Healthcare

A water drop and ripples

Hospitalizations are on the dividing lines of our different worlds.

By Justin Katz | December 30, 2021 |

Jack Phillip reports for Epoch Times: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director (CDC) Dr. Rochelle Walensky says the number of hospitalizations for children with COVID-19 has increased in recent days, but she pointed out that many of them are not related to the virus. “Many of them are actually coming in for another reason. But…

A water drop and ripples

Reality versus media on RI hospitalizations is amazing.

By Justin Katz | December 29, 2021 |

Alexa Gagosz of the Boston Globe tweeted out a little while a note from Sage Myers, who appears to be a Pennsylvania doctor, with the following scary message: Just finished an ED shift. Literally everyone has COVID. Everyone. And the few people who don’t have COVID have the flu. There are never enough beds. Or enough…

A scared squirrel

Everybody’s gone crazy on COVID data.

By Justin Katz | December 29, 2021 |

Well… it’s not just COVID, obviously.  People have gone crazy on a bunch of issues, but with COVID, as a topic, data is involved, which really ought to make it easier to pull everybody into productive discussion.  Unfortunately, it’s not often working out that way (at least among those I encounter). The latest example to…

A water drop and ripples

It’s bizarre that lockdowns’ effects on children is not a bigger part of the discussion.

By Justin Katz | December 29, 2021 |

Somehow, one still sees comments from people who seem oblivious of the effects that our anti-COVID measures are having on children.  College professor Glenn Reynolds mentions the experience on his campus: I was talking to a couple of freshman advisors from UT, and they noted that our freshmen had crucial years of their educations and…

A water drop and ripples

Maybe deceptive media is secretly anti-vax?

By Justin Katz | December 28, 2021 |

I’m with Ed Driscoll in finding it political that CBS would edit out its reporter’s complaints about the harm of COVID restrictions on kids: Longtime CBS reporter and chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford went viral on Sunday and Monday on social media following comments, meant to air on Sunday’s Face the Nation, that slammed our…

Hospital beds

RI’s Problem Isn’t COVID as an Illness, but as a Test Result.

By Justin Katz | December 28, 2021 |

NPR caters to the narrative that the unvaccinated are destroying hospitals while the occupant of the White House does his best “to help,” but even a superficial investigation changes the picture fundamentally.

2021 written in beach sand

Politics This Week with John DePetro: Closing out 2021

By Justin Katz | December 27, 2021 |

John and Justin wrap up 2021 with discussion of how COVID politics have been going in RI and some predictions for Ocean State politics in the year to come.

A water drop and ripples

Eliminating risk is risky business.

By Justin Katz | December 27, 2021 |

I see Glenn Reynolds shares my concerns about charging forward with cures for every nuisance illness. On the one hand, a universal flu vaccine would be great. On the other, say it works for several decades and then a strain of flu evades it. Wouldn’t it be an ugly “virgin field” epidemic at that point?…

No Indication McKee Administration Conducted Analysis of Impact of Vaccine Mandate

By Monique Chartier | December 27, 2021 |

On October 1, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee ordered the enforcement of a vaccine mandate on Rhode Island healthcare workers. Governor McKee’s vaccine mandate would almost certainly sideline healthcare workers (who did not get vaccinated), though the number would not be knowable at the planning stage. And there would be a corresponding impact on public…

Zambarano Hospital deteriorating

The nursing crisis is a great opportunity to rethink our state as an on-location set for zombie movies.

By Justin Katz | December 24, 2021 |

Rather than simply proclaiming doom and destruction at the hands of the unvaccinated, Patrick Anderson dug a bit more deeply into Rhode Island hospitals’ capacity issues for the Providence Journal: Hospitals have lost thousands of employees since March 2020 — to retirement, to less-demanding professions and to lucrative contract health-care work in other states. And yes,…