In the span of a single week William & Mary athletics director Samantha Huge resigned after facing backlash from cutting seven sports programs last month, and a mix of student-athletes and athletics department staff have tested positive for Coronavirus.
The university announced Tuesday that Huge was stepping down from her position and then on Wednesday news broke that athletics employees and athletes had tested positive for COVID-19.
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The Nashville Metro Council on Tuesday gave Mayor John Cooper the authority to deputize certain city workers to issue citations against bars and restaurants that violate his coronavirus restrictions, The Tennessean reported.
Metro Health Department employees are overworked in trying to combat businesses, the newspaper said. Only workers who already have citation powers will be authorized to serve as restaurant police, according to the bill that passed on third reading. The mayor must still given written permission to workers to use this new power.
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Only 22 percent of ventilators in Virginia hospitals were in use as of Wednesday. Fifty-two percent of ICU beds were available, according to the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. Only 1,003 potential COVID-19 patients were currently hospitalized. However, Governor Ralph Northam’s executive orders surrounding social distancing and mask wearing remain in effect.
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The startling revelation that President Trump and his wife have contracted COVID-19 not only contributes another imponderable complexity to this torrid election campaign, it brings forth—amid a general tide of goodwill in favor of the president and his wife—the worst traits of the Trump-haters. The media response ranged from Joy Reid’s piercing aperçu that he was faking the illness to attract sympathy, to the Lemon-Tapper school of Trump-hate at CNN, which saw it as a direct consequence of the president supposedly taking the virus lightly, leading the resistance to it incompetently, and pretending that it was a fiction, “a hoax.”
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Harvard University professor and CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem alleged that it is “very likely” that Russian spies infiltrated Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and gained access to information about President Donald Trump’s medical condition.
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. The president experienced symptoms before moving to Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, out of an “abundance of caution” the following day.
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To hear former Vice President Joe Biden tell it, in January, he had perfect knowledge about the Chinese coronavirus, what its mortality would be and all the actions that would be necessary to save American lives.
On July 20 on MSNBC, Biden claimed, “I, all the way back in January, warned him this pandemic was coming. I talked about what we needed to do,” referring to President Trump and a Jan. 27 oped he wrote on the virus.
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Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened Monday to close down religious institutions, specifically Jewish synagogues, if they do not follow his coronavirus restrictions.
“We know religious institutions have been a problem,” Cuomo said at a Monday press conference. “We know mass gatherings are the super spreader events. We know there have been mass gatherings going on in concert with religious institutions in these communities for weeks. For weeks.”
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Boeing is lowering its expectations around demand for new planes over the next decade as the coronavirus pandemic continues to undercut air travel.
The company on Tuesday predicted that the world will need 18,350 new commercial airplanes in the next decade, a drop of 11% from its 2019 forecast. The value of that market will slide by about $200 billion from last year’s forecast, to $2.9 trillion.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its coronavirus guidance Monday to warn about the potential for virus spread from beyond six feet.
The new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance also says that the virus can “linger in the air” for hours. The revision comes weeks after the agency retracted a similar update to its coronavirus guidance.
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Students at James Madison University (JMU) resumed in-person classes on Monday after spending almost a month away from campus learning virtually because of a significant rise in COVID-19 cases and inadequate isolation/quarantine spaces.
At the beginning of September, university president Jonathan Alger announced JMU was temporarily sending most on-campus students home and switching to virtual instruction. Now, students are back at the Harrisonburg, Virginia campus to give the 2020 fall semester another shot.
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The top four candidates for Richmond’s mayor debated in a forum on Tuesday night that saw incumbent Mayor Levar Stoney again defending his record from attacks on all sides. Councilmember Kim Gray and candidate Justin Griffin took turns attacking Stoney for corruption and mismanagement while candidate Alexsis Rodgers suggested that many of Stoney’s best ideas for the future are cribbed from her own platform.
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Gov. Tim Walz’s administration purchased a warehouse for $6.9 million in May to be used for the “temporary storage of human remains,” but the facility was recently converted into a storage space for vaccines and other medical supplies.
The facility was intended to serve as “a building where we can properly handle with dignity and respect and safety the bodies of Minnesotans who may fall victim to the coronavirus,” Minnesota Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director Joe Kelly said at the time of the purchase.
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Informants reportedly helped Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s restaurant police cite two downtown bars over the weekend.
WSMV reported that a task force cited Dogwood and Rebar, both on Division Street, on Saturday for having too many patrons, including on the patio. The task force had members from Metro Public Health Department, the Metro Nashville Police Department and the Metro Beer Board. The task force checked on Dogwood again on Sunday.
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In early September, researchers Corey DeAngelis and Christos Makridis released the results of a study they spearheaded, which found that “school districts in places with stronger teachers’ unions are much less likely to offer full-time, in-person instruction this fall.” The authors stress that the results are remarkably consistent after controlling for differences in demographics, including age, race, population, political affiliation, household income, COVID-19 cases, deaths per capita, et al.
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Saturday aimed at “saving lives” of those suffering from mental and behavioral health needs, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic.
Through the executive order issued Monday morning, Trump called for more crisis-intervention services to those in “immediate life-threatening situations,” and encouraged increased availability of continuing care after crises, nurture mentorship programs, expanded availability of telehealth, and more.
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Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) Director Robert Gordon on Monday issued an Emergency Order under a 1978 law restricting gathering sizes, requiring face coverings in public spaces and enacting limitations on bars.
The order is effective immediately and remains in effect through Oct. 30.
The order doesn’t lean on the rule Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has used to issue emergency orders that the Michigan Supreme Court invalidated on Friday.
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The Virginia government will reportedly have spent over $1.7 million for the COVID-19 exposure reporting app COVIDWISE, which 13.5% of cell phone users have downloaded. Approximately $1.5 million was spent on marketing alone.
The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and SpringML Inc. received $229,000 in CARES federal emergency funding to co-develop and launch COVIDWISE. The app allows users to upload their positive test results, which allows other users to receive exposure notifications. Users will only be notified if they have been within a 6 foot vicinity for over 15 minutes.
President Donald Trump’s announcement Monday that he was feeling good and would soon be able to leave Walter Reed Medical Center, left many in the Resistance media in angry, sputtering convulsions.
“I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M,” Trump tweeted Monday afternoon. “Feeling really good!”
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Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the push for widespread mail-in voting and other alternatives to going to the polls ahead of the presidential election has increased the risk of vote fraud through “ballot harvesting,” and the elderly are particularly vulnerable, advocates warn.
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Leaders in Western Europe remain committed to continuing in-person instruction for young students — in some cases relaxing restrictions like face mask requirements and social distancing rules — even as caseloads throughout the region continue to explode.
It’s a sharp contrast from many school districts in the United States, including some of the largest and most populous, where governmental authorities and teachers’ unions continue to insist that children be barred from face-to-face instruction, that any in-person learning be accompanied by strict distancing and face covering rules, and that even modest upticks in coronavirus cases should necessitate a complete shutdown of face-to-face learning.
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Welcome to the Saturday edition of our daily Virginia Trump campaign update! We will provide our readers with daily updates on the Trump Virginia campaign from today to November 3 (and after…if need be!).
It’s officially 29 days until the election on November 3 – and 26 days until early voting in Virginia closes. The deadline to register to vote in time for the 2020 election is October 13.
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President Donald Trump briefly left the hospital Sunday in his car to wave to supporters gathered outside.
The president’s visit came shortly after he promised his supporters “a surprise” in a video posted a video on social media.
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As schools around the country continue to struggle with opening to in-person learning, a new report shows Ohio as one of the top places in the nation for schools to reopen safely.
As some students learn online, through a hybrid model or in person in classrooms because of COVID-19, the personal-finance website WalletHub released its report on the safest schools to reopen. It ranked Ohio as seventh.
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Welcome to the Saturday edition of our daily Virginia Trump campaign update! We will provide our readers with daily updates on the Trump Virginia campaign from today to November 3 (and after…if need be!).
It’s officially 31 days until the election on November 3 – and 28 days until early voting in Virginia closes. The deadline to register to vote in time for the 2020 election is October 13.
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As many colleges and universities in Virginia continue on with in-person instruction for the 2020 fall semester during the coronavirus pandemic, the schools’ COVID-19 dashboards offer insights into how the pandemic is affecting those institutions.
Since the global pandemic hit the United States back in March, more and more schools have created online COVID dashboards that present a plethora of data on total tests, case counts, positivity percentage and 7-day moving averages for positive tests.
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Virginia’s fiscal year 2020 sales tax revenue performed well all the way up until April 2020 when sales tax revenue decreased 0.4 percent from April 2019; May saw sales tax revenue drop 12.5 percent from May 2019, indicating harm to Virginia’s retailers. At the same time, online sales were booming.
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President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus, he said Friday. The positive test comes a month until the election and after the president has spent the year largely downplaying the threat of the virus.
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Thales Academy Glen Allen will add the third grade to their K-2 programs in the 2021-2022 school year, after a successful first quarter. Applications are accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The Glen Allen location first opened on July 20 of this year – it is the first Thales Academy in Virginia.
Nashville on Thursday moved to Phase Three of its plan to recover from COVID-19, but Metro officials still impose tight restrictions upon businesses, even without the scientific data to justify those rules.
As reported Thursday, Dennis Ferrier of the Nashville-based FOX 17 News connected only 146 of the county’s 25,000-plus coronavirus cases even as they continue to face crippling limitations.
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Dennis Ferrier of Fox News 17 continues his reporting on Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s overreach in closing restaurants and bars, which account for only a fraction of coronavirus cases even as that industry continues to suffer.
Ferrier has been digging into the story for some time to gain the actual number of cases.
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Governor Bill Lee announced during the weekly Tuesday briefing that Tennessee will receive around 2 million rapid viral tests for COVID-19. The tests from BinaxNOW will come in staggered shipments throughout the end of the year.
BinaxNOW tests are significantly more cost-effective and quicker at giving results. They are also more comfortable than the standard deep nasal swab. Instead of going up the nose and into the back of the throat, swabs will go just inside the nose.
Mayoral candidate Kim Gray is running to increase transparency in Richmond’s government, return to a community-based planning model, and improve Richmond’s schools. Her resume includes jobs for two former governors, eight years as a school board member, and four years as council member of Richmond’s Second District. Her political roots run to her childhood.
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Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn’s announcement of COVID-19-related learning loss projections for Tennessee students took state lawmakers and school superintendents by surprise.
In a joint news conference with Gov. Bill Lee last week, Schwinn announced Tennessee students are expected to face learning loss of 50% in English and 65% in math, stressing the importance of in-person learning. Projections were based on national research and early results of beginning-of-year student checkpoint assessments in Tennessee.
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The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) on Monday launched a new pandemic metrics dashboard with more specific, aggregated data to show where COVID-19 is spreading in Virginia’s different regions and any changes occurring over time.
The new dashboard will be updated weekly and features three different tabs: About the Data, Daily Region Metrics, Weekly Transmission Extent. Additionally, School Metrics from the CDC are included within the dashboard.
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The Tennessee Titans suspended in-person activities through Friday after the NFL says three Titans players and five personnel tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the first COVID-19 outbreak of the NFL season in Week 4.
The outbreak threatened to jeopardize the Titans’ game this weekend against the Pittsburgh Steelers and posed the first significant in-season test to the league’s coronavirus protocols.
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A judge has ruled that Tennessee officials have to change the absentee ballot application again to reflect their promise to let voters cast mail ballots if someone in their household has an underlying health condition that makes them more susceptible to COVID-19.
In her decision Friday, Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle sided with arguments from the plaintiffs in a months-long absentee voting lawsuit. They pointed out that a deputy attorney general made the eligibility commitment for co-habitants in response to multiple questions in front of the state Supreme Court last month.
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After losing in court last week, Governor Ralph Northam agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by four Madison County men who argued that the governor’s restrictions on churches violated the Virginia Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Virginia statute for religious freedom. According to The Roanoke Star, the only COVID-19 restrictions remaining against Virginia churchgoers after the Tuesday decision is the mask mandate.
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The Minnesota Department of Health abruptly stopped reporting the current number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 or in an intensive care unit in its daily situation update Thursday.
The Department of Health (MDH) publishes a situation update every morning at 11 a.m., but Thursday’s update was lacking one standard piece of information: current hospitalizations and ICU patients.
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Michiganders still don’t know how many lives COVID-19 claimed in all categories of long-term care facilities, although the state has been collecting the data since May 29.
Other states such as Minnesota have already reported the information, breaking down the deaths in nursing homes, memory care, and hospice facilities.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper is feuding in court with Nashville’s bar and restaurant owners on Lower Broadway.
And for that reason, Cooper wouldn’t hesitate to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a means to incapacitate those businesses.
This, according to an attorney who represents, among others, Nashville businessman Steve Smith, who owns Kid Rock’s Big Honky Tonk and Steakhouse.
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Governor Ralph Northam announced Friday that he and his wife, First Lady Pamela Northam, have tested positive for COVID-19. The Northams received testing after learning that one of the governor’s staff members tested positive.
Northam reports that he is asymptomatic; his wife is experiencing “mild symptoms.” The pair plan to isolate for ten days and then undergo another examination, according to the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) guidelines.
Nashville Mayor John Cooper said Thursday that he and members of his administration have shown total transparency providing information to the public about COVID-19.
Cooper said this at a press conference Thursday.
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A new poll shows Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump by only 5 points, nearly at the margin of error of 3.9 percent, but the president’s delegation chairman says that does not factor in Trump’s grassroots effort.
The Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University released the poll, which is available here.
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Another school district has been hit by pornography being displayed in Zoom classes. On Friday, Williamsburg-James City County Schools(WJCCS) had two incidents in high school classes.
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Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and Republican challenger Daniel Gade appeared virtually on NBC4 for their first debate. NBC News’ Chuck Todd moderated the debate from Washington, D.C. with a live Zoom audience.
Topics included the Supreme Court nominations, COVID-19, the digital divide, policing, racial justice, immigration, and the election.
University of Virginia (UVA) President Jim Ryan announced new COVID-19 restrictions on Tuesday prohibiting student gathering of five or more people, mandating constant use of masks or face coverings and banning travel and visitors coming to campus for at least the next two weeks.
The restrictions apply to students, faculty and staff, living on and off campus, and went into effect on Wednesday at 9 a.m.
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Metro Nashville Health Department officials, whose COVID-19 policies have robbed people of their livelihoods, admitted Wednesday to incorrectly documenting the number of people in the city’s construction industry who contracted the virus.
And the discrepancy in the numbers wasn’t a small mistake either.
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Sixty-one percent of Americans surveyed now say that they would not get a first-generation coronavirus vaccine as soon as it available, an Axios-Ipsos poll shows.
The percentage is eight points lower than a month ago, a drop that is reflected among both Democrats and Republicans, the Ipsos index shows. The United States is approaching 200,000 coronavirus deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University database.
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A dozen generations or so ago, the scientific method gradually began superseding the method of authority as the most reliable way of knowing the world. We no longer had to accept without question what powerful individuals and institutions asserted; we could observe and test and measure, relying on a more objective approach. This profound shift in focus helped the human family take steps away from darkness and toward light. But apparently the light was too bright.
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President Donald Trump announced his intentions to visit Virginia after denouncing Governor Ralph Northam and endorsing congressional candidate Bob Good.
Trump tweeted his remarks on the first day of Virginia’s early voting and submission of absentee ballots, September 18.
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