Category Archives: Public safety & health

COVID Accounted for Half of Excess Deaths in 2020, 2021

Posted on November 29, 2022 by | 58 comments

Source: Virginia Department of Health

by James A. Bacon

The number of deaths in Virginia during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020 and 2021) was roughly 15,000 higher, or 22.5%, than would have been predicted from pre-COVID trends, according to a new report published by the Virginia Department of Health. However, COVID accounted for a bit less than half (47%) of the excess deaths.

Deaths attributable to accidents, homicides, liver disease, diabetes, hypertension and renal disease all increased more than 20% as well. On the other hand, the pandemic saw a decline in fatalities due to influenza and pneumonia, sepsis, and chronic respiratory disease.

Major conclusions from the study:

COVID-19 drove excess mortality in Virginia, but mortality for other causes of death was also higher than expected. The top five leading causes of death contributed to 70.4% of all excess deaths observed between the two time periods. COVID-19 contributed to 47.0% of all excess deaths. Continue reading →

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Virginia Mental Health Services in Deep Trouble – A Survey

Posted on November 28, 2022 by | 42 comments

Eastern State Hospital. Courtesy Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Development

by James C. Sherlock

Nov. 29 updates in blue.

Supply cannot begin to keep up with demand.

In this case, the consequences involve personal welfare and public safety. And they can be terrible in both cases.

Governor Youngkin will propose to the 2023 General Assembly additional funding and policy prescriptions for the state’s mental health system.

The state offers inpatient services, community-based government services, and Medicaid-funded services.  Medicare offers payments to participating hospitals. Private insurances offer coverage.

I say “offer,” because much of what policy prescribes has proven difficult to fill in practice.

Virginia’s mental health system is in deep trouble because of shortages of personnel and facilities to absorb the very steep rates of increases in persons needing assistance.

The personnel problems are twofold and affect both government and private services.

  1. Key personnel positions require trained specialists, the shortages of whom are manifest across the country; and
  2. Working conditions in mental health care are very stressful, physically demanding and dangerous, driving away badly needed low skilled workers who can easily find jobs elsewhere.

Medicaid programs offer services that private facilities and practitioners, facing the same labor shortages, have proven in some combination unable or unwilling to provide at Medicaid reimbursement rates. State-contracted Medicaid Managed Care Organizations (MMCOs) have not solved those problems.

So part of the answer is money, but we really don’t know how much. And in this case, money alone may not provide sufficient services to satisfy demand. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Entitlements, General Assembly, Governance, Health Care, Insurance, Mental illness and substance abuse, Public safety & health, Social services

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Account for All of the Costs

Posted on November 25, 2022 by | 60 comments

by Bill O’Keefe

Opposition to Dominion’s offshore windfarm has come mainly from critics who cite technology, economic, and energy-system concerns and problems. Unfortunately, these have only been persuasive enough to slow down the reckless rush by Dominion and its allies in the General Assembly to obtain SCC approval. What about the impact on human health?

Where is the public health consideration? Windmills are notorious for killing birds and bats, but the significance of this is not explored. After all, what are a few birds and bats worth when it comes to saving the planet? Well, the answer is more than advocates will admit. Killing bats has a human health effect.

Mosquitoes are at the top of bats’ menus. Mosquitoes are the bane of outdoor enjoyment and a boon for the insect spray industry. As a result, most of us give little thought to the dangers of mosquitoes; but they are not trivial.

According to the World Atlas, “These swarming yet stealthy insects have proven to be more than just an annoyance to the human race. In some parts of the world, female mosquitoes (the ones that do the biting) do not just leave behind an itchy red lump, but sometimes also diseases such as dengue, West Nile, yellow fever, Zika, chikungunya, lymphatic filariasis, and the big one: malaria. Each year, somewhere around 725,000 to 1,000,000 people die from mosquito-borne diseases.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Public safety & health

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Violence Prevention and TATs: A Dissenting Opinion

Posted on November 23, 2022 by | 48 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

There has been a lot of discussion on this blog  about violence prevention committees and threat assessment teams (TAT). There have been disagreements over whether the University of Virginia is in compliance with state law as well as lamentations about the lack of enforcement where it is considered that an institution is not in compliance with the requirements of state law.

First of all, I am not sure how the requirements would be enforced. The statutes provide no mechanism or provide authority to any agency to enforce them. The statutes themselves are fairly broad and, as has been shown in the discussions on this blog, there are various ways of interpreting those statutes. If push came to shove, I suppose one could go to court and seek a writ of mandamus against a college or university requiring it to rectify some omission or error in its policies regarding its  violence prevention committee or threat assessment team. I am not sure who would have standing to bring such a suit — faculty and students, probably; parents of students, maybe; alumni or interested citizens, probably not. Such a case would likely be expensive for anyone filing suit.

More importantly, I would advocate abolishing the requirement to establish a violence prevention committee and a threat assessment team altogether. It is an overly bureaucratic and inefficient way to deal with the potential for violence on campuses. In addition, the use of TATs can lead to abuse. Continue reading →

48 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Education (higher ed), Public safety & health, Uncategorized

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Virginia Should Enforce Threat Assessment Laws. Noting Lack of Compliance Not Enough.

Posted on November 22, 2022 by | 54 comments


by James C. Sherlock

I have written about the Threat Assessment Teams (TAT’s) of two state universities, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech.

I assessed Tech to be compliant with state law. I reported that UVa is not. That of course raises the issue of the rest of Virginia’s colleges and universities.

The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) in 2014, with far more resources and access than I, found the state of the TAT’s serving the commonwealth’s fifteen four-year state institutions of higher learning (IHL), its community colleges and private IHLs to be as a group a hot mess (my term).

I will follow this article with an assessment of the compliance of the current policies of Virginia’s fifteen public IHLs.

The 2014 report did not have the intended effect of standardization and professionalization of threat assessment and intervention in Virginia. Preliminary reviews of the policies of each IHL show them still to be all over the map in terms of compliance.

I am reasonably sure that if DCJS redid its survey tomorrow, it would result in similar findings and recommendations. Perhaps at this point the government should actually enforce the law rather than just reporting on the lack of compliance.

One wishes that had occurred years earlier. Continue reading →

54 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Education (higher ed), Efficiency in government, General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Law enforcement, Mental illness and substance abuse, Public safety & health

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Petersburg Resumes Important Actions Against City Code Violators — Homeless Needs Increase

Posted on November 22, 2022 by | 38 comments

Travel Inn was shut down by the ACE team in June. Courtesy Joyce Chu, Progress Index.

by James C. Sherlock

Sometimes absolutely necessary actions have more than one outcome.

Such is the case in Petersburg.

Joyce Chu of Petersburg’s indispensable Progress- Index last evening initiated a multi-part series on the impacts of the city’s closure due to safety violations of two motels used by otherwise homeless people.

Her first article makes a case for more government and charitable services for the people affected by the closures. Good for her. No one wants people living on the streets and everyone wants the kids in school.

She explains that the California Inn, OYO and Travel Inn motels, among a group of low cost motels right off of I-95, were

also hotbeds of crime, drug overdoses and prostitution mixed in with families with children, according to former residents and homeless advocates.

She points out that Petersburg has resumed (after a lengthy period when it did not) enforcing its zoning codes. A team called the ACE team — Abatement, Compliance, and Enforcement — is on task, run by the Fire Chief.

Code enforcement is an absolutely necessary step to revitalize the city.

So is helping those adversely affected.  -Hotel owners should be forced within the limits of the law to assist. Continue reading →

38 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Charity and philanthropy, Children and families, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Health Care, Homelessness, Infrastructure, Law enforcement, Mental illness and substance abuse, Public safety & health, Regulation, Social services

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You Dirty Rat!

Posted on October 31, 2022 by | 12 comments

Photo credit: Greater Greater Washington

From Orkin’s 2022 list of “rattiest” cities in the United States:

4. Washington, D.C.

25. Norfolk

33. Richmond

In the list of cities with the most rodents, Chicago took the top spot, followed by Los Angeles and New York.

By counting total rat populations, Orkin’s methodology skews to big cities. I’d like to see a ranking of cities by rat-to-human ratio. — JAB

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Posted in Public safety & health

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Stress, Fuzzy Symptoms, and Long COVID

Posted on October 14, 2022 by | 19 comments

by James A. Bacon

WHRO Public Media tells the story of Chesapeake nurse Megan Temple, who contracted COVID-19 in October and has dealt with “long COVID” ever since. She got over the initial illness quickly. But in the weeks and months that followed, during which she also recovered from abdominal surgery, she developed an array of mysterious, shifting symptoms.

She suffered severe chest pains, lost muscle coordination, experienced brain fog, lost hair, and experienced vision changes. At one point, she couldn’t sleep for 48 hours or sit for more than minutes at a time. “It sounds very strange, but I just felt like I was going to die,” she said, “like my body was going to shut down.”

Before I go any further, let me make it indisputably clear that I am NOT saying that the symptoms are imaginary. Something is occurring. But when symptoms are varied, vague, impossible to measure, and make their appearance after haphazard time intervals, I think we need to take a closer look.

Humans are cognitively disposed to attribute causation to events that occur in proximity to one another. When Event A occurs before Event B, people are inclined to say Event A caused Event B. If someone recovers from COVID and later experiences brain fog, they assume that COVID caused the brain fog. Perhaps there is an underlying medical connection between the two. But perhaps the brain fog has another cause, and the timing was a coincidence. I suspect that’s true in many cases, if not most of them. Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Public safety & health, Uncategorized

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Widespread Fallout from School Closures

Posted on August 3, 2022 by | 45 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

I feel sorry for 1st-grade teachers.

Not only do they have the tough task of teaching kids to read, but they are now dealing with children who lack some of the most basic skills needed to learn. Skills the children should have learned in pre-school and kindergarten.

An admissions officer from a local private school said recently that they continue to see “COVID anomalies” in children entering the 1st grade.

Anomalies? Like what?

“Many of the children don’t know how to hold a pencil,” she replied.

Seriously?

Then again, what did we expect. When the governor forced youngsters into remote learning – some for more than a year – the tykes didn’t master pincer movements. They were simply propped in front of computer screens for hours at a time. No need to use their little hands.

Chew on that for a moment. Continue reading →

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Posted in Public safety & health

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Who’s Scared of Monkeypox? Not Me.

Posted on July 27, 2022 by | 23 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Read the increasingly hysterical stories about monkeypox and you’ll learn that public health officials are “scrambling,” “grappling” and “struggling.”

They don’t know what to do to slow the spread of this nasty, but rarely fatal disease.

The WHO has declared a public health emergency, its highest level of alert. The Biden administration may do something similar soon now that 3,591 Americans have been infected. That will supposedly free up more vaccines or something.

The fact is, these “experts” know EXACTLY what to do. They just won’t do it.

Let’s be brutally honest here. So far, the WHO says 98% of the cases are in gay men who have multiple sex partners. Often strangers. Yet the same experts keep warning the rest of us not to be complacent about monkeypox. Continue reading →

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Violent Crime Now the Top Public Health Concern

Posted on July 26, 2022 by | 6 comments

Community violence and crime constitute the No. 1 “public health issue” that concerns registered voters in Virginia, finds the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) in a poll released today. Fifty-one percent of the 800 Virginians polled selected the issue.

The No. 2 concern was healthcare work shortages, which logged the top vote from 25% of respondents. (The VHHA press release did not indicate which other concerns, such as COVID-19, that people could select from.)

The poll also found that: Continue reading →

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Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Public safety & health

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No, Your Middle Schooler Doesn’t HAVE to Get the HPV Vaccine

Posted on July 20, 2022 by | 68 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Virginia Beach Delegate Tim Anderson took his sons to see the new “Minions” movie two weeks ago at the Regal Cinemas at Town Center.

They were settled in their seats when a disturbing image appeared on the screen.

The movie wasn’t offensive. But a public service announcement from the Virginia Department of Health was. It told the audience that a vaccine against HPV — the human papillomavirus — was required for entry into Virginia middle schools.

Trouble is, that’s deceptive. While that vaccine against a common STD is listed with the mandates, parents can decide if they want their child to receive it. Continue reading →

68 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Education (K-12), Public safety & health

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Mamas, Let Your Babies Grow Up Before Getting Vaccinated

Posted on July 17, 2022 by | 49 comments

Source: Virginia Department of Health

by James A. Bacon

About 21,000 Virginia children aged four and under have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the three weeks since the shots were made available, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. That amounts to only 5% of the age group, observes reporter Eric Kolenich, but it’s significantly higher than the national average of 2%.

I’m double vaxed and double boosted. But, then, I’m 69 years old. Nearly 3,800 Virginians in my age bracket have died from the virus. Only 13 children under the age of nine have succumbed.

I don’t proffer unsolicited advice to my daughters. They’re intelligent women capable of making informed decisions about my three grandchildren, and I’m not inclined to meddle. But if they sought my counsel (which they haven’t), I would advise against vaccinating the little knuckleheads.

According to the Virginia Department of Health, nearly 160,000 cases of COVID have been reported for the 0-to-9 age bracket. The chances of little guys getting the virus are high. But only 942 have been hospitalized, and only 13 have died. Continue reading →

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Posted in Children and families, Public safety & health

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Democracy Dies in Drabness

Posted on July 16, 2022 by | 25 comments

City of Charlottesville office building… no, my bad, that’s an East German Stasi office building.

by Jock Yellott

Charlottesville’s City Hall used to be open to its citizens. We could go talk to people. Ask questions. Learn.

No longer. Front door locked. A guard in an air conditioned box. A citizen has to justify going inside. Where? Seeing whom? Why?

The guard calls upstairs to where I’m supposed to go, but no answer. She calls somebody else to let me in the door. I climb the stairs to the second floor and find… a newly installed second locked door. With camera. And a buzzer system.

I need to deliver something to the City Attorney. Buzz. Nobody answers.

The City Council Clerk? Buzz. Nobody answers. No surprise there, the clerk’s office door is usually shut with lights off. Last time the job was open was 2018, salary advertised at $70,532.80 to $137,538.96. My tax dollars at work. Or, not. No way to know who’s actually working if we can’t go in City Hall. Continue reading →

25 Comments

Posted in Open Government, Public safety & health

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The Variants Are Coming! The Variants Are Coming! The Worst One Yet!

Posted on July 15, 2022 by | 50 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Looks like it has arrived.

I’m talking about the eagerly anticipated “Mid-Term Variant.” You know, the “worst one yet, the shape-shifting” variety. It’s the terrifying BA.5, which is spreading right now. And if that doesn’t have you trembling and reaching for an N95, the BA2.75 is on its way. From India!

This one is nicknamed “Centaurus” to compound the sense of danger.

Best of all, Centaurus is expected to surge in the fall. Just in time for the mid-term elections. Back under the beds, everyone!

Mail-in ballots are next. You didn’t think the left was just going to lay down and lose, did you?

They’re already busy across the country ginning up the fear and ignoring the fact that although the new versions of COVID are highly contagious they’re also milder than the original.

And medical “experts” continue to scold Americans for not getting boosters. Yet even they admit that the horrible-worst-ever-shape-shifting virus “easily evades” the current vaccines. Continue reading →

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