Tag: COVID-19
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Northam’s Final Presser: No Remorse
by Kerry Dougherty For the first time since the pandemic began, a news bulletin that Gov. Ralph Northam was holding a press conference yesterday didn’t fill me with dread. Four days left in his term. How much damage could he do? In the past we never knew which civil liberties would be thrown into the…
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Cloth Masks Reduce Omicron Risk by 50%
by James A. Bacon More evidence is coming in that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has very different properties than Delta and other variants, and that polices and practices deemed appropriate for earlier versions might not be so for Omicron. The latest revelation comes from Dr. Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech engineering professor, who works…
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Don’t Know, or Won’t Say, How Many Omicron Hospitalizations?
by Carol J. Bova The most recent Virginia Department of Health (VDH) information on the number of COVID-19 infections in vaccinated people dates from December 25, 2021. Statewide weekly total case numbers go through January 1, 2022. The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) gives total hospitalizations and ICU numbers for confirmed and pending tests…
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Youngkin, UVa COVID Policy on a Collision Course
by James A. Bacon The debate over COVID-19 policy rages unabated. Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares announced today their intention to challenge Biden-administration vaccine mandates through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, OSHA, and Head Start. “While we believe that the vaccine is a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19,…
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Red Alert! Omicron Now Everywhere
by James A. Bacon It’s crazy out there, folks. The Omicron variant is running rampant, racking up record numbers of cases across the Commonwealth and filling up hospitals. We have seen nothing like this spike in cases and hospitalizations during the pandemic, not even in last year’s winter surge. The main consolation is that deaths…
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Arlington Union: Test Everyone or Close the Schools
by James A. Bacon I can’t decide which is scarier: a letter from the Arlington Education Association (AEA) urging school superintendent Francisco Duran not to resume full-time instruction tomorrow in the absence of sufficient COVID-19 testing, or the insouciant attitude toward punctuation and grammar by the signatory, AEA president Ingrid Gant. Take your pick: no…
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This Didn’t Have to Happen
by Joe Fitzgerald A year ago, the post-Thanksgiving surge was still raging, but there was hope in the imminent availability of vaccines. But 2021 would be the year of criminals who stormed the Capitol because they didn’t understand democracy and of their intellectual brethren who didn’t understand science or medicine. Virginia set a record today…
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How’d Virginia Do in “The Great Pandemic Migration?”
Glenn Youngkin was right. Yes, Virginia, we have a problem. by Chris Saxman Most mornings start with brewing a large pot of coffee, letting the dogs out into the fenced in backyard, and waiting for the papers to be delivered. Usually I can skim through the local old soldier, the Richmond Times Dispatch, before the…
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Virginia Omicron Update: December 29
by James A. Bacon Omicron is upon us, cases are surging and local media are sounding the alarm. Nationally, hospitalizations are setting “grim records,” according to the Washington Post. Closer to home, Loudoun County’s government-run drive-through testing center reached capacity within an hour of opening. Mary Washington Healthcare providers are closing a COVID clinic after…
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Mask Mandates Causing Air Warfare
by Kerry Dougherty Almost two weeks ago the CEO of Southwest Airlines, Gary Kelly, told a congressional committee that face masks were essentially useless as protection for airline passengers. He supported a repeal of the executive order that made face coverings mandatory on flights until March 2022. “The statistics, I recall, is that 99.97 %…
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Good for Kamras
by James A. Bacon Yes, you read that headline correctly. And, yes, that’s Jason Kamras, superintendent of the Richmond Public Schools we’re talking about. Bacon’s Rebellion has been highly critical of Kamras in the past, but we have to support his recent statement that he has no intention to close city schools, even in the…
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Looks Like Omicron Cases Are Surging in Virginia
by James A. Bacon It has been nearly three weeks since the Omicron variant of COVID-19 reached Virginia. Nationally, Omicron now accounts for almost three out of four new COVID cases. So, how’s Virginia doing? Here is the number of cases reported on the Virginia Department of Health COVID dashboard around noon today. The red…
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Remembering
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Jeff Shapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a nice column today remembering people in Virginia politics and government whose deaths in 2021 may have gone largely unnoticed. For those interested in recent political history, you may want to check it out. During my time around Capitol Square, I knew and have fond…
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Countdown to Freedom: 32 Days
by Kerry Dougherty Oh look. California’s dopey governor is following New York’s crazy executive. They’re both re-instituting what didn’t work the last time that COVID cases began to rise: Sweeping mask mandates and more restrictions. There, but for the wisdom of the electorate, goes Virginia. Oh, I suppose lame duck Ralph Northam — in an…
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A Sociological Mystery: Why Are Black Women Dropping Out of the Workforce?
by James A. Bacon Ever-alert to unexplained sociological phenomena, Bacon’s Rebellion has taken note of a just-published Brookings Institution article based on the November 2021 jobs report. Unemployment is declining for most major demographic groups — Whites, Asians and Hispanics, both men and women, and even for Black men. But the unemployment rate increased in November…