Category Archives: Health Care

Highlights from the Virginia Department of Health and Virginia Hospital and Healthcare COVID-19 databases based on yesterday’s reporting:

Mortality statistics
COVID-19 deaths: 37
Nursing home deaths: 13
Percentage of deaths occurring long-term care settings: 35%

Testing data
Tests administered: 6,553
% positive: 14.7%

COVID-19 Hospitalization data
New hospitalizations: 52
New discharges: 185
Total COVID-19 patients hospitalized: 1,459 (lowest in 19 days)

— JAB

by James A. Bacon

Virginia’s COVID-19 contact tracing program will be organized around case investigators, contact tracers, and regional surge teams, all of whose efforts will be supplemented by technology, said Virginia Department of Health (VDH) officials in a media teleconference this morning.

VDH had 129 people doing contact tracing for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and STDs before the COVID-19 outbreak. The department has boosted the number to about 470 by reassigning departmental personnel, and could add another 1,300 through new hires, said Mona Bector, deputy commissioner of administration.

In a related initiative, VDH officials said the state is close to selecting a technology company that will enable Virginians to download a smart-phone app that will alert them if they have come into close contact with someone infected with the virus. The GPS-enabled app also will provide data that makes it possible to map hot spots.

“Contact tracing is a fundamental component of public health,” said Marshall Vogt, VDH Division of Immunization’s epidemiologist. “It’s something we’re very familiar with. It’s something we do day in and day out to prevent the spread of infectious disease.” New funding will enable the department to expand what it already does. Continue reading →

by James A. Bacon

More than 600 physicians have signed a letter to President Trump calling for an end to the national shutdown aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. The letter describes the unmeasured and overlooked health consequences of skyrocketing unemployment and income loss as a “mass casualty incident.”

The letter makes the same point I have been emphasizing over the past several weeks, but with the authority borne of first-hand interactions with patients: The policy response to the COVID-19 virus has been driven by adverse health effects that we are measuring and reporting in real time rather than adverse effects that we either cannot measure or are reported only after delays of weeks, months, or years.

“We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients,” write the doctors. “The downstream health effects … are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error.” Continue reading →

This morning the Virginia Department of Health published the following COVID-19 data based on information reported yesterday:

Statewide deaths: 25
Deaths in long-term care facilities: 18

Seventy-two percent of coronavirus deaths involved patients in long-term care facilities.

Repeat after me: The COVID-19 epidemic is a nursing home epidemic. The virus may propagate itself through the population at large, but the primary impact, as measured by deaths, is taking place in Virginia’s nursing homes. That’s where public health authorities need to concentrate their efforts.

— JAB

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 a nursing home epidemic?

Meanwhile, according to the latest Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association data, 10 of 262 Virginia’s nursing homes reported having difficulty obtaining N95 masks, 4 had trouble getting surgical masks, 7 finding face shields, and 21 obtaining isolation gowns. Is there a correlation between PPE shortages in nursing homes and the spread of the virus (and resulting deaths) at those same nursing homes? It would be nice if the VDH would make the data public so citizens could find out for themselves.

— JAB

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 to the VHHA dashboard, 11 nursing home report difficulty obtaining N95 masks, four obtaining surgical masks, three obtaining gloves, seven obtaining face shields, and 18 laying hands on gloves.

Another noteworthy reveal from the data: The number of active COVID-19 patients currently in nursing homes is almost as large as that in acute care hospitals — 1,427 in nursing homes yesterday (and published today) compared to 1,502 in acute care hospitals.

The dashboard also tells us that 520 nursing home patients have recovered from COVID-19, compared to 4,107 who have recovered from acute care hospitals. Continue reading →

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 single day, a statistical anomaly caused by a catch-up in the reporting of data, Virginia has fallen short of that 10,000 benchmark. Thankfully, the Governor has ignored his own dictum and permitted a timid incremental rollback of his emergency restrictions — not enough to make a big difference, but a step in the right direction.

Judging by the time dedicated to the subject on cable television, there is a national mania for testing. More testing and contact tracing are absolutely imperative if we’re to get out of this COVID-19 mess alive. Perhaps that’s true. If it is, the Northam administration is falling on its face. Testing, rather than inching closer to that 10,000 threshhold over the past couple of weeks, has been trending down, as can be seen plainly in this chart.

Counting the number of tests is more difficult than one would think. For a long time, the Virginia Department of Health was not capturing tests performed by private labs. More recently, it backtracked on lumping together antibody tests with RNA tests. Whatever the case, it is clear that Virginia has yet to reach the 10,000 benchmark.

Here’s the point where readers no doubt expect me to lambaste the Northam team for another administrative failure. I hate to disappoint, but disappoint I must. Continue reading →