(Our Governor signs in the next Public Health Emergency).

Thank God. Now we know. The Editorial Staff here was getting alarmed. I have noted in the Daily about waiting for the next declaration of a public health emergency that will enable our nice, but appallingly inept, Governor to continue to rule us by emergency order.

As many sources have noted, the Great COVID Emergency sadly seems to be passing. Governments across the Land of the Free immediately began looking for another emergency to continue ruling by decree. It is efficient and wastes no time with idle conversation.

I try to follow my Doctor’s direction to continue aquatic therapy to try to rebuild my damaged legs. I have been moderately successful, though that requires donning a mask, being inspected for temperature and answering questions about potential signs of infection before being allowed admittance. I keep my distance from other patrons, and overall, the therapy has been good.

But the problem was that without that emergency, we were in significant danger of going back to normal governance. You remember that, I think. Keeping the old emergency going took some doing and was stressful. We had to include mortalities from all sources as part of the plague, which was getting inconvenient. Now, we appear to be getting used to emergency rule. I was concerned we might lose that unique version of freedom.

So, the news was that COVID cases have fallen dramatically over this month concerned me. It seemed that we might confront a world without emergency. Thankfully, the new Emergency has arrived, and the entire staff welcomes it.
The funny thing was that I heard about it from a pal Out West. You would think that a Virginia Health Emergency would be noted here first and supported with vibrant enthusiasm. I had to look it up, since no one here was talking about it. Thank goodness, our House of Delegates took action without telling us about it.

The account I found was great, starting out with the reminder that our state was “long associated with racist and segregationist behavior.” That is unquestionably true, and we once had two armies of 100,000 young men each camped on what is now Refuge Farm, savagely disputing the matter in trivial bloodshed.

Del. Lashrecse D. Aird, D-Petersburg, recognized the problem, and it was her law that was passed and signed by our alert Governor Northam.

Some of us may have questioned why a social issue became a medical one, but our staff, and those Irish by the loading dock, unanimously agreed to support something that works. We now want to announce support for the five aspects of the new Public Health Emergency. They are cool, and obviously have all sorts of important aspects far beyond simple medicine.
Here they are! The Virginia Department of Health will:

Expand the Department’s Office of Health Equity to be the primary watchdog for ensuring policies addressing racism are implemented;
Make the Commission to Examine Racial Inequity in Virginia Law permanent;
Establish training for all state elected officials, their staff members and state employees on recognizing racism;
Create a list of definitions and terms on racism and health equity; and
Promote community engagement across the state on recognizing racism.

To Virginia’s continuing shame, we were not the first to recognize the distinct medical diagnoses associated with what used to be social issues. Racism has been declared a “public health issue” in 145 cities and counties across 27 states. It is the most effective way to impose justice through non-legal means, and naturally we applaud the initiative.
After Tuesday’s vote, Delegate Aird’s office released a statement in which she said her new law “provides the framework for all of us to formally and finally reckon with those injustices so we can build a more equitable and just society for us all.”

The coolest part is that since this is now a public health matter, the old rules no longer apply. No debate required. We are in new territory now, and we welcome this bold initiative. We call for more recognition and medical redress from common health emergencies. Micro-aggressions of all sorts clearly apply, as do outmoded concepts like “guns” and speech we dislike. We have made great progress in eliminating the first two Amendments in that awful document signed exclusively by old white guys.

We salute our Governor and those Delegates from Northern Virginia who now control our legislature for showing us a means forward in which we no longer have to justify anything, since it is a matter of Public Health. It’s like Science, you know?

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com