Monthly Archives: April 2020

Are Daily Headlines Driving the Fear?

Posted on April 27, 2020 by | 29 comments

by Larry Hincker

Last year, Virginia suffered 1,800 flu deaths. So far, the COVID-19 virus has taken about 425. The 2017-18 flu season was the worst in four decades. More than 80,000 Americans died that year.

What if newspapers posted a chart of flu deaths on their front page every day, like they now do with COVID? Wouldn’t that scare the bejesus out of people? Imagine the headlines on Jan. 8, 2018 – “80 Virginians died this week from the flu.” Or this whopper at the end of February: “120 dead just this week alone from flu or flu-like illnesses.” Or this – “Flu is expected to take more than 2,000 Virginians before the season is over.”

And the drumbeat goes on week, after week, after week. I wonder if I’d ever leave the house.

I was in organizational communications for more than four decades. I have observed that when something happens every day in the background, people tend to take it for granted. Like flu deaths. But when it enters the consciousness of the general public, it can be totally misunderstood. Continue reading →

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Posted in Health Care, Media

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Virginia’s Leaders Traffic in Gloom and Doom

Posted on April 27, 2020 by | 14 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

In response to a Tweet I posted last week about Gov. Ralph Northam, a local priest responded by quoting a nun who’d seen one of the governor’s press conferences and thought Virginia’s leader was in need of prayers

“…that is a man without hope,” she said.

Amen, Sister.

Northam’s the captain of Team Apocalypse. The grim reaper of governors.

The people working for him? Equally glum and seemingly unmoved by the plight of ordinary Virginians who have been tossed out of work.

Instead of assuring folks that the commonwealth will reopen before small businesses are driven into complete ruin and families are buried under a blizzard of unpaid bills, Northam holds press availabilities that assure the public this shutdown will be long and painful.

There is not much light at the end of Northam’s tunnel. Continue reading →

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Posted in Health Care

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Heads Exploding Over Green Energy Expose

Posted on April 27, 2020 by | 10 comments

by Stephen Haner

Producer Michael Moore’s  explosive new documentary on the renewable energy industry is indeed causing heads to explode.  You’d better take the 100 minutes to see Planet of the Humans before the forces of political correctness drive it off YouTube, where it was approaching 3 million views this morning. The first 30 minutes give you the gist, but if you get that far, you’ll be hooked.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Land use & development

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Virginia’s Nursing Homes – Sources of Data and Ratings

Posted on April 26, 2020 by | 23 comments

James C. Sherlock

I am being flooded with very good questions from readers and private correspondents on what sources of information go in to the ratings of nursing homes.  

There are two primary sources, 

  • Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) data, some of which comes from the states and most from its own massive databases; and 
  • State data, some of which comes from its own inspections, some from CMS, and some from audited annual financial reports of its nursing homes.  

This column will attempt to provide a comprehensive view. 

CMS Data

CMS data is accessible through the Medicare Nursing Home Compare website

Most of my commentary concerns staffing. The rating for staffing comes from a combination of the Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) system that provides the data on actual levels of staffing each day of each quarter and the Minimum Data Set (MDS) national database that provides the data on needs for staffing for each patient and resident census. You will also see that the CMS gets its information on penalties assessed on private nursing homes from the state inspection data, not the other way around. If the state itself owns a nursing home or homes, those facilities are inspected and penalties assessed by the regional CMS office.   Continue reading →

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Posted in Health Care

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About the Governor’s New Metrics…

Posted on April 26, 2020 by | 25 comments

by James A. Bacon

Governor Ralph Northam presented Friday his “Forward Virginia” blueprint for reopening Virginia’s economy when the COVID-19 epidemic recedes. As Virginia sees progress in five key metrics, the Governor says, he will relax his emergency restrictions in phases. The first of four phases would allow some businesses to re-open with “strict safety restrictions.”

“We will move forward, but in a way that prioritizes public health and builds public confidence,” said Northam. “Businesses know that customers will return only when they feel that it is safe to do so. Our blueprint for the path forward is data-driven and provides clear guidance, so Virginians will know what to expect and understand how we will decide to when to lift certain public health restrictions.”

Adopting a data-driven approach sounds reasonable in the abstract. The devil. of course, is in the details. The logic behind the Governor’s metrics is not self-evident, and may require more explanation. According to the Blueprint, the five metrics are:

  • Downward trend: Percentage of positive tests over 14 days
  • Downward trend: Hospitalizations over 14 days
  • Increased testing and tracing
  • Enough hospital beds & intensive care capacity
  • Increasing & sustainable supply of PPE

Continue reading →

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Posted in Health Care

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Hey, It Could Be Worse

Posted on April 26, 2020 by | 6 comments

Click for more legible image.

Between March 4 and April 18, unemployment claims in Virginia amounted to 10.9% of baseline jobs, according to this map issued by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. That’s horrendous, but things could be worse. The U.S. average is 14.3% — and the Old Dominion’s job loss is less than half that of Michigan’s at 23.9%. (With the evaporation of 21.3% of Georgia’s jobs, you can better understand why the Governor Brian Kemp is taking big risks to roll back the shutdown and salvage the economy.)

VEDP President Stephen Moret provides this explanation for the Commonwealth’s less-dire circumstance: “Virginia is doing better than most other states in large part because we have a larger-than-average proportion of our total employment in professional jobs and federal government-related jobs that are less sensitive to social distancing policies.”

— JAB

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Posted in Business and Economy

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COVID-19 Update: The Madness Goes On

Posted on April 26, 2020 by | 5 comments

Bacon’s Rebellion ascertains “new” hospitalizations by calculating the change in the “Total Hospitalizations” figure published by the Virginia Department of Health from one day to the next.

Here, according to this morning’s Virginia Department of Health (VDH) dashboard, is an up-to-date look at new COVID-19 hospitalizations. (As always, we must be wary of weekend reporting lags, but VDH and Virginia hospitals seem to have tightened up their reporting and compiling these days, so the lag is not as pronounced as it once was.) Bottom line: The number of new hospitalizations yesterday fell to 72 from 105 the day before.

Regarding key indices on Virginia hospital capacity, we get these numbers from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association:

COVID-19 patient count (confirmed and tests pending): 1,436 Saturday, up 31
ICUs in use: 387, up 30
Ventilators in use: 217, down six
Beds available: 5,320
Hospitals experiencing difficulty replenishing PPEs: two

Nearly all hospitals have ample excess capacity to handle COVID-19 patients. Meanwhile, Governor Northam, who does not trust hospitals to manage their own patient loads, has extended his ban on elective procedures until the end of the month. Thirty thousand Virginia healthcare practitioners are out of work, and hospitals are losing millions of dollars in revenue every day. I can hardly wait to see the bill for the bail-out!

— JAB

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Posted in Health Care

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A Quick COVID-19 Story

Posted on April 26, 2020 by | 8 comments

I needed some quarters to feed the vacuum machine at Exxon yesterday, and I got in line in the convenience mart to make change. When the guy in front of me finished his transaction, he dawdled by the checkout counter. In a bit of a hurry, I edged in closer.

The guy turned around and glared. “Hey, give me six feet , man!”

Our lives are changing in ways we don’t yet fully appreciate.

— JAB

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Getting to Goldilocks

Posted on April 25, 2020 by | 31 comments

by Chris Spencer

The news was good overall on Friday when Governor Northam announced the creation of a COVID-19 task force and presented a preliminary blueprint for reopening Virginia.[1] Like all works in progress, both could use tweaking, but they are good starts.

Let’s imagine how the task force could achieve victory.

I. A Beginning

The force convenes quickly by telephone for a one-hour introduction. The session is led by the temporary chair. The members take two minutes or less to introduce themselves, their main hopes and their main fears. Why include hopes and fears? True, they are inherently emotional, but they are important. Hopes are aspirational. Fears are cautionary. Both are real. Both influence. Getting them out in the open is informative, liberating, and a good way to start a dialogue.

The members set goals. Enter Goldilocks. The goals cannot be too hot or too cold: just right.

Substantively, the goal is to get the Commonwealth reopened piece by piece[2] in a reasonable way with reasonable risks. The world is a risky and imperfect place. Perfect safety is unachievable[3] and one best admits that up front. Continue reading →

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Posted in Health Care

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Update: Virginia COVID-19 Testing and Nursing Home Data

Posted on April 25, 2020 by | 29 comments

by James C. Sherlock

I update here the continuing scandals in Virginia nursing home understaffing and COVID-19 testing.

In a quarterly update, the percentage of understaffed nursing homes and the Virginia’s relative standing among the states and D.C. in that statistic every quarter are posted on Medicare Nursing Home Compare. Here are the data from 03/30/2020:

  • Fifty-one percent of Virginia nursing homes are understaffed (below average or much below average).
  • Virginia ranks 45th worst of 51 among states and D.C. in percentage of nursing homes understaffed.
  • Forty-two Virginia nursing homes are rated one star (much below average)

I will update Virginia COVID-19 testing data weekly.

  • Virginia testing per million persons ranks 50th of 51 among states and D.C. (Only Kentucky is worse).  Source covidtracking.com uses only official state government data and is updated daily. This ranking is from 04/24/2020

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Posted in Health Care

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COVID-19 Update: Still Lots of Idle Hospital Capacity

Posted on April 25, 2020 by | 13 comments

Another day has gone by, Virginia hospitals still have abundant spare capacity to treat COVID-19 patients, and Governor Ralph Northam’s emergency decree against elective surgery continues to drain hospitals of revenue, cost healthcare workers their jobs, and delay many Virginians’ access to healthcare.

The number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals (both confirmed and awaiting tests) crept up by six over the day before to 1,405, according to today’s Virginia Hospital and Healthcare data dashboard. Hospitals still have 5,353 beds to spare.

Meanwhile the number of patients in ICU units declined by 22, and the number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators nudged up only three. The total of ventilators in use by all patients numbers 629, leaving 2,306 ventilators idle. Continue reading →

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Posted in Health Care

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Getting Out of Prison Early

Posted on April 24, 2020 by | 6 comments

By Dick Hall-Sizemore

As part of the response to the novel coronavirus crisis, the General Assembly accepted amendments to the budget bills for the current year and the upcoming biennium, proposed by the Governor, authorizing the Department of Corrections (DOC) to release early from incarceration offenders with less than a year to serve on their sentences. This authorization will be effective as soon as the Governor signs the caboose bill.

DOC has released its early release plan. The plan is fairly detailed, laying out the criteria for eligibility for release and the internal procedures to be followed by DOC in implementing the plan. This post will summarize those elements of the plan that are most relevant to the general public. (The full plan can be found here.) Continue reading →

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Where the Helicopter Money Is Landing

Posted on April 24, 2020 by | 24 comments

What has the federal government done to help Virginia cope with the COVID-19 crisis? The following data comes from the White House. Clearly, the decision to compile and disseminate the information was political. But the data speaks for itself. 

  • The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has obligated $200.2 million or Virginia to respond to COVID-19
  • FEMA has delivered the following from the Strategic National Stockpile to Virginia:
    • 214,389 N-95 masks
    • 510,222 surgical masks
    • 82,621 medical gowns
    • 2,056 coveralls
    • 101,035 face shields
    • 386,975 gloves
  • Health and Human Services has awarded over $21.29 million in CARES Act funding to 26 health centers across Virginia to assist in combating COVID-19
  • The Commonwealth of Virginia has received a total of $931.4 million from HHS.
  • The Small Business Administration issued over $8.7 billion in loans to over 40,300 Virginia small businesses
  • Housing and Urban Development made over $52,639,529 in COVID-19 funding available to Virginia via CARES Act authorizations
  • The Department of Transportation allocated more than $456.3 million in Federal Transit Administration funds to help the Virginia public transportation systems respond to the challenges of COVID-19

Continue reading →

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Posted in Federal, Health Care

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COVID-19 Update: Hospital Vitals Still Stable

Posted on April 24, 2020 by | 21 comments

The picture couldn’t be clearer. By the most reliable metrics available — the number of patients being hospitalized, patients in ICUs, and patients on ventilators — the COVID-19 epidemic has stabilized.

Other metrics gyrate wildly. The number of “confirmed cases” reported to the Virginia Department of Health surged by 732 two days ago and dropped to 596 yesterday. But those numbers reflect cases reported to VDH, often after delays, which in turn reflects the number of tests available and changing protocols for prioritizing those tests. The percentage of positive tests to total tests has swung from a low of 3% to a high of 39.5% over the past month and a half. Meanwhile many COVID-19 cases go unidentified and/or unreported. In sum. the VDH numbers (through no fault of the department) are worthless as a yardstick for tracking the disease. Continue reading →

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Posted in Health Care

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Northam to 15,000 Sick Virginians: Keep Waiting

Posted on April 24, 2020 by | 25 comments

Bend over. This’ll only take two weeks.

by James A. Bacon

Here’s how I was tempted to headline this post:

Northam to Sick Virginians: Drop Dead

But that would have been unfair. In extending his ban on elective surgery by a weeks, the Governor doesn’t want people to literally drop dead. He’s just willing to prolong their misery and uncertainty. Not to mention the misery and uncertainty of thousands of Virginia healthcare workers laid off because of the ban. And the financial hardship of hospitals who are hemorrhaging cash due to the loss of business.

Of all of Northam’s errors of commission and omission in the battle against the COVID-19 epidemic, this is the most egregious. His justification for the prohibition, announced yesterday, flies in the face of reality. In his executive order and public statements, he cites the need to conserve hospital beds and the personal protective equipment used to safeguard healthcare practitioners treating COVID-19 patients. Yet his statements are directly contradicted by a letter that the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association provided the Governor in a letter six days ago and released publicly yesterday.

From his press release: Continue reading →

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Posted in Health Care, Regulation

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