Category: Health Care
-
COVID-19 Update: Mortalities Hit New High, Other Signs Stable
Virginia cranked out 6,615 new COVID-19 tests yesterday, according to today’s COVID-19 dashboard data dumps, getting the state two-thirds of the way toward Governor Ralph Northam’s benchmark of 10,000 tests daily before he considers rolling back any more emergency shutdown measures. The test-positive rate, another metric the Governor is watching, was 14.2%. On the disturbing…
-
Virginia Department of Health and the Staffing of Nursing Homes
by James C. Sherlock Virginia announced on Friday that the state’s tally of COVID-19 deaths in long- term care facilities had reached 311. That can be traced at least in part to understaffing of nurses in nursing homes such as Canterbury (49 deaths) in Richmond in which Virginia’s sickest un-hospitalized patients reside. Under Dr. Oliver’s…
-
COVID-19 Update: The Virus Hasn’t Changed, but the Numbers Have
by James A. Bacon The biggest news in the wonky world of Virginia COVID-19 statistics yesterday wasn’t some new wrinkle in the trend lines — take a look at the chart above and you’ll see that COVID-19 usage of hospital resources continues on a stable-to-declining path — it was the Virginia Department of Health (VDH)…
-
Things You Need to Know about Nursing Homes
James C. Sherlock Nursing homes are certified as nursing facilities (NF), skilled nursing facilities (SNF) or both for Medicare and Medicaid participation based on inspections by the state survey agency (Virginia Department of Health). I have italicized skilled nursing facility where it occurs to make it easier to distinguish between those two types of facilities…
-
Why Virginia Was So Slow to Ramp up Testing
by James A. Bacon A record 15,000 COVID-19 test results were reported to the Virginia Department of Health yesterday, but until then the Old Dominion’s track record for testing the virus was just about the worst in the country. As contributor Jim Sherlock noted recently, even Guam performed more tests on a per-capita basis than…
-
Needless Ban on Elective Surgery Shrank the Economy
by Hans Bader The economy shrank in 2020’s first quarter by a rapid 4.8% rate. Economists say the second quarter will be far, far worse, thanks to coronavirus. The virus’s spread triggered state lockdowns closing or restricting many retail establishments. Even before the lockdowns, fear of the virus shrank sales by discouraging people from leaving…
-
VOVID-19 Update: Turning Point
by James A. Bacon Holy smokes! The latest data suggests that COVID-19 epidemic has not only peaked in Virginia but has begun receding. The contagion is not over by a long shot — we could even get a bounce back later in the year — but the trends are moving in a positive direction right…
-
COVID-19 Update: Hospitalizations Are Leveling Off
According to this morning’s data dump (unadjusted for vagaries in reporting), 63 patients with COVID-19 were admitted to Virginia hospitals yesterday while 62 were discharged. Meanwhile the number of patients in ICUs and on ventilators continued their long-term decline — further evidence that Governor Ralph Northam did the right thing yesterday when he announced that…
-
Free the Young, Protect the Elderly
by James A. Bacon We can all be thankful that Governor Ralph Northam has ended the ban on elective medical procedures. At least one sector of Virginia’s economy, healthcare, can start the struggle back to normalcy. Hopefully, hospitals will staunch losses that have ran up to $200 million or more, 30,000 furloughed and laid-off healthcare…
-
Parole Board Frees Another Killer
by Kerry Dougherty Last week we told you about Debra Scribner, the woman convicted of first degree murder in 2012 and released from prison earlier this month thanks to Gov. Ralph Northam’s let-em-all-out parole board. This lucky lady served just eight years of her 23-year, 6-months sentence. She’s now back at her home on the…
-
Northam to Let Elective-Procedures Ban Lapse
Governor Ralph Northam will let hospitals and dentist offices resume service to patients who need elective procedures starting Friday. Speaking at a press conference earlier today, he said he would not renew his public health order issued in an effort to save personal protective equipment (PPEs) and bed capacity for an anticipated spike in COVID-19…
-
Has COVID-19 Testing Become an End in Itself?
by James A. Bacon Virginia ranks near the bottom of the U.S. states and territories in tests per million population. Its rate of testing is on a par with Guam’s. So reports the Washington Post today (finally getting around to noticing the exact same point that contributor James Sherlock made a week ago on this…
-
COVID-19 Update: More Patients in Hospitals
No day at Bacon’s Rebellion would be complete without our statistical update courtesy of John Butcher. No question, the population of COVID-19 patients in hospitals is on a consistent upward paragraph. See my previous post for a discussion of why that might be the case. — JAB
-
Hospitals Are Keeping COVID-19 Patients Longer. Why?
by James A. Bacon In my daily update of COVID-19 statistics reported by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA), I abandoned some time ago the use of “confirmed cases” as a useful indicator of the progress of the epidemic through the general population. I turned instead to…