Tag Archives: Kerry Dougherty

by Kerry Dougherty

Looks like it may be safe to lose the grocery gloves. We can take it easy with the Clorox wipes, too.

No longer must we let Amazon packages marinate on the porch for days. Or scrub milk cartons with bleach in case some super-spreader touched it in the supermarket refrigerator case and left invisible viral bits on its waxed surface.

Yep, in a reversal of its earlier hair-on-fire warnings, the CDC admitted this week that it appears the Covid-19 virus is not easily transmissable from surfaces.

The CDC made another key change to its website, clarifying what sources are not major risks. Under the new heading “The virus does not spread easily in other ways,” the agency explains that touching contaminated objects or surfaces does not appear to be a significant mode of transmission, reported The Washington Post.

Now they tell us, 5,000 Clorox wipes later. Continue reading →

by Kerry Dougherty

Imagine for a moment that your grandmother is in a Virginia nursing home. You haven’t seen her since late February or early March when visitation was terminated due to concerns about the coronavirus.

Perhaps your grandmother has some dementia, making it impossible to chat on the phone to ask how she’s doing.

Worse, you’ve heard that at last count there have been 150 outbreaks of COVID-19 in nursing homes around Virginia. You’re now terrified that your grandmother is in peril.

That fear is real.

As of Thursday, 452 of the 769 coronavirus deaths in Virginia have been connected to long-term care facilities. That’s a staggering 59 percent of all fatalities.

Those were frail people who died alone and behind locked doors while their families begged for information.

I know what you’re thinking. Surely those with loved ones in nursing homes can go to the Virginia Department of Health’s special COVID-19 webpage and find out which long-term care facilities are experiencing coronavirus outbreaks.

No, they can’t. Continue reading →

by Kerry Dougherty

Gov. Ralph Northam’s press conferences are weird, unsettling events. They’re free of the fireworks and drama that are a regular feature of the president’s wild pressers. But there’s a sense of quiet despair and dictatorial impulses about them.

Northam is frequently befuddled on these occasions, as he was last week when he was asked why Virginia’s nursing home deaths had tripled overnight. He had no idea. And as he was weeks ago when a reporter asked about his plans to help the homeless during the health crisis. Again, not a clue.

At other times, Northam displays flashes of irrational stubbornness.

On Monday, for instance, Northam was asked if he would consider reopening Virginia by regions. After all, there are four localities with no infections at all and more with very few positive tests or hospitalizations.

Northam’s answer ? No.

Northam responded as he has several times before, insisting that Virginia is a commonwealth and we’re going to behave like a commonwealth. Continue reading →

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 →