WELL, WHAT A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!
Just be patient... Yesterday's low pressure system is taking its sweet time moving off, so we may see showers lingering into the afternoon today. Even when they end, it'll be cloudy, winds from the northeast bring in dry air. Clouds will clear fastest to the north, which may actually get some sun. Around here, highs either side of 50; cooler the farther south you go. Down into the 30s tonight, but above freezing. And hey! Maybe some sun tomorrow. Hooded mergansers taking off, wood ducks squabbling, a bald eagle soaring... Jim Block is a professional photographer in Etna. On Wednesday he got out on his bike to do the "five and dime" loop (up 10 from Hanover to Lyme, back on 5 from Thetford to Norwich) and along the way managed to catch an incredible set of duck and eagle photos on and above the river. Go linger a little.And well, okay, here we are...
NH is up to 479 confirmed cases, 64 more than yesterday, with 73 hospitalized and 5 deaths. Grafton and Sullivan counties each logged one new case, bringing the total to 38 in Grafton and 5 in Sullivan. The towns remain as they've been, except that Newport and Franconia now have cases.
VT's at 338 confirmed cases, 17 more than yesterday, with 29 hospitalized patients and 17 deaths. Windsor County's now at 20 cases (up 2), Orange remains at 4.
If it feels like VT's curve is flattening, it seems to be. You can see the effects of social distancing on the chart at the link (use Chrome; it seems to have some problems with Safari). It will default to the international scene, but choose the state option, and check the "prevalence" option, which lets you see cases per 100,000 people. The county option is interesting, too: Among other things, it shows Windsor County was on a similar trajectory as Chittenden early on, but then dropped sharply. Grafton doesn't show the same drop, but it's flattened. Note: there's still a long way to go (see below). (Thanks, BB!)VT modeling expects cases to peak in mid-April, medical resources adequate if people stay home and there's no surge. At a press conference yesterday, state officials noted that through March 26, the state was doubling the number of infected people (that it knew about) every 3 days, and ranked 13th in the nation. Now cases are doubling every 5.5 days, and the state ranks 46th. Their projections suggest VT will "most likely need 521 beds by mid-April; the state has more than 600 available beds and is setting up nearly 1,000 more at medical surge sites," Seven Days' Courtney Lamdin reports.There's also this interesting set of county graphs. It's updated daily, and pulls together Covid case data with medical-capacity and what you might think of as "social capacity" data (demographics, insurance coverage, at-risk populations). It defaults to Abbeville County, SC, but just choose the county that interests you over at the right. (Thanks, NL!)Local police report crime down. Over the past two weeks, Hartford police received 132 calls, compared to 211 during the same two-week period in 2019, the VN's Anna Merriman writes. “As people have begun to police themselves, we’re seeing fewer calls regarding altercations, disputes, disturbances and even people in crisis,” Chief Phil Kasten says. Leb Chief Richard Mello is seeing a similar pattern. However, Merriman reports, police and prosecutors are worried about domestic abuse the longer people are isolated. Oh gosh, Pine! Several alert Daybreak readers wrote in yesterday to note that the while The Dartmouth's Hanover roundup said Pine was closed, it was actually open. Which it was. Yesterday. Turns out The Dartmouth was just ahead of itself by a day. As I was prepping a correction yesterday evening, restaurant manager Ryan Anglin messaged to say, "I didn’t get the information till this afternoon that Pine will be closing as of tonight."Nellie Smith, who owns Canaan's Red Wagon Bakery, is an internet star. She's just appeared on "Skimm Stories," the video arm of the wildly successful national early-morning newsletter. Red Wagon's 1-year anniversary was March 15, the day Gov. Sununu closed sit-down restaurant service. Smith closed the bakery, but at a patron's suggestion set up what she calls a CSB — a community-supported bakery, asking people to pay ahead of time for five weeks of baked goods. "For right now," she says, "this is getting us through the next five weeks." Dartmouth limits staff on campus, will continue to pay base rate, benefits. The Dartmouth reports that in an arrangement with Local 560 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents the college's hourly employees, on-campus workers will get time-and-a-half, while the vast majority of the work force will continue to get base pay, health care and benefits, and retirement, at least through the spring term. Carpenters, painters, and most custodians are staying home. "We are trying to limit the number of people that need to interact with one another,” says Frank Roberts, associate VP for facilities operation management."We're 'pandemic fine.'" That's DHMC's Lisa Adams, who co-chairs the college's coronavirus task force along with Josh Keniston, interim VP of college services. The Dartmouth Alumni Mag's Sean Plottner sat down with them via Zoom to talk over the task force's approach, how the college community has responded, what the early days were like, and more.If you're going out for a hike, have a Plan A, B, and C. That was the Upper Valley Trails Alliance's Russ Hirschler on NHPR's "The Exchange" yesterday, giving tips for getting outside while social distancing. If you pull up to a trailhead and it's crowded, he said, head to your second choice, etc. Hirschler, the National Park Service's Lelia Mellen, DHMC's Lisa Adams... It's filled with practical advice, and well worth a listen. One place you won't be going is Tuckerman Ravine. The US Forest Service has closed all of its lands in the Cutler River Drainage in the Whites, which means Tuckerman's, Hillman’s Highway, Huntington Ravine, and the Gulf of Slides. They'll be enforcing with fines and, they say, possible jail terms. You definitely want to have a Plan B.Also, if you're thinking of heading uphill at any ski area in Vermont, think twice. It's not just that the areas themselves are closed — that means lodges, rest rooms, grooming, ski patrol and emergency services — but many of them have closed down skinning routes and backcountry areas. Details at the bottom of the link.Guess what else is taking a big hit: the NH Lottery. It was expected to generate $100 million for the state education fund in fiscal year 2020. Now? No one knows how deep the drop will be, but with restaurants, sports bars — heck, and sports itself — shut down and convenience and liquor stores limiting hours, it won't be minor. But the Lottery Commission is ever hopeful. On its website, says NH Business Review, it "reminds consumers that if they have ordered food from a restaurant with a Keno kiosk, they may be able to play while waiting for their order."VT Senate committee "Zoombombed." Because of the way Zoom is constructed, it's pretty easy for nogoodniks to join a public meeting and disrupt it completely (more on this below). That's what happened yesterday. The Senate Agriculture Committee was about 50 minutes into its meeting when several people interrupted it with obscenities and explicit porn. Legislators scrambled to get off. “It was some kid. You could see his face,” one said. “We’re dealing with a worldwide pandemic and now this bullshit.” The problem? One senator mistakenly shared the participant link on Twitter.VT Labor Department struggles to deal with unemployment claims. In the past two weeks it's gotten 40-50,000 claims, which is about what it gets in a year. Its mainframe is 30 years old, interim commissioner Michael Harrington told reporters yesterday, and is being pushed "to the max." In addition, he said, "we have reassigned people from other units, we have opened up additional phone lines, but I know that even to this day people will call our claim center and are unable to get through." Okay, not VT or NH, but you've gotta love this. In Caribou, Maine, where there's still snow on the ground, Circle K clerk Hannah Lucas is delivering groceries to home-bound seniors by dog sled. She moved there from Virginia to be a musher, and is definitely making good. "I think about my grandparents who are in their 70's and I wouldn't want anything to happen to anyone," she says. "So anything I can do to help, I will."Geo Honigford gets a "Corona cut." In ordinary times, about a month from now people would be crowded around his Hurricane Flats stall at the Norwich Farmers Market. That's unlikely to happen, but you can see what the affable South Royalton farmer has been up to in this video. "I'm a very social person," he says, sitting at his kitchen table with a knit cap on. "I need extra motivation to stay away from people. So that's why I went with the..." — hat off with a flourish — "Corona cut!" Yeah, Geo, that just may work. (Thanks, VC!)
Eastman has a new CEO and general manager. Steve Schneider is stepping down from the Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission at the end of this month to take the reins at the sprawling residential community. “Eastman, as a community, has many of the same things that a small municipality will have in terms of public utilities, parks and rec and behind the scenes collections and billing,” Schneider, who also served as Enfield's town manager for 11 years, tells the VN's Tim Camerato. “The only new adventure for me is that Eastman does have its own restaurant. I don’t know of a municipality that has one of those.”Vermont has a new cartoonist laureate. Rick Veitch took over from Alison Bechdel yesterday (who, in turn, followed Ed Koren and James Kochalka). The post is honorary — "concocted," Veitch says, by the Center for Cartoon Studies. In an email to Seven Days, CCS co-founder James Sturm wrote, "With his roots in underground comics, Rick has forged a singular career that includes groundbreaking genre work for the big superhero companies, his own creator-owned graphic novels, educational comics, and explorations into the subconscious that would make the great Winsor McCay (Little Nemo) proud."And Phish has a new album. But if you're a Phish fan, you already knew that. The release took two days: They announced it Tuesday night, held a listening party Wednesday night via YouTube and Facebook Live, and released it yesterday morning. "When we recorded the album, we didn't plan to release it this way," they wrote in their release notes. "But today, because of the environment we're all in, it just feels right. We don't know the next time that we're all going to be able to be together."
News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
UVTogether
Staying Sane
Today at 12:30, you could join VINS on Facebook Live for an encounter with their reptiles and amphibians —a chance to learn about their histories, the different species, and get those burning questions answered.
And tonight at 7, the Vermont Humanities Council presents poet Richard Blanco reading from his recent collection, How to Love a Country, exploring immigration, gun violence, racism, LGBTQ issues, and more. Also on Facebook.
In a different universe, you might be down in WRJ for First Friday. But since you can't be, Kim Souza's holding a virtual wine-tasting and mannequin fashion show at Revolution.
If you're looking for more local entertainment over the next few days, check out Junction Magazine's calendar.
Or check out Seven Days' list of ongoing and upcoming concerts.
On the other hand, if you don't need to be local, it turns out that Audible is streaming, for free, Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (the first in the series, which in the US became the "Sorcerer's Stone" because we apparently have no truck with philosophers). You're all set for 9 1/2 hours! (Thanks, LM!)
Or you may know that the Getty Museum in LA suggested that people use stuff at home to re-create famous paintings, and send in the results. Here's a promise: You will laugh. (Thanks, AS!)
Helping Out
Like a lot of small business owners, Greg Nalette, who owns Hartford-based Grandstand Apparel, is trying to figure out how to say afloat. His company makes t-shirts with logos and other designs on them, and he's come up with a cool idea: Buy a "Here for Good" t-shirt for $20, and $10 of that will go to the small business of your choice.
Vital Communities is up with a helpful page of resources, ranging from mutual aid organizations throughout the Upper Valley and beyond, to funding opportunities, to small-business loan resources.
And the Norwich Farmers Market has a list of contact information for all its vendors (albeit with some formatting problems), so that you can check in to see if there are ways you can still get their produce, meat, prepared foods, or crafts.
Reading Deeper
The NYT went up yesterday with an interesting and alarming map using cellphone tracking data to show that while the West Coast, Midwest, and Northeast mostly has been staying home, large swaths of the country have not. The reporting team writes, "Higher levels of travel suggest more contact with others and more chances to spread or contract the disease, researchers said. Counties with lax travel policies risk not only becoming the next hot spots of the disease, but also acting as reservoirs for the virus that reignite infection in places that have tamped it down, they said."
On Wednesday night, Zoom's CEO released a statement saying that after getting hammered by investigative reports, the company will pause all development of new features and focus entirely on fixing security and privacy issues. Here's a recap of everything that's been going wrong, on recode. And here's a set of instructions on how to reduce the risks (thanks, KH!) while Zoom's working on fixes. Though you do have to feel for Zoom: They've gone from an average of 10 million daily users to 200 million daily users, almost overnight.
Finally, with the White House publicly pondering advice that all Americans wear face coverings while they're out and about, this article in The Atlantic is a really good recap of why the debate exists: It goes in depth into what's known about airborne virus particles, whether it's safe to go outside (yes, but don't get too close to others), and why the question of wearing masks isn't the slam dunk you think it is, though there's evidence that, if worn and handled properly, they help keep viruses from getting out: In other words, people who are infectious without knowing it wouldn't be as dangerous.
Thoughts and Comment
"A friend sent this yesterday," SS writes: "Kinda feelin' like the Earth sent us to our room to think about what we've done...."
Whew! Hello, weekend... Let's head into it peacefully:
"Down to the River to Pray," done by a virtual choir a couple of years ago, but with special resonance now.
And Yo-Yo Ma, solo, quarantined, offering "Going Home" from Dvořák's New World Symphony. (Thanks, DG!)
See you Monday.
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