GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
That cold front's on its way, and should be out of our hair later this morning. Cloudy to start, slight chance of rain for a bit, but becoming mostly sunny by mid-morning. Highs in the high 70s today, but the front is dragging cooler air behind—down into the mid-50s tonight. Winds shifting this afternoon to come from the west.
And the numbers...
NH added 16 new positive test results yesterday, bringing its official total to 7,004. It reported no deaths, leaving that total at 423. There are now 6,302 official recoveries (90%), and 279 current cases. There are 5 active cases in Grafton County, 6 in Sullivan, and 11 in Merrimack (up 2). Hanover, Canaan, Grantham, Claremont, and Charlestown have between 1 and 4 active cases each.
VT reported 12 new cases yesterday, bringing its total to 1,527, with 126 of those still active. There were no new deaths, which remain at 58 total, and 3 people are hospitalized. Windsor County remains at 75 cumulative cases, while Orange County gained 1 case, and is now at 18 overall.
In case you've been wondering just what "recovered" means in NH... It does not mean that those 6,302 people are all in the pink of health now, as David Brooks points out on his Granite Geek blog. Some Covid patients, as you know, continue to suffer from heart damage, brain fog, and other long-term effects. The health department's definition is: “They have met the criteria for coming off of isolation and can go back out in public,” explains a spokesman. Windsor school board member steps down after errant comment. In a Zoom meeting last week, Mt. Ascutney School District board chair Elizabeth Burrows asked curriculum director Angie Ledoux a question from an audience member about teachers' readiness to return to school. Before Ledoux could reply, board member Beth Carter murmured, "Fucking teachers" under her breath—loudly enough to be caught on the video. An upset listener posted the recording to FB Saturday morning, and on Sunday, Carter resigned from the board. "The board obviously does not share Beth's sentiment or condone the way it was expressed," Burrows said via email.Upper Valley Anglers season ends abruptly—but not with a loss. The NH Covid Baseball League team, made up mostly of high school players from Hanover, Leb and KUA, had won the first of its championship games against the Dover Greentoppers, lost the second, and was slated to settle the question last night at Lebanon High. Instead, the game was canceled—for good—after the league learned a Dover player might have been exposed to someone who's tested positive for Covid-19. The teams will share the honors. (VN)NH broadband survey gets an earful from Upper Valley towns. The survey, which is being conducted by a rural internet consulting firm based in Maine together with the NH Dept of Business and Economic Affairs, is highlighting the problems caused by an infrastructure that is "failing to meet remote work and schooling needs during the pandemic," says NH Business Review. The "most vocal" participants so far are from N. Haverhill, Orford, Lebanon, and Lyme, along with a few other towns. A recent round of state broadband funding bypassed the Upper Valley altogether, though another is on tap.SPONSORED: Most Americans don't have a Will. Even though most know that they should. Join Everything In Order, the Upper Valley business that helps people create essential legal documents, for this week's free webinar on how to create a Will and other essential legal documents. It's this Thursday, August 20th, at 12pm. Sign up today! Sponsored by Everything in Order.Norwich working group takes flak for violating open meetings law. The issue involves one of the town's flashpoints: whether to bring sewer service to Norwich, especially to deal with issues besetting the Marion Cross School (and town) green. A three-member planning commission working group has been meeting to explore the matter, but Norwich Observer blogger Chris Katucki notes they have done so "without public notice, in a non-public setting, and with no meeting minutes." This runs counter to advice from the secy of state's office on open meetings law, Katucki writes, and to the town's own precedent. New local firm expects human trials of engineered Covid antibodies to begin late this year or early next. The company is Adagio Therapeutics, the latest venture by serial biotech entrepreneur Tillman Gerngross, the Thayer prof whose companies, including GlycoFi and Adimab, have reshaped the process for creating antibody proteins. Adagio has landed $50 million in venture funding to test antibodies engineered to protect against SARS-CoV-2 and, more broadly, against SARS-related coronaviruses that might break out in the future.No, your vision hasn't gone blurry, it's just purple lovegrass. Though as Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast points out, it's more pink than purple, and its blades are so tiny they appear "smoky." Also out in the woods this third week of August: the blue fruit of the pagoda dogwood, the striking old man of the woods mushroom, green frogs, white admirals, and, of course—because you've been hearing them for a while—katydids.NH has 110 contact tracers on the job (and other details from the trenches). "Governor Chris Sununu has described New Hampshire's contact tracing program as one of the best in the country. But the state hasn't shared many details on the program until now," reports NHPR's Annie Ropeik. She talks to Beth Daly, who runs the state's Bureau of Infectious Disease Control and fills her in. The tracers focus on finding infected people's contacts who have been "within 6 feet for more than 10 minutes - stricter than the CDC standard of 15 minutes." Lots more at the link.NH isn't home to many rattlesnakes these days. But it used to be. Writing in the Concord Monitor, David Brooks (again) talks to Franklin Pierce anthropology prof Robert Goodby, who excavated a pre-Contact Abenaki site on Wantastiquet Mountain, across the river from Brattleboro. In among the pottery, tools, and deer bones were about 20 Timber Rattlesnake vertebrae. There's some evidence they were used for ritual purposes. And as late as the 1800s, Goodby notes, rattlesnakes were hunted commercially in the area. "I love it here. But man, it can be - really I want to pull my hair out sometimes." That's Ash Diggs, one of the Black Vermonters who responded to VPR's Brave Little State as it explores a listener's question, "How can the state, both its government and its people, support Vermonters of color?" As always with BLS, it's impossible to summarize: The answers, experiences, and voices that Angela Evancie and her team weave together are reflective, funny, blunt, annoyed, and multi-textured. One big thing Vermonters can do? "Just believe the stories we tell you." Now 80 percent of VT prisoners in Mississippi facility test positive. Of the 219 inmates sent by Vermont to the Tallahatchie prison run by private contractor CoreCivic, 176 have tested positive, with more testing results due soon. One has been hospitalized, but most remain asymptomatic. At a press conference yesterday, interim corrections commissioner Jim Baker said that "his expectations around care for the inmates and confidence that CoreCivic can deliver on Vermont’s requests is wavering," writes VTDigger's Sawyer Loftus. Will VT's Covid refugees stay? "I guess they have to go through a winter here. That will be telling." Remember last week's item about the study of pandemic transplants to the state? In VTDigger's "Deeper Dig," Mike Dougherty and Anne Wallace Allen talk over the trends (realtors "are telling me that they truly have not seen this much traffic, and particularly this much traffic from urban areas, ever in their careers") and stories behind the study. One takeaway: It'll be things like shopping, decent childcare, vibrant communities—and, yeah, the weather—that make a difference to recent arrivals.“I’m going to put together the second amendment with healthcare. That’s right: guns and public safety. Boom. Best of both worlds!” In what has to be one of the more entertaining blends of political commentary and engineering geekery to come out of the pandemic, Allen Pan documents the steps he took to invent a gun that shoots face masks—then goes to try it out at Huntington Beach, which he says is "one of the most anti-mask cities in southern California." And yes, you sharp-eyed whizzes, his "trusty cameraman/girl Thea" is Hanover High and Circus Smirkus alum Thea Ulrich.News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
At 7 this evening, bestselling novelist Margot Livesey will be hosted online by the Norwich Bookstore, talking with Dartmouth philosophy prof Susan Brison about her new novel, The Boy in the Field. The book is about the discovery by three siblings of a bloodied, unconscious boy in a field near Oxford, England in the summer of 1999 and its aftermath. "Livesey’s writing is quiet, observant and beautifully efficient — there’s not an extra word or scene in the entire book — and yet simultaneously so cinematic, you can hear the orchestral soundtrack as you tear through the pages," wrote the NYT's reviewer last week.
At 7:30, Northern Stage's "Play Date" tackles Mfoniso Udofia's Sojourners, the "origin story" of her nine-part Ufot Cycle, a series of plays put on by the New York Theatre Workshop. The plays chronicle the experiences of Nigerian immigrants to this country through "the triumphs and losses" of one family. Udofia will be joined by Off-Broadway director Awoye Timpo. You'll need to register ((802) 296-7000) for the link to the event.
They're everywhere. As it happens, the New York Theatre Workshop is also front and center (virtually) at the Hop this evening at 8. They'll be presenting You Don't Know the Lonely One, a "collaborative portrait of aloneness in an ever-shifting world." Songs by David Cale and Matthew Dean Marsh, writtena and performed by Dael Orlandersmith and Cale using monologues, poems, stories and songs. You'll need to be in touch with the box office (chat window at lower right of the screen at the link or 603.646.2422) to get access.
Fingerprints look like ripplesbecause time keeps droppinganother stone into our palm.
— untitled poem by Bill Knott
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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!