
by Kerry Dougherty Just as we were eagerly looking forward to a glorious Memorial Day weekend in Virginia Beach, Gov. Ralph Northam dropped a stink bomb. At his Friday press conference, in his cloying, paternalistic way, Northam said he had some homework for the commonwealth. He wanted everyone to get a mask. Details to come…
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The Emperor’s New Clothes — or the COVID That Didn’t Happen
by Carol J. Bova The May 22 UVA COVID-19 Model weekly report says the virus transmission rate dropped below 1.0 in the past week. It had averaged 2.2 prior to March 15. Here’s the explanation of what that means: Researchers use the transmission rate of a disease, often referred to as R-naught (R0), to measure…
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The Epidemic is Receding. Why Do We Need a Mask Mandate Now?
by James A. Bacon As Governor Ralph Northam ponders the details of a statewide order mandating Virginians to wear face masks, he might do well to consider the latest COVID-19 data in his deliberations. A record number of test results, 11,609, were incorporated into the Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 database yesterday and published on…
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Why Is Our Governor Ignoring His Own Orders?
By Steve Haner If the overall case fatality rate for COVID-19 is 4 tenths of one percent, as the Centers for Disease Control just estimated, then perhaps 300,000 Virginians have or have had the disease. That’s working the math backwards from the 1,200 Virginia deaths reported so far. The chart below snipped from the CDC’s…
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The Nursing Home Industry Responds
Virginia’s long-term care facilities have come under close scrutiny during the COVID-19 epidemic, understandably so, considering that roughly 60% of all COVID-19 deaths in Virginia have afflicted patients living in long-term care facilities. The nursing home industry has remained remarkably quiet throughout the crisis. But yesterday I received a communication from Amy Hewett, vice president…
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Latest Data Supports Continued Reversal of Shutdown
by James A. Bacon We’re a week into Phase 1 of relaxing the COVID-19 lockdown, and there is no sign of an acceleration of the virus. To the contrary, the virus seems to be receding. It may be too soon to reach definitive conclusions — there is a one- to two-week lag between an infection,…
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Wise King Ralph Rules: Less Choice for the Self-Employed
by James A. Bacon According to Governor Ralph Northam, the way to ensure access to quality, affordable medical insurance for Virginians is to reject bills that would… expand access to health insurance for Virginians. Yesterday Northam vetoed two bills passed with broad bipartisan support that would have allowed self-employed people to buy insurance through professional…
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COVID-19 Update
Highlights from the Virginia Department of Health and Virginia Hospital and Healthcare COVID-19 databases based on yesterday’s reporting: Mortality statistics COVID-19 deaths: 37 Nursing home deaths: 13 Percentage of deaths occurring long-term care settings: 35% Testing data Tests administered: 6,553 % positive: 14.7% COVID-19 Hospitalization data New hospitalizations: 52 New discharges: 185 Total COVID-19 patients…
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COVID-19 a Danger to Individuals but Not an Existential Threat to Society
We’ve published variations of this graph in the past, but the perspective never grows old. This data, provided by John Butcher of Cranky’s Blog fame, shows how the COVID-19 virus stacks up against other causes of death in Virginia (using 2017 data, the most recent available). The number is almost as high as it was…
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COVID Confusion
by Kerry Dougherty Looks like it may be safe to lose the grocery gloves. We can take it easy with the Clorox wipes, too. No longer must we let Amazon packages marinate on the porch for days. Or scrub milk cartons with bleach in case some super-spreader touched it in the supermarket refrigerator case and…
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A Great Idea from Pennsylvania to Help Nursing Homes
by James C. Sherlock Perhaps the Governor can call the General Assembly into special session to copy the best idea I have heard for a short-term fix to nursing home medical care. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has just passed the “Senior Protection Act” by a vote of 201-1 to appoint the state’s academic medical…
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VDH Outlines Contact Tracing Initiative
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s COVID-19 contact tracing program will be organized around case investigators, contact tracers, and regional surge teams, all of whose efforts will be supplemented by technology, said Virginia Department of Health (VDH) officials in a media teleconference this morning. VDH had 129 people doing contact tracing for infectious diseases such as…
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The Shutdown As Mass Casualty Event
by James A. Bacon More than 600 physicians have signed a letter to President Trump calling for an end to the national shutdown aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. The letter describes the unmeasured and overlooked health consequences of skyrocketing unemployment and income loss as a “mass casualty incident.” The letter makes the…
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COVID-19 Update: Eighteen More Nursing Home Deaths
This morning the Virginia Department of Health published the following COVID-19 data based on information reported yesterday: Statewide deaths: 25 Deaths in long-term care facilities: 18 Seventy-two percent of coronavirus deaths involved patients in long-term care facilities. Repeat after me: The COVID-19 epidemic is a nursing home epidemic. The virus may propagate itself through the…