Daybreak Wednesday 5/13/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Patience, patience... Last night's disturbance has exited stage east, leaving this morning's cold air behind. But we've got clear skies ahead, and temps should rise above 50 by about noon. It may get gusty this afternoon and with those mostly cloudless skies, lows tonight will drop back into the 30s until some actual warm air starts moving into the region tomorrow. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.Remember how cold and blowy it was on Sunday? Photographer Jim Block was over in Post Mills getting a tour of Crossroad Farm from co-owner Tim Taylor, and even though the birds were "hunkered down and scarce," he writes, he was able to photograph a bunch, including a Lincoln's sparrow, a very fetching blue jay, and a pair of brown thrashers. Also, there's something quite heartening about rows of early-spring lettuce...Meanwhile, the numbers keep coming.

NH among states meriting concern in unreleased White House task force report. On Monday, NBC News ran a story on a May 7 report produced by the White House's pandemic task force showing Covid cases rising, sometimes sharply, in heartland states and counties even as Pres. Trump insists the numbers are falling "almost everywhere." On page 3 of the report, nine states and DC are singled out as showing the highest week-to-week percentage increases, including Minnesota, Tennessee... and New Hampshire. The report was not released to the public. NH was ramping up testing at the time."You make money on volume. If you’re a business that needs lines to generate revenue, it’s tough to pull yourself out of a two-month hole.” That's Morgan Morano, talking to the Boston Globe about her decision to close her gelato shops in Hanover and Chestnut Hill. She tells the paper she expects more small businesses like hers will be closing. And that she has no intention of trying another similar venture. "Absolutely not. I’m not into being a small business owner. It’s extremely difficult. It can be fulfilling, but we’re all reminded of how fragile this industry is,” she says.Meanwhile, Piecemeal Pies' Justin Barrett pops up in The Washington Post. It's in a story on how the pandemic "is emerging as an existential threat to the nation's small businesses," with new economic research suggesting 100,000 of them have already closed for good. Barrett, who got a PPP loan, says it will run out by mid-June. “If restaurants are only allowed to open at half capacity, that is a nail in the coffin right there. Consecutive rounds of PPP should be considered for small businesses until there is a vaccine."D-H webinar today aimed at helping frontline workers cope. After offering advice to parents and to high school students, the hospital's series of webinars on "coping through Covid-19" turns to health care workers, first responders, and employees of essential businesses. The webinar starts at noon with Stephen Cole, who manages D-H's Employee Assistance Program, and Eve Zukowski, a clinical psychologist with the program. They'll be talking about and taking questions on everything from having adequate access to personal protective equipment, to avoiding burnout and managing anxiety.Hospital supply-swapping: DHMC and UVM are Exhibit A. AP medical writer Linda Johnson highlights a small group of online platforms that link hospitals in need of supplies or equipment with those that have extra. It turned out that last month, UVM Medical Center was short on face shields, but it had plenty of hand sanitizer thanks to local distilleries. And DHMC needed hand sanitizer at the time, but had enough face shields..."What is the smallest way you can talk about the biggest thing?" Had this been a different universe, artist and writer Christopher Myers would have been at the Hop a couple of weeks ago, along with actor and director Kaneza Schaal, presenting Cartography, their documentary play about young refugees. Instead, he and Schaal were in little Zoom squares talking to Northern Stage's youth actors about how to craft stories—using "small lenses" to capture big experiences—about the pandemic. The Hop's Ally Tufenkjian was there, too, and writes about what happened.How do you use UV light to disinfect equipment safely? It turns out that the youngest member of the International UV Association’s Covid-19 task force is a UNH grad student who's researching the topic only because the pandemic short-circuited her research into wastewater reuse. Working in her mom's basement, Castine Bernardy has been measuring and modeling germicidal UV doses on N95 masks and other PPE. And, says her adviser, getting "email thank-yous from medical professionals and staff across the U.S. who are taking her findings and putting them into use every day on the frontlines."NH restaurants mull the challenges of outdoor dining. As restaurants consider opening for more than takeout next week, the Granite State News Collaborative's Pat Grossmith reports that restaurateurs are navigating the ins and outs of permitting and inspections, figuring out where to put tables, and calculating whether it's worthwhile when at best they'll be at 50 percent capacity. “We just don’t know what the demand is going to be so it’s going to be a slow ramp-up over many months,” says Mike Somers, CEO of the state's Lodging and Restaurant Association.NH task force recommends reopening rules for hotels, gyms, outdoor attractions. The recommendations won't count until they're approved by public health officials and Gov. Chris Sununu, but they include limiting hotels to half their capacity (though not motels with outdoor access or inns/B&Bs with 10 rooms or fewer); outdoor attractions would likewise be limited to half-capacity (amusement parks will come later); and gyms as well—with the added restriction that they can't take in new members from out of state. Meanwhile, NH spending panel recommends priorities for recovery money. The legislative advisory board making recommendations for how to spend the state's $1.25 billion in federal aid approved some $345 million in spending on Monday, recommending $160 million for health care, $100 million for business relief, $30 million in grants to nonprofits, and $25 million to child care providers, as well as money for the NH Food Bank, farmers, and higher education. The final decision will be up to Sununu.In Vermont, Gov. Phil Scott plans to allow hotels and motels to reopen. VTDigger's Mark Johnson reports that Scott will announce the step on Friday. In an email sent to lodging owners yesterday, the state Agency of Commerce and Community Development said that starting May 22, they can take in guests from Vermont and  “non-residents who can verify they have met the 14-day quarantine requirement.” At today's press briefing, Johnson writes, "Officials are expected to be asked...about how the verification process would work."VT Foodbank and partners on pace to feed more than one-third of the state this year. If trends continue, 240,000 Vermonters will have turned to them, a mind-boggling number for a state of 624,000—though last year, Seven Days' Sally Pollak reports, 150,000 people sought food. Much of what's going out the door is MREs distributed by the National Guard. "When we have 600 cars showing up in Swanton to pick up MREs—which, let's face it, are not the tastiest meals you can imagine—we have a serious problem in Vermont that is not just because of the last few weeks of Covid-19," says Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont.“I don't know a teacher...who has not been up till 11 o'clock at night." Jennie Gartner, who teaches history at Rutland High School, is one of three high school teachers VPR's Nina Keck interviews to ask how it's going. The short answer: It's hard. Not only are teachers working longer hours—prepping lessons, dealing with remote technology, trying to connect with individual students, in addition to actually teaching and grading homework—but they're often juggling kids at home and worrying about their students.Health insurers seek rate increases. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont and MVP Healthcare have filed for 8.3 percent and 7.3 percent increases, respectively, with the Green Mountain Care Board. In a health landscape filled with unknowns, those requests represent their best estimates of what will be needed. At this point, warns board chair Kevin Mullen, "everything is speculative." So far, writes VTDigger's Katie Jickling, "insurance companies have saved money; they’re not spending the cash they’ve collected in premiums to pay hospitals."VT revenues fall dramatically. The state's Department of Administration announced April figures, which include a drop of $140 million coming into the general fund and of $7 millions from rooms and meals taxes. The state does expect to see some of that revenue shortfall made up when delayed tax payments arrive in coming months, though it's also projecting a $50 million hit to the general fund before the new fiscal year from lost economic activity.

K9 Blesk proves his mettle. The Belgian Malinois, originally from Slovakia, joined the Lebanon PD in 2018 (you can see pics here). On Saturday, police got a call from a hiker who'd headed up a trail from the Loop Road but had gotten lost. It was sleeting and 34 degrees out. Two officers found her car, and, based on the scent from the driver's side door, Blesk led them along several trails until they found her and led her out. Thetford residents express desire to stop tower, but the decision's not in their hands. Some 80 people turned out virtually for a Selectboard discussion Monday night on the 190-foot cellphone tower AT&T wants to build off Sawnee Bean Road. Many residents spoke out against the tower, the VN's Anna Merriman reports, but it's the state's Public Utilities Commission that has the ultimate say. One resident, Vermont Law School's Patrick Parenteau, argued the town needs to provide an alternative plan. “Focusing on what’s needed to support first responders is the right way to go. (The town) must have an alternative that at least meets that need,” he wrote in the chat feature.Census restarts push in Vermont, which has 5th lowest response rate in nation. It lags the national average by ten points, in part because a higher percentage of residents use PO boxes, and the forms have to be hand-delivered to their homes. Census workers stopped home delivery when things shut down for the pandemic. The state stands to lose federal funds if its residents are under-counted.Olive and Mabel are back, this time on Zoom. BBC sports commentator Andrew Cotter, who's been entertaining the world with play-by-plays of his dogs, has a Zoom meeting with them to discuss how things are going. "Mabel, you are connected, but you need to start your video. Down at the bottom of the screen there's a little camera, it looks like a biscuit, if you just nudge it with your nose..." (Thanks, DG!)

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"These virtual concerts makes every musician a soloist. This is truly a new art form created from necessity during the pandemic," writes a commenter on this performance of

performed by Norway's Arctic Philharmonic. It's true... and also quite beautiful. 

The cold weather's going away! See you tomorrow.

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