Category Archives: Public safety & health

Confirmed COVID-19 cases in Virginia. Source: Virginia Department of Health

by James A. Bacon

As debates rage over mask and vaccination mandates across Virginia, there is no denying that the spread of the Delta variant has created a spike in confirmed COVID-19 cases. The seven-day moving average of 1,455 (which could grow as late reports filter into the Virginia Department of Health) is only 24% of the winter peak, but it likely still has room to run. There is legitimate cause for concern, and it is reasonable to discuss what precautions should be taken.

What has gone missing from the Virginia media coverage is that the nature of the pandemic has undergone dramatic change — and I’m not talking about the increased infectiousness of the Delta variant. Hospitalizations in Virginia are up by roughly the same amount as confirmed cases, 24%, compared to the winter peak. But the moving average of deaths is running at the rate of only three per day in Virginia compared to 83 at the peak. It appears that after 18 months experience with COVID, physicians and hospitals have gotten much better at treating the illness.

For some reason, those numbers never appear in media headlines. Continue reading →

Vaccination cards! Vaccination cards! We got yer vaccination cards right here!

by James A. Bacon

The Delta variant is so easily transmitted that Virginia public health officials say it is just a matter of time before all Virginians are exposed to it. In response, employers are requiring employees to be vaccinated and businesses are turning away unvaccinated customers. Suddenly, there is a need for Virginians to to prove they have gotten their shots.

Give credit to the Virginia Department of Health for anticipating that need. VDH is developing a tool that will allow businesses to quickly and easily verify customers’ vaccination status by scanning a QR code, reports WAVY TV. That tool will be an alternative to the existing VDH portal that allows Virginians to print out a PDF confirmation.

State vaccination coordinator Danny Avula told WAVY that the state has no immediate plans to implement vaccine passports. The initiative is a response to private sector demands for proof of vaccination. When the FDA gives full regulatory approval to the Pfizer vaccine in September, however, he expects vaccination requirements will become more common.

I just hope VDH’s rollout of the proof-of-vaccination initiative is more effective than its bumbling program for administering the vaccines in the first place. Continue reading →

Correlation between COVID-19 case rate and percentage of population vaccinated in Virginia localities. Source: “Analysis of COVID-19 in Virginia July 21th, 2021.

by James A. Bacon

There has been a lot of discussion about the causes of vaccine hesitancy: Trump-voting evangelicals are idiots, Blacks are still scarred by the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, social media is spewing disinformation, people have lost faith in the “experts,” etc. Here’s a clue: People are most influenced by their interactions with the people around them.

The graph above, compiled by the Virginia Biocomplexity Institute (VBI), shows the correlation between the incidence of COVID-19 in a locality around July 20 and the percentage of the population that had been vaccinated. In its latest update, VBI observes that there is “some” correlation between vaccination rates and the rate of spread. But if you eyeball the graph, you can see that the correlation is a weak one. Continue reading →

by James A. Bacon

COVID-19 is moving faster than we can keep up with. The headline news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on a study of an outbreak in Massachusetts, is that vaccinated people are just as likely to spread the highly contagious Delta variant of virus as unvaccinated people. The vaccinated are far more resistant to the disease, but they’re just as likely to spread it.

What the heck do we make of that?

For example, how does this new finding impact mandated-vaccination policies in universities and many places of employment on the grounds that the unvaccinated pose a significant transmission risk to others? If vaxxed and unvaxxed are just as likely to be plague vectors, what’s the public-good justification for requiring vaccinations?

In another issue, the CDC argues that everyone should start wearing masks again. Personally, I don’t feel that masks assault my civil liberties, and I’ve made the decision to start wearing them again in public places. I’m vaccinated, so I don’t feel particularly at risk. If I do get the virus, odds are that I won’t even know it, and if I do, it will be like a bad cold. But if there’s a chance that I could carry and spread the virus to others, I feel a responsibility to the community to wear a mask. Continue reading →

COVID-19 vaccines received — Virginia

by James A. Bacon

Only a month ago, it seemed as if we were putting COVID-19 behind us. With the emergence of the super-virulent Delta strain, all bets are off. Even vaccinated people and virus-resistant school children are being called upon to start wearing masks. I have no set opinions on the proper course of action. Receptive to a wide range of viewpoints, I am in data-gathering mode. Suspecting that many other readers are as well, I am resurrecting a Bacon’s Rebellion feature from earlier in the pandemic in which I regularly posted snapshots of Virginia COVID data.

The graph above highlights the fact that almost everyone who wants a vaccine in Virginia has been able to get it. The state has received 10.2 million doses, of which 87.5% have been administered. The rate at which the state is receiving new vaccine supplies, an indicator of how many people are getting vaccinated, has tailed off to almost nothing. Earlier this year, vaccine supply was the bottleneck. Today, vaccine hesitancy is the problem.

Why? Continue reading →