WELL, GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Warm front, cold front... It can't make up its mind. The first started through last night, and it's bringing rain for a chunk of the day. This may fall at first as freezing rain in the coldest hollows, but the day starts above freezing and gets well into the 40s, so that won't last. Then we get the cold front, and with it, gusty winds. Rain should end mid-afternoon and temps will start dropping, though only into the low 30s overnight. Sunny tomorrow.Dartmouth goes online. "We have made the decision to move Dartmouth to a remote format for the first five weeks of spring term (until May 1)," President Phil Hanlon and Provost Joe Helble wrote in a letter to the campus community yesterday as its 4,400 undergrads finished exams and headed off for spring break. "Students who are currently out of town must not return to campus," they said, though grad students can remain. Faculty and staff will be paid as usual, and the college will decide by April 20 whether on-campus classes will or won't resume on May 4.Norwich Selectboard offers town manager 15-month contract. The move, announced at Wednesday's SB meeting, brings to an end an on-again-off-again drama that began in late January when the board voted not to enter talks with Herb Durfee about renewing his contract. The new contract comes with a "job performance improvement plan." As of yesterday morning, Durfee told the VN's Tim Camerato, he hadn't had a chance to read through the whole thing yet. Dan & Whit's reaches into the past and pulls out... delivery. "We are just re-establishing the service that was once common in the 1950’s," Dan Fraser announced on the Norwich listserv yesterday: The store will try out a delivery experiment for a month to homes within a five-mile radius, for a $10 fee (waived on orders over $75.00). Or you can just email in a grocery order, they'll prep it, and then you can drop by and pay. Meanwhile, West Leb Feed & Supply is offering curbside pickup, as well.What to do if you're worried about symptoms. DHMC yesterday noted that it's seeing more patients in its emergency room for COVID-19 screening and testing, but is asking people, if it's not an emergency, to work through their primary care provider. If you don't have one, call the New Hampshire Bureau of Infectious Disease Control at 603-271-4496 or the Vermont Department of Health at 802-863-7240. The VN's Anna Merriman runs down "How to respond if you're feeling sick."Looking straight down on the train bridge over the mouth of the Ompompanoosuc. William Daugherty was out flying his drone around where the Pompy and the Connecticut meet in Norwich, spending some quality time looking at the tracks, the water and then meandering upstream... Geisel lands $3 million grant to test new approaches to managing Type 1 diabetes. The money, from the NIH, will go to a team led by psychiatry prof Catherine Stanger. The idea is that while patients know how to monitor themselves, "many patients don’t make efficient or effective use of the data," Stanger says. “So, our approach is really designed to capitalize on those existing digital data and then help patients use those data to improve their self-management.” Her team will recruit 300 young adults, and study the effectiveness of a self-management smartphone app and coaching.“It’s not gone unnoticed in Canada and the rest of the world how far behind the U.S. is on testing.” That's Edward Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations, talking to VTDigger about travel across the northern border. There's huge uncertainty all around. US citizens flying in from Europe are being sent to 11 airports for screening — none of them in New England. Questions about how people coming in from Europe will be treated at land-border crossings are going unanswered. And though travel into Canada is smooth for the moment, that could change if there's evidence of a wide-scale US outbreak.NH Senate passes family/medical leave bill, sends it to guv for likely veto. The measure, already passed by the House, would take half a percent from payroll checks to establish a fund covering Granite Staters if they become sick or need to care for someone at home. It's similar to a measure passed last year that Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed. A Republican alternative backed by Sununu, which would put in place a voluntary plan using private insurance, has not advanced in the legislature. Public schools grapple with whether to close. VTDigger's Anne Wallace Allen looks at the tough questions that are going into school superintendents' decision-making. Unlike colleges, most aren't equipped to teach students online. Any decision they make will affect staff, parents, families, and employers throughout the district. There are plenty of kids who depend on school for breakfast and lunch. And, of course, the situation's changing by the hour.Blue jays are "forest engineers." The Vermont Center for Ecostudies' Kent McFarland and Sara Zahendra report in from Marsh-Billings, on a plot of land by a bunch of jays that have gathered to take advantage of the surfeit of acorns produced by oak trees' mast year. But the jays don't just feast on them. "They take these things and they plant a new forest somewhere," McFarland says. They're cacheing them, adds Zahendra, sometimes a long way from where they found them. Lots more at the link (no transcript: You'll need to listen).
News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
WELL, THIS IS AN INTERESTING STATE OF AFFAIRS...
Much of what I'd planned to highlight tonight — the Anonymous Coffeehouse, Montshire Unleashed, "Winter Moth" in S. Pomfret — has been cancelled. This is tough, but the emerging consensus is that drastic not-going-out-to-things is needed to help slow the coronavirus's spread."I am hoping you would consider putting some public health caveats in the events section of your newsletter," a reader with a background in infectious disease wrote yesterday. His advice bears repeating:
Don't go out if you are sick or have been in close contact with someone who is.
Wash/sanitize your hands often (and ideally not in public restrooms).
Avoid large crowds whenever possible.
If you are older or have underlying medical conditions, avoid non-essential public gatherings. (Thanks, LZ!)
There are still community events taking place, and if you're of a mind to support them, double-check before you go...
The ongoing plays, Citrus at Northern Stage and Hindsight is 20/20 at Parish Players.
Cry Havoc in Tracy Hall, Stephan Wolfert's one-person journey through Shakespeare's war veterans, cosponsored by the WRJ VA and Norwich University's Pegasus Players.
And The Insanity of Mary Girard at Thetford Academy, As You Like It at Woodstock Union HS, and the Mascoma Players' Grease.
Hmm. I need a distraction... Here's
and I, for one, am going to spend some time worrying about their violins.
Take care, and see you Monday.
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to hit the blue "Subscribe" button below. And thanks! And hey, if you're that friend? So nice to see you! You can subscribe at:
Thank you!