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Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2
This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (round gold particles) emerging from the surface of a cell cultured in the lab. SARS-CoV-2, also known as 2019-nCoV, is the virus that causes COVID-19. Image captured and colorized at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. Credit: NIAID
An analysis of federal and Virginia worker safety records by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism found a dramatic increase in workforce complaints, coupled with a steep decline in inspections since the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020.
Workers and a federal watchdog say the lack of adequate oversight has left employees in front-line jobs at a higher risk for infection. The virus has taken the lives of more than 11,600 Virginians.
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Arlington Public Schools (APS) provides Grab-and-Go Meals during the COVID-19 closure at Kenmore Middle School. Frontline workers who contracted Covid at work may struggle for compensation. USDA photo by Tom Witham
Gov. Ralph Northam last month signed two bills into law that will make it easier for some frontline workers who become sick with the coronavirus to collect workers’ compensation benefits. The new laws create a presumption that medical personnel, law enforcement officers and firefighters sickened with Covid-19 acquired the disease at work, making them more likely to be covered for lost wages and health care costs.
But these measures leave tens of thousands of low-paid frontline workers without favorable recourse: Cleaners, grocery workers, home health aides, meat and poultry workers.
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Cassie Gilboy, a first grade teacher at Broad Rock Elementary in Richmond, is concerned about returning to in-person instruction. Photo by Scott Elmquist
A year into the Covid pandemic, educators and lawmakers across Virginia are still grappling with how to provide a safe, stable and enriching in-person instruction for 1.2 million public school students. Some families worry about the long-term consequences caused by a year of spotty, virtual learning. Others feel safer to ride out the pandemic and school year at home, concerned whether schools can keep their children free from the virus.
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Laura Beth Weaver is the executive director of the Women’s Resource Center in Radford. The center provided services to over 4,000 people last year, a rise of about 12% over 2019. Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis
Laura Beth Weaver began working at the Women’s Resource Center in Radford, Va. in 2011 and was promoted to director in 2019. The non-profit center has been providing shelter, counseling and programs to adult and child victims of sexual and domestic violence since 1977.
On March 10th, Weaver was a new director finishing up a strategic planning retreat with her staff and their executive board. They left excited about all the things they planned to accomplish in 2020. On March 11th, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic.
Immediately, Weaver decided she couldn’t allow her community to feel like they had to choose between staying at home in an abusive relationship or reaching out for services and shelter during the health crisis.
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David Braxton, 45, has spent nearly half his life behind bars in Virginia prisons. The Covid-19 pandemic has added another threat to the state's overcrowded prison system, with more than 5,000 prisoners testing positive for the virus. Braxton, at Augusta Correctional Center, says the crisis has put inmates on edge.
(photo courtesy of Donna Braxton)
David Braxton, 45, has spent nearly half his life behind bars in Virginia prisons. The Covid-19 pandemic has added another threat to the state's overcrowded prison system, with more than 5,000 prisoners testing positive for the virus. Braxton, at Augusta Correctional Center, says the crisis has put inmates on edge.
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Migrant farm workers on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, harvest tomatoes earlier this summer.
photo courtesy of farm worker
Gaps in farmworker protections elevate covid risks for Virginia’s migrant workers.
More than 10,000 migrant farmers travelled to Virginia this year during the deadly pandemic to plant and harvest crops at more than 250 Virginia farms and orchards, according to the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC). Despite the health crisis, the influx of migrants this year changed little from previous harvests, according to VEC estimates.
The immigrant workers -- overwhelmingly Latino -- drive one of the commonwealth’s key industries. Now, they face some of the greatest risks of covid infection through crowded work and living conditions.
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Eliana Nachman, 18, at her home in Henrico. Nachman is starting her freshmen year at Mary Washington University -- but she doesn't think the experience will be the same without in-person classes and living on campus.
Eliana Nachman, 18, is a recent graduate of Hermitage High School in Henrico, VA, and has been accepted to Mary Washington University this fall, where classes start on Aug. 24.
The university initially planned a hybrid of online and in-person instruction to minimize the risk of spreading the coronavirus. But as infections grew, the university announced on Aug. 13 that classes would be entirely online until at least mid-September.
The pandemic has upended a year full of promise for Nachman and her friends: “I was hoping it would kind of be all wrapped up by August. I guess I was just being naive.”
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Main Street in Hot Springs, Virginia, sits nearly empty on a Friday afternoon in late June—ordinarily the town's busy season.
The coronavirus paradox of rural Virginia — Bath County has no confirmed COVID-19 cases, yet the unemployment rate soared to a state-high 20.5% in April, before dropping back to 15.8% in May. State-ordered pandemic restrictions have stirred community tensions in a region already burdened with decades of job losses and population decline.
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Austin Sweigart, an event planner for the LGBTQ+ community who uses they and them pronouns, says that they had trouble getting mental health counseling and medical treatment during the pandemic. They are not alone. Public and private mental health care providers in Virginia say they have been forced to change not only the ways they offer certain services to patients but also whether they offer them at all. Photographs by Christopher Tyree // VCIJ
Public and private mental health care providers in Virginia say they have been forced to change not only the ways they offer certain services to patients, but also whether they offer them at all. The virus has upended care across state facilities, which serve more than 200,000 Virginians every year
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Illustrations by Julie M. Elman
Virginia school administrators say they are struggling to provide mental health services during the coronavirus pandemic, even as vulnerable students continue with online studies away from regular counseling and support.
As school systems move to virtual learning, school counseling resources, deemed critical to student wellness by the U.S. Department of Education, are unable to provide in-person therapy for high-risk students. The alternative treatments -- online sessions or new therapists from community services boards -- could fall short in continuing care and supporting students during the pandemic, mental health professionals say.