Category: Health Care
-
Virginia Ranks 41st Nationally in Nursing Home Ratings
by Carol J. Bova Medicare offers a “Nursing Home Compare” website. It uses a one- to five-star rating system for four categories: Overall Rating, Health Inspections, Staffing, and Quality Measures. There is a category called Special Focus Facility for a nursing home with a persistent poor quality of care, subject to more frequent inspections and…
-
2/3 of COVID-19 Deaths Yesterday Traceable to Long-Term Care Settings
According to the latest Virginia Department of Health data: 33 COVID-19-related deaths were reported May 19 and published today. 22 new deaths were reported for long-term care facilities. That’s just one day’s results. But it’s consistent with yesterday’s data. Can we agree that the COVID-19 epidemic in Virginia is, at this point in time, primarily…
-
The Epidemic Is Occurring in Nursing Homes, Not the Beach
by James A. Bacon Here are a couple of data points to chew on. Yesterday, according to the latest data published by the Virginia Department of Health, Virginia recorded 27 deaths from COVID-19. Of those, 19 occurred in long-term care facilities for the elderly. In other words, 70% of the coronavirus-related deaths occurred in long-term…
-
Reopening: Know and Avoid the Risks
By DJ Rippert The Bromage Broadcast. Erin Bromage is a professor of biology and a blogger. She will tell you that she’s not an expert epidemiologist but she recently wrote a blog entry that proves she is an eloquent writer when it comes to explaining the physics of Coronavirus to the layman. As Virginia reopens…
-
Nursing Home Data Raises New Questions about COVID-19 Policy
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association has just published a data dashboard focusing on Virginia nursing homes. And the picture it presents is very different from that of the state’s acute care hospitals. While acute care hospitals have solved their shortages of personal protective equipment, the nursing homes have not. According…
-
Could the Low Testing Numbers Be Telling Us that COVID-19 Is Receding?
by James A. Bacon Just a couple of weeks ago — under surreal COVID time, who knows how long ago it really was — Governor Ralph Northam told Virginians that he wanted to see 10,000 or more tests per day before relaxing his Vulcan Death Grip on the state economy. With the exception of a…
-
Flight from New York
“New York is a great place to live, but I wouldn’t want to ride out a deadly viral epidemic there.” That pretty much sums up the attitude of tens of thousands of Gothamites — mostly of the wealthier sort — who have fled the city during the onset of the COVID-19 tribulations. In March, the…
-
Northam’s Indefensible Philosophical Premise
by James A. Bacon Virginia tax revenue fell $700 million in April compared to the same month a year ago, a 26.2% drop. That decline, of course, reflects the nose dive in the economy that generates tax revenues. In response to this news, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Ralph Northam made a telling comment…
-
Woohoo! Most of Virginia Moving to Phase 1 Lockdown Relief!
by James A. Bacon At long last Governor Ralph Northam is relaxing, ever so slightly, his strangle grip on Virginia’s economy and personal liberties by allowing the state (well, most of it) to enter Phase 1 reopening. Most restrictions will remain in place. Entertainment and recreational businesses will remain closed. Restaurants still cannot provide indoor service.…
-
Wisconsin Supreme Court calls a Halt to Governance by Decree
by James C. Sherlock The creation of laws in America is subject to separation of powers, as is their review for constitutionality by the courts. The question in the current crisis is about executive orders. One-person rule was the primary fear of the founders of the republic and is exquisitely guarded against by separation of…
-
COVID-19 in Black and White
by James A. Bacon For many social justice activists — please note, I refrain from using the potentially inflammatory term social justice “warriors” — racial disparities in the United States are a fixation. They have made an issue of the fact that African-Americans are more likely than whites to contract the COVID-19 virus than whites,…
-
Rorschach Test
Look at this map that shows the relative percentages of stay at home by citizens on the week ending April 30 and comment on what you see and why you think that is. The darker the shading, the more people stayed at home.
-
Who Sets the Protocols for COVID-19 Testing and Tracing – the State or Localities?
by James A. Bacon The Northam administration plans to dispatch $650 million of federal helicopter dollars directly to cities and counties to help cover the cost of responding to the COVID-19 epidemic. The state’s priorities for monies received under the federal CARES Act are expanding testing and hiring public health staff to conduct contact tracing,…
-
Private Lab COVID testing and Medical Supplies in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock PBS posted an excellent article yesterday relating that: “Virginia (Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM)) is in the process of finalizing contracts with private labs to expand COVID-19 testing in Virginia. Gov. Ralph Northam has said that widespread testing of at least 10,000 people per day is key to reopening the…
-
COVID-19 Update: Deaths Trending Down, Governor’s Metrics Trending Positive
The number of COVID-19-related deaths reported to the Virginia Department of Health has been falling the last week. (The May 7 spike you see in the chart above represents two days’ of deaths due to a glitch in the VDH system. The average for May 6 and 7 combined was 28 deaths.) The last four…