This column, written by RI resident and healthcare expert Gary Alexander, originally appeared in the Washington Times on January 15, 2024 Medicaid, a vital program for indigent and disabled Americans who need long-term care, is facing a crisis of sustainability. The program, initially designed to assist those with insufficient means, is commonly exploited by loopholes […]
Brown University has responded to a letter that was sent to its president on August 22 by a RI State Representative and four local doctors, inquiring about an adverse reaction incident of one its students to the University’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate, which will be imposed again this fall. The letter inquired about the incident and […]
Watch Dr Skoly’s exclusive interview on In The Dugout, here State of R.I. relents, Dr. Stephen Skoly finally free to return to providing critical care for his patients. After five and a half months of not being allowed to work, Dr. Stephen Skoly has emerged victorious. The Ocean State Current has obtained a copy of […]
The rule changes proposed last week by the RI Department of Health (RIDOH) are nothing but a blatant power grab, even as state health officials hail it as a major step towards returning our state to normal. Technically, the recommended provisions would amend R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 23-17 and § 23-17.7.1 to make permanent new […]
As is now widely known, the Rhode Island Department of Health, under then-Director Nicole Alexander-Scott and and by Governor Dan McKee’s authority, ordered Dr. Stephen Skoly, Chairman of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, to stop caring for patients in early October. Dr. Alexander-Scott’s order baselessly declared Skoly an “imminent threat to the […]
Remake RI DOH Despite claims of her ‘resignation’, the more likely January firing of Nicole Alexander-Scott as Director of the RI Department of Health (RI DOH), quickly followed by the departure of her top capo, Thomas McCarthy, presents a major opportunity for Governor McKee to remake the crumbling health organization, which completely missed the target […]
Medical professional Diana Lozowski dissects some of the missed opportunities that delivered the Ocean State to its current position in the cage match between Rhode Island and the pandemic. Fear not, though, there is light at the end of this tunnel.
My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for March 29, included talk about:
I’ll be on again Monday, April 5, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.
Are Rhode Island’s most vulnerable citizens being used as the rope in a tug-o-war between the administration and the U.S. District Court? Many in the Department of Developmental Disabilities think so just now. The Rhody Reporter explains that what appears to be an internal budget battle is actually part of a compliance question with a consent decree agreed to by the state seven years ago. Confused? You can get the details in just three minutes by watching this segment of the Rhody Reporter.
Although the bureaucratic experts who continue to suppress our lives (and the journalists who enable them) might believe differently, numbers showing that compliance rules had little, if any, effect on the pandemic aren’t some interesting abstract datapoints on a page.
Diana Lozowski points out where the former governor took her eye off the vaccination plan, thus condemning her constituents to one more “last in the nation” standing. Ms. Raimondo has a Secretarial job now, down south, but where does that leave the rest of us?
On its one year anniversary, it would be irresponsible not to look at the effectiveness of the COVID-19 lockdown. Florida and California vividly demonstrate that the answer is “completely ineffective”: the two states have had similar outcomes to very different approaches, making it clear that lockdowns did not and do not work to slow or stop the spread of COVID-19.
What about Rhode Island? Well, we locked down. And we have the third highest COVID-19 deaths nationally.
Lockdowns, even if they worked exactly as hoped, were never a good solution because of the enormous public health and other consequences they inflict. One year later, it is clear, as they do not achieve even their hoped-for goal, that they are entirely destructive with zero public health benefit.
Now, let’s look at where Rhode Island stands on the original reason for a lockdown: two weeks to flatten the curve and not overwhelm hospitals. Below is the trend of Rhode Island’s hospitalizations; specifically, Column U, “Currently Hospitalized” of this sheet:
4/28/2020: 375 (Spring, 2020 peak)
12/15/2020: 516
1/25/2021: 380
3/9/2021: 141
By this original goalpost, Rhode Island can open up fully, now. (Please stop with the agonizing and ineffective baby steps.) More to the point, the state never needs to lock down again for this (or any) reason. This is because, to her credit, former Governor Gina Raimondo set up COVID-19 field hospitals. While they were recently shut down because COVID-19 cases have dropped markedly, they will remain in place in the event of a surge.
The evidence and observed science one year into COVID-19 lockdowns is blaring and indisputable: they do not work. All states can and should open up immediately, fully, without restrictions – including nursing homes with reasonable protections. Refusing to do so is to deny the plain evidence and prolong the needless suffering and very serious health and other consequences of lockdowns.
Rhode Island’s government is failing on every level. You’d think a news media that’s serving the public would be behaving as if that were the case.
After a year of hearing that any death of somebody who tested positive for COVID counted as a COVID-related death, some Americans may be reluctant to set a high bar for evidence of harm from cutting-edge vaccines.
In an environment where fear has arguably been promoted beyond what the pandemic justified, the costs of preparation for the worst have to be added to the tally.
My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for February 22, included talk about:
I’ll be on again Monday, March 1, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.
My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for February 15, included talk about:
I’ll be on again Monday, February 22, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.
With this panel, McKee seems to be sending a signal about who really matters in the state. That may not be his intent, but it’s something upon which he’ll have to improve quickly now that he’s achieved the big chair.
My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for February 1, included talk about:
I’ll be on again Monday, February 8, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.
Rhody Reporter Diana Lozowski takes a look at how the State’s Bureaucracy has morphed what could have been a simple licensing process using existing procedures into yet another feast for connected insiders. In short, You Gotta Know a Guy. Too bad that kind of overhead drives up the price. Too bad that those in the most need have to overpay because of cost structures designed to feed insiders. The surprising conclusion: At least it’s available now to those in need.
With scary news that RI has one of the worst COVID-19 infection rates in the world, it’s worth revisiting a concept about which we’ve heard absolutely nothing in the Rhode Island media: active cases.
My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for December 21, included talk about:
I’ll be on again Monday, December 28, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.
Asymptomatic spread is the core rationale for putting ourselves into martial-law lite, greatly restricting our freedoms, so it’s important for it to be continually evaluated and debated.
If you won’t do what you’re told of your own free will (with their helpful psychological tricks and manipulation) they’ll have to force you to do it.
It is commonly accepted that an effective vaccine for COVID-19 will save lives.
The vaccine, be it BioNTech’s, Moderna’s, or any other pharmaceutical intervention, will most effectively bring an end to the COVID era. The “science” needed to bring this intervention into the world is astounding, with tens of thousands of test subjects undergoing trials for each version. Months and months and months of careful testing, and yet A SINGLE ADVERSE EVENT among any of the study participants halts the progress. One event. Savings lives is critical, so long as no harm is done in the process.
Simultaneously, governments all over the world have become obsessed with their own interventions. The non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) range from mask mandates, to required testing, to full scale economic lockdown. In the most extreme, China even resorted to welding people into their homes.
There has been no shortage of speculation that the lockdowns have caused harm. The argument has always been that they save lives by mitigating spread, but there really has not been comprehensive proof of that. Florida and California, two comparable states in climate and demography, have had comparable disease spreads with remarkably different approaches to inhibiting its residents. In other words, the NPIs adopted by California, draconian in some respects, have not proven any more effective than the “control group”…Florida’s non-interventionist approach.
My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for December 14, included talk about:
I’ll be on again Monday, December 14, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.
Diana Lozowski notes all the extra-legislative authority Governor Raimondo is exercising in the service of enforcing her lockdown orders and muses (along with two prominent legislators) that her excellency is skating on thin legal ice.
If the people of Rhode Island are going to tolerate the queen’s destruction of our livelihoods as she attempts to contain outbreaks in our state, we ought to know why she can’t prevent them in her own inner circle.