Due to recent concerns regarding the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), the Town of Cape Charles will be implementing Phase 1 of its Incident Action Plan. This first phase of the plan is known as an Alert Posture Protocol (APP). The APP focuses the Town’s attention on a potential threat (virus, hurricane, etc.). It includes providing information to the public about the potential threat and increases Town staff contact and interactions with other appropriate agencies (county, state, etc.). Being in APP does not significantly alter normal operations; rather it means increased vigilance.
As part of this protocol, the Town will be in close coordination with state and county officials and will pass on updates and information as it becomes available. The Town advises everyone to stay informed and to follow the CDC precautions outlined here. Currently, if these precautions are followed, the course of most normal business is still appropriate. If this situation changes, additional notifications will follow.
Dara says
Protocol and common sense are relavent. Do not panic people, use common sense.
Stuart Bell says
Common Sense is not politically correct. These folks can’t go to Lowes without the support of a dog. They can’t sit through a 45 minute church service without a slug of water every 5 minutes. The reaction to this Chinese Wuhan Flu shows me just how weak these people really are.
Stay hydrated now, you hear?
Emily Dickenson says
SO TRUE
Chicken Little says
THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!
Emily Dickenson says
Why do people insist on embracing this hysteria, even wallowing in it?? We DO have the option not to panic, to use common sense ( the left loves this term when it comes to gun control issues, but apparently not so much when it refers to disease control) measures to prevent illness. Instead, most are buying into the over-blown hype, and in the process, causing economic hardship to themselves and the rest of our community and country. REFUSE to Participate in this orchestrated debacle!!!
Stuart Bell says
They have been conditioned since birth to accept authority and most of all to fear:
People naturally assume that the public school system is trying to do what’s best of the children. The fact of the matter is that these institutions have nothing to do with education. They are set up by people who, like all other people, have their own personal agendas. The public school’s true purpose is to put certain messages into the children’s heads so they’ll be more obedient of the government when they get older.
Consider the ‘grade’ system. You start off in first grade, where you’re placed not by academic ability, nor by willingness to learn, but by age. The reason for this is very simple. Most children already think of adults as if they’re their superiors, and now they’ll associate their position in the grade system with superiority. Obviously, that’s nonsense. A kid in the 5th grade may very well have less overall academic ability then a kid in the 2nd grade. Moreover, education isn’t something that can be ranked. The kind of education that tends to be more valuable later on in life is your specialization, not the sheer quantity of raw general knowledge.
Next, consider the way a classroom is structured. The teacher is in charge. The students are to listen to the teacher. This is most peculiar as well. After all, the teacher is a hired employee, who is in fact working for the students. If anything, the teacher should be listening to the concerns of the students, not the other way around. The reason the classroom setting is set up in this way is clear. The students learn at an early age to respect authority figures, so later on, they obey the government.
Stay Hydrated Now, You Hear?
Paul Plante says
Public school teachers are employed by a local school board, in whom the Constitution of Virginia vests supervision of schools.
There are 133 school districts in Virginia, which serve 1,265,419 students.
According to the Code of Virginia in the section on the employment of teachers, it states as follows:
A. The teachers in the public schools of a school division shall be employed and placed in appropriate schools by the school board upon recommendation of the division superintendent.
In placing teachers, school boards shall fill positions with licensed instructional personnel qualified in the relevant subject areas.
B. School boards shall adopt employment policies and practices designed to promote the employment and retention of highly qualified teachers and to effectively serve the educational needs of students.
Such policies shall include, but need not be limited to, incentives for excellence in teaching, including financial support for teachers attending professional development seminars or those seeking and obtaining national certification.
C. School boards shall develop a procedure for use by division superintendents and principals in evaluating teachers that is appropriate to the tasks performed and addresses, among other things, student academic progress and the skills and knowledge of instructional personnel, including, but not limited to, instructional methodology, classroom management, and subject matter knowledge.
Teachers employed by local school boards who have achieved continuing contract status shall be formally evaluated at least once every three years and more often as deemed necessary by the principal, and they shall be evaluated informally during each year in which they are not formally evaluated.
Any teacher who has achieved continuing contract status who receives an unsatisfactory formal evaluation and who continues to be employed by the local school board shall be formally evaluated in the following year.
The evaluation shall be maintained in the employee’s personnel file.
Each local superintendent shall annually certify divisionwide compliance with the provisions of this section to the Department.
end quotes
Would the system work better if the Constitution of Virginia was amended to give the children the right to hire their own teachers instead of the school boards?
Paul Plante says
People seem to have a need for drama in their lives, Emily Dickenson, hence, they readily buy into hysteria.
Last week, the world was going to come to an end because of global warming, and now the world is going to come to an end because of COVID-19.
What will it be next week?
As to the hysteria, the New York Times just ran an article on the subject entitled “‘Everything Is a Black Hole’: Mounting Dread in the Age of Coronavirus” (last week, it was the Age of the Anthropocene) by Dan Barry and Todd Heisler on 15 March 2020, where we had as follows:
This is life in a pandemic, when the emergence of the potentially fatal coronavirus has spawned strains of uncertainty: about the progression of the new virus, about the government’s response, about the open-ended nature of our altered lifestyles.
end quotes
Altered lifestyles?
Not hardly in my case.
Getting back to the pandemic:
This creeping uncertainty can be fueled by the very steps taken to reassure.
President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency; Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s dispatch of the National Guard to a “containment zone” in the Westchester city of New Rochelle.
Do these steps calm us, or unnerve us?
end quotes
From the panic going on in the nation, I would say that those statements probably scared the living crap right out of people and drove them over the edge into fear mode – operating on automatic pilot as my friend in NYC told me.
I think all the toilet paper is gone off store shelves because people in NYC and other cities are using it to barricade themselves in their apartments by building a wall of toilet paper in front of their door and going back into the room several feet on the theory that nobody is going to bother looting a room full of toilet paper, while they spend their time in isolation cocooned on the other side.
And today, restaurants are being ordered closed.
You have to wonder if anyone has stopped to think about where all those people are going to find food, when the store shelves are empty, and some people have no means of cooking.
In the meantime, there are people lining up to buy guns and ammo.
Go figure.
I think they are missing your call to stay calm and not buy into the hysteria mongering.
Paul Plante says
Code of Virginia
§ 32.1-39. Surveillance and investigation.
A. The Board shall provide for the surveillance of and investigation into all preventable diseases and epidemics in this Commonwealth and into the means for the prevention of such diseases and epidemics.
Surveillance and investigation may include contact tracing in accordance with the regulations of the Board.
When any outbreak or unusual occurrence of a preventable disease shall be identified through reports required pursuant to Article 1 (§ 32.1-35 et seq.) of this chapter, the Commissioner or his designee shall investigate the disease in cooperation with the local health director or directors in the area of the disease.
If in the judgment of the Commissioner the resources of the locality are insufficient to provide for adequate investigation, he may assume direct responsibility and exclusive control of the investigation, applying such resources as he may have at his disposal.
The Board may issue emergency regulations and orders to accomplish the investigation.
B. When an investigation of any outbreak or occurrence of a disease identified through reports required pursuant to Article 1 (§ 32.1-35 et seq.) of this chapter indicates the reasonable possibility that the outbreak or occurrence was the result of exposure to an agent or substance used as a weapon, the Commissioner or his designee shall immediately report such finding to the Department of State Police for investigation.
Reports, records, materials or other data reported to the Department of State Police pursuant to this section shall remain confidential and shall not be subject to the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (§ 2.2-3700 et seq.).
The Department of State Police, and any local law enforcement official, may release all or part of any report made or other information obtained pursuant to this section (i) where the release of such report or information may assist in the prevention of imminent harm to public health or safety, or (ii) where the release of such report or information, with patient identifying information removed, may be useful for education of the public on health, safety or homeland defense issues.
Reports required by this section shall be maintained in the central repository established by the Department of State Police pursuant to the provisions of § 52-8.5.
The Department of State Police shall immediately transmit the report to the local chief of police or sheriff with law-enforcement responsibilities both where the patient resides and where he sought the medical treatment that resulted in the report.
In addition, the Department of State Police may transmit the report to federal and military law-enforcement authorities.
The Department of State Police and local law-enforcement authorities shall immediately determine and implement the appropriate law-enforcement response to such reports, in accordance with their jurisdiction.
Code 1950, §§ 32-10, 32-42; 1979, c. 711; 1989, c. 613; 2002, c. 768.
§ 32.1-42. Emergency rules and regulations.
The Board of Health may promulgate regulations and orders to meet any emergency or to prevent a potential emergency caused by a disease dangerous to public health, including, but not limited to, procedures specifically responding to any disease listed pursuant to § 32.1-35 that is determined to be caused by an agent or substance used as a weapon or any communicable disease of public health threat that is involved in an order of quarantine or an order of isolation pursuant to Article 3.02 (§ 32.1-48.05 et seq.) of this chapter.
§ 32.1-44. Isolated or quarantined persons.
The provisions of this chapter shall be construed to allow any isolated or quarantined person to choose his own treatment, whenever practicable and in the best interest of the health and safety of the isolated or quarantined person and the public; however, the conditions of any order of isolation issued pursuant to Article 3.01 (§ 32.1-48.01 et seq.) of this chapter involving a communicable disease of public health significance and any order of quarantine or order of isolation involving any communicable disease of public health threat pursuant to Article 3.02 (§ 32.1-48.05 et seq.) of this chapter shall remain in effect until the person or persons subject to such order of quarantine or order of isolation shall no longer constitute a threat to other persons.
Code 1950, § 32-13; 1979, c. 711; 1990, c. 958; 2004, cc. 773, 1021.
§ 32.1-45. Expense of treatment.
Except as specifically provided by law, the provisions of this chapter shall not be construed as relieving any individual of the expense, if any, of any treatment, including any person who is subject to an order of isolation issued pursuant to Article 3.01 (§ 32.1-48.01 et seq.) of this chapter or an order of quarantine or an order of isolation issued pursuant to Article 3.02 (§ 32.1-48.05 et seq.) of this chapter.
Code 1950, § 32-56; 1973, c. 401; 1979, c. 711; 1990, c. 958; 2004, cc. 773, 1021.
§ 32.1-43. Authority of State Health Commissioner to require quarantine, etc.
The State Health Commissioner shall have the authority to require quarantine, isolation, immunization, decontamination, or treatment of any individual or group of individuals when he determines any such measure to be necessary to control the spread of any disease of public health importance and the authority to issue orders of isolation pursuant to Article 3.01 (§ 32.1-48.01 et seq.) of this chapter and orders of quarantine and orders of isolation under exceptional circumstances involving any communicable disease of public health threat pursuant to Article 3.02 (§ 32.1-48.05 et seq.) of this chapter.