Two Things: No stone unturned looking for possible reasons for murder; Cone Health exploring merger (2024)

Moist Monday. It is the heat. And the humidity.

Professor Tiffany Zhang was a little reluctant to talk a whole lot about her new research project.

Part of the reason, we’re certain, is that she’s still gathering information, and it’s way too soon to draw conclusions.

“I am encouraged that the data we have received warrants further investigation, but I need to run a logistic regression on what we have to isolate (as far as) other causal variables,” she wrote in email.

“I don’t have any conclusions to report yet, but if I have anything worth writing about I will notify you.”

Wait-and-see seems like a reasonable approach.

Still, even without sound scientific results, the idea for the project does bear mentioning: whether seasonal allergies— pollen— can cause the murder rate to spike.

You read that right.

It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes (or a basic law enforcement training certificate) to understand that atmospherics— hot, muggy weather, say— can play a role in the decision to kill.

(That and dope, intimate relationships gone wrong and streets awash in readily available firearms.)

Heat puts more people outdoors later in the night. Tempers fray, arguments break out and somebody winds up under a sheet.

And with murder rates being what they are— Winston-Salem and Forsyth County recorded a record 55 homicides in 2023, 47 in the city— it’d be near malpractice for scientists, criminologists and veteran crime fighters not to at least consider any and every possible reason for someone to go to the gun.

No matter how small or unorthodox.

“I am looking into homicide patterns and their relationship to pollen,” wrote Zhang, a professor of sociology and criminology at Salem College, from overseas. “I’m specifically investigating homicide numbers in the spring and fall. As you said, an expected violent crime rate spike is expected in the summertime due to the heat.”

She’s working with a researcher who created something called the OPALS allergen scale, which is used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American Lung Association to rate the likelihood that a plant will cause allergic reactions, to see whether that’s enough aggravation to push an agitated person over the edge.

Don’t laugh.

City cops, the brass at least, were intrigued enough to hear Zhang out when she sought access to basic data.

And why wouldn’t they?

The frustration felt by local investigators over increases in the number of killings in recent years is palpable.

A record 44 was recorded in Winston-Salem in 2021 and topped again with the 47 last year— 48 when an officer-involved shooting is counted. (Greensboro recorded 74 in 2023.)

Just last week, five men were shot to death in Winston city limits. Angelo Delacruz Calleja, 18, is the most recent; he died early Sunday morning in a shooting on Starlight Drive that left three others wounded.

Calleja’s death brought the year-to-date homicide tally to 18. That’s 10 fewer than at the same point in 2023, but 18 more than anybody ought to accept.

“We are saddened by this act of violence in our community and the violence that we’ve seen this past week,” Chief William Penn Jr. said in a prepared statement that accompanied an official account of a killing early Sunday morning. “We are asking our community to say something if they see something. We can work together to combat and proactively prevent violence.”

The man is not wrong.

And if that requires some serious out-of-the-box thinking— seasonal sneezing fits can be maddening— so be it.

The business of health care

GREENSBORO— Whether it's a merger, an acquisition or something else— there’s no telling when enormous not-for-profit health-care conglomerates are involved— word that Cone Health hopes to become part of Risant Health is worth noting.

If for no other reason than another venerable Triad medical institution appears to be getting swallowed whole.

For the second time in four years, Cone officials are trying to be acquired. This time by Risant, a nonprofit charitable group affiliated with California-based Kaiser Permanente aiming to go national.

(The previous toe-in-the-acquisition water involved a dalliance in 2021 with Sentara Healthcare in Virginia that went belly-up after 10 months of negotiations.)

Cone Health, if you’re keeping score or wondering, serves some 500,000 patients in the Triad, employs more than 13,000 people including 700 physicians and 1,800 partner-physicians.

Executives are taking a nothing-to-see-here approach. Naturally.

Cone CEO Dr. Mary Jo Cagle said patients “will see the same doctors, the same nurses and the same staff in the same locations they do today. We do not anticipate changes in the types of care we provide as a result of becoming part of Risant Health.”

“Anticipate” being the key word. Only time will tell.