Monthly Archives: April 2020

Perhaps this slide will prove useful to the task force just appointed by Governor Ralph Northam to address the disarray in the Virginia Department of Health’s COVID-19 testing program. In the face of a declining number of tests reported to the Virginia Department of Health in the past week, Northam has said he won’t relax emergency measures shutting down Virginia’s economy until the state boosts its capacity to test and measure the incidence of the disease.

The slide, taken from a presentation by Deborah L. Birx, coronavirus response coordinator for the White House, shows the location of dozen high- and low-throughput testing machines across Virginia. Said Birx yesterday:

We wanted every governor and every state and health laboratory director to have a clear understanding of the full capacity within the state – both for the capacity, but also where technical assistance and additional supplies may be available. … Every governor not only received the Excel spreadsheet with the complete list of the equipment and the ZIP Code of the location and the laboratory to really be able to create a mosaic of laboratories of the high-speed and low-speed equipment together to meet the needs of their clients, depending if they’re drive-through or hospital needs. … Continue reading →

by James A. Bacon

The number of COVID-related hospitalizations in Virginia is stabilizing. The curve is flattening, hospitals are in no danger of being overwhelmed, and Virginians want to get back to work. But Governor Ralph Northam says he will not relax his emergency social-distancing edicts until he gets better data. And there’s the rub. Virginia lacks the testing capacity to generate the data that would make the Governor comfortable enough to roll back the shutdown.

Writes the Richmond Times-Dispatch:  

Northam said that boosting testing in the state is part of “any plan to ease restrictions on businesses and address the pandemic,” but as of Monday, state officials did not yet have a grasp on the state’s testing capacity and had not set an overall testing goal.

“Testing is the key to those next steps,” Northam said.

To address the problem, the Governor has created a “work group” to focus on expanding testing in the state, including the number of sites doing tests, the population eligible for testing, and hurdles to more testing. Continue reading →

Tennessee drive-through test location

Much has been written about the paucity of COVID-19 testing in Virginia. One place where the shortfall is most evident is in Bristol, a city bifurcated by the Virginia-Tennessee state line. On the Tennessee side of the border, anyone who wants a COVID-19 test can get one, reports the Roanoke Times. On the Virginia side, tests are reserved for the very ill and those who care for them.

In Tennessee, the health department has set up testing centers where people can come Saturday and Sunday to be tested if they are worried they have the disease. They do not have to be pre-screened.

In Virginia, testing centers require pre-screening and a doctor’s orders.

“We are scouring the country looking for equipment to help our institutions increase testing. We haven’t been successful because of a national shortage,” said Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Services Daniel Carey. Continue reading →

For what it’s worth, the number of new COVID-19 cases reported by the Virginia Department of Health this morning was 453, about the same level as it was two weeks ago. The official total now stands at 8,990. But with scarcity of testing supplies and delays in reporting, that figure isn’t worth much. As much as I like the idea that the spread of the virus has leveled off and we can get back to pre-COVID business as normal, I don’t put any credence in those numbers.

Instead, I look at the harder data — new hospitalizations (78 yesterday) and new deaths (23). Those numbers suggest that the disease spread faster last week than in the previous week, as seen in the chart above, although the rate of increase in the spread appears to be decelerating.

It may be premature to start loosening the social-distancing restrictions, but it’s not too soon to start thinking about how to go about it. I’ll have more thoughts on that soon.

— JAB

Another day, another increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations. The Virginia Department of Health data indicated that 126 patients were hospitalized yesterday — a one-day record in the Old Dominion — bringing total hospitalizations to 1,422.

According to Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA), there are now 820 patients in hospitals confirmed to have COVID-19, while another 499 have tests pending. Only 39 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday.

Bacon’s Rebellion has stopped displaying the count of “confirmed cases,” which we have concluded are worthless as an indicator of the spread of COVID-19. The number published by the VDH is more a function of the volume of testing that is occurring rather than the prevalence of the disease, and testing in Virginia, like most places in the U.S., is grossly inadequate.

I’d like to publish more data, but I’m pressed for time today. Family matters to attend to.

— JAB

by James A. Bacon

The verdict is still out on how well Virginia’s social-distancing measures are working to contain the COVID-19 virus, but it’s sure working against the flu.

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) tracks the spread of influenza in order to “provide situational awareness, inform prevention strategies, and prepare for a potential pandemic.” It disseminates weekly reports that classify the previous week by the level of influenza activity: widespread, regional, local, sporadic, and no activity.

The spread of influenza in Virginia was classified as “widespread” — with elevated influenza-like illnesses or more than one outbreak in three or more regions — for nineteen weeks running during the 2019-20 flu season. Then, according to a VDH report generated Thursday (reflecting data for the week ending April 15), influenza activity dropped off a microbiological cliff — to “no activity.” Continue reading →