Daybreak Tuesday 3/17/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Hey! Weather gods! We need to get out and walk around here! There's an upper-level disturbance and hanger-on cold front coming through today. Fortunately, they're moving fast. A chance of snow showers this morning, transitioning to a chance of rain showers in the late morning as temps rise. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, but the high should be in the high 40s by late afternoon. Temps back into the high 20s overnight.Today's Lucky's last day "until it's safe." In a Facebook post yesterday evening, owner Deb Shinnlinger announced that the Lebanon café will open its walk-up window at 7 this morning and close once it's sold out of all its perishables. "Here’s what that means...we are selling our stores of coffee beans, breakfast sandwiches (on biscuits), baked goods, flats of eggs, 16oz bag of coffee beans for $16. We will be serving drip coffee and espresso drinks until we run out as well." She'll be paying employees until she can re-open. Dartmouth grad student tests positive. "The disease has now been found in the Dartmouth community," Provost Joe Helble wrote in an email last night. "The transmission path of this latest case is following the expected trajectory of the disease, with more members of our community expected to become infected over time." The student is one of three who live off-campus who've been tested; all three are self-isolated.VT seeing signs of person-to-person spread. The state logged four new cases yesterday, for a total of 12 confirmed, the VN reports. They include one in Orange County, who is self-isolating. Gov. Phil Scott said he hoped people considering fleeing to Vermont would “rethink their strategy,” but added, “We’re not going to turn people away." Meanwhile, area towns are building volunteer networks. In Newbury, the town is building a phone tree so volunteers can keep tabs on seniors, writes the VN's Liz Sauchelli. In Bradford, scores of volunteers have signed up, and community organizers will be meeting (virtually) tomorrow to begin figuring out how to deploy them. There are similar efforts in Woodstock, Bethel, S. Royalton... Sununu orders NH restaurants to switch to take-out, delivery, or drive-thru only. The move took effect at midnight last night. This comes as the state reported four new positives, including two in Grafton County. In a news release yesterday afternoon, Sununu said, "This will be hard, but we are all in this together. Service industry employees affected by this temporary change will be able to qualify for unemployment benefits effective immediately tomorrow, where we will announce steps and set up a hotline and website for any worker adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.”VT's Phil Scott followed suit not long after, ordering bars and restaurants to close at 2 pm today for on-site dining. They can still offer takeout and delivery. The order's in effect for at least the next three weeks."OK Upper Valley peeps..." That's Julia Griffin, Hanover's town manager, noting that the restaurant bans do not extend to takeout. "Our Town of Hanover staff members are working with Downtown Hanover restaurants to enable easier take-out and curbside service. We even hooded parking meters in front of restaurants for ‘grab and go’ stops by take out customers." SPONSORED: A Message from Everything in Order. The mission of Everything in Order, a company started by UV local Allegra Lubrano, is to make it easy and inexpensive to create legal documents every adult should have in place to protect themselves and the people they love. We want to offer our services for free today (March 17th). At this time of uncertainty, everyone should be able to create these essential legal documents. We ask only that you complete a survey to be emailed to you after completing your online documents. Use the code FREETODAY at checkout. After today we will offer Daybreak readers 20% off using the code DAYBREAK. Sponsored by Everything in Order.Chromebook handouts, remote learning plans, free lunches — Upper Valley school districts prep. Their approaches and the specific issues they face differ, writes the VN's Sarah Earle, but they're all trying to figure out how to keep kids learning. Bethel/Royalton is offering flexible plans for students. Hartford's Dothan Brook is more structured, with classes in literacy,  math, world language, art, music and phys ed starting next week. Districts are also working out plans for delivering bagged lunches to kids who need them.So, you're a teacher trying to help elementary students learn at a distance. What do you do? NHPR's Sarah Gibson talks to a couple of fourth-grade teachers and a second-grade teacher as they try to sort through their options. Hand-delivering paper, pencils, and readings (so that kids don't spend all day on their computers)? Read Matilda via video? “Everybody is in a panic state, trying to get education across and get our job done and help families," says one.VT dentists asked to put off non-urgent care. The state dental society has asked all practices to stop seeing patients for anything that's not essential over the next two weeks.Meanwhile, utilities suspend past-due collections efforts until the end of April. GMP, Vermont Gas, and Vermont Electric Cooperative will stop disconnecting customers for non-payment, and also won't send collections agencies after them. "We recognize the financial hardship some customers may face due to the outbreak," GMP said in a tweet. But don't get your hopes up: You'll still be getting your bills as normal.Too bad we don't live farther north. Green Mountain Distillers in Morrisville, VT, has just produced batches of high-proof alcohol for hand sanitizer, and Smugglers Notch Distillery is headed there. You can pick up GMD's now, and SND's will be available in its tasting rooms (why does that somehow seem all wrong?) in Jeffersonville and Waterbury soon.Meanwhile, way down south, AT thru-hikers are getting ready to start... And not just the AT. Hikers, communities, local hosts and others along the AT, Pacific Crest Trail and Continental Divide Trail are all wrestling with how to handle this. Will hikers be able to stock up along the way? Will they carry the coronavirus from town to town? The Continental Divide Coalition has asked hikers to stay home. “We are thinking of the fact that many trailside communities along the CDT are small and isolated, and may be hours away from the closest covid-19 testing center or, more importantly, the closest hospital equipped to treat patients in severe respiratory distress," they wrote. Hartford police bust suspected meth lab at Route 5 motel. I know, doesn't this feel like relief? Guests at the 5 South Motel, south of WRJ, reported smelling chemicals coming from one of the rooms. Police got a search warrant, and found a “man with a makeshift methamphetamine lab and chemicals commonly used in the manufacturing process in the room,” according to Chief Phil Kasten. The incident is still under investigation. (VN)Amidst all this, there may be hope on Lyme disease. On his Granite Geek blog, David Brooks notes that Stanford researchers have found that the drug azlocillin "completely kills off the disease-causing bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi at the onset of the illness." The study has only been done in petri dishes and lab rats, and often those don't translate to humans. But if this one does, it would be aimed at the roughly 20 percent of patients for whom standard antibiotics don't work."Coyotes follow deer all winter but seem to gain an advantage in late winter." That's when deer are at their weakest and tend to congregate on open ground, says Dave Anderson, education director for the Society for the Preservation on NH Forests. Writing in the Union Leader, he notes that when coyotes do take down a deer, the carcass "rarely lasts a full week." There are bobcats, fishers, raccoons — and all sorts of birds. "I’ve seen photos of everything from chickadees through blue jays and starlings, up to red-tail hawks and rarely a golden eagle," says an Audubon biologist. “I’m not trying to paint Vermont. I’m painting paintings, and it turns out people think they look like Vermont.” That was widely loved artist Wolf Kahn, who died on Sunday at age 92. Kahn spent each summer and fall in Brattleboro starting in 1968, and once recalled how the local paper introduced him to his neighbors. "The first question was, ‘How many paintings do you do a year?’ I said maybe 100. The second was, ‘How much do you charge?’ I said a couple of hundred bucks. The next time I had to have my barn re-shingled, all of a sudden the price went up.”And for a little perspective... Thank goodness for drone artist Willam Daugherty. High above Blow-Me-Down Brook in Plainfield, end-of-winter clearly visible, the bare trees and the conifers and the labyrinthine brook and the remains of snow all like a muted symphony of color. 

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