Then I updated, uninstalled, and reinstalled Visual Studio Code (the update didn't fix the problem, obviously reinstalling didn't either).
As you can imagine, this are not ideal working conditions! I called Apple Support last week and we ran several diagnostics and reinstalled the OS. Since the Catalina update in May, whenever I'm using Visual Studio Code for an extended period of time, upon saving my work my laptop crashes, saying there has been an error.