By Holly Ramer and Wilson Ring
Associated Press
Here are the latest developments concerning the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic throughout New England:
New Hampshire
Gov. Chris Sununu signed a bill Friday to streamline absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic but vetoed other measures aimed at helping workers, children and nursing home residents.
While the attorney general’s office already had said voters concerned about the virus could cast absentee ballots this fall by indicating they have a “disability,” the new law creates a box to check that specifies the virus as the reason for not voting in person. Voters also will be able to use one application to receive absentee ballots for both the Sept. 8 state primary and Nov. 3 general election, and town officials will be able to begin processing ballots several days before the election.
Sununu rejected two other bills, calling the one related to nursing homes and child care well-intentioned but redundant. The bill would have allocated $25 million in federal funding for long-term care facilities and $10 million for child care. But Sununu said $30 million already has been earmarked for long-term care, with additional money going to weekly stipends for workers. Another $25 million has gone to child care centers, though not to the scholarship program for low-income families that the bill would have funded.
Democrats criticized the veto, noting that the bill also would have created an independent review of long-term care facilities.
“These facilities need and deserve more support than they have received to date,” Rep. Lucy Weber, chair of the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee, said in a statement.
Sununu’s second veto message was harsher, calling the worker protection measure “a terribly written and poorly thought out bill that puts New Hampshire citizens at risk.”
The bill would have provided unpaid leave for those affected by the virus and waived insurance cost-sharing for testing and treatment of COVID-19. It also would have provided personal protective equipment to small businesses and used federal money to upgrade the state’s unemployment system computers. But it was the provisions related to unemployment benefits, including permanently waiving eligibility requirements for those citing the virus as a reason, that Sununu found particularly problematic. He said the provisions would have left the state out of compliance with federal law and jeopardized $30 million in federal funding.
“Our job is to open doors of opportunity in times of need, not cut off federal support when families are struggling,” he said in his veto message.
Supporters of the bill noted that it contained a clause that would have eliminated those provisions if the federal government found the state out of compliance. Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes, D-Concord, called the veto an attack on small businesses, worker safety and public health.
“Sununu continues to sweep our broken unemployment insurance system under the rug, opposes testing and health care for those impacted by COVID-19, and refuses to advance worker safety, including free PPE for small businesses,” he said in a statement.
Substance abuse treatment: At least six substance abuse recovery homes have closed in New Hampshire since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the state’s Democratic Congressional delegation.
U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and U.S. Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas wrote to Congressional leaders Friday seeking increased funding for substance use disorder prevention, treatment and recovery programs in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
They said while drug overdose deaths were trending down in New Hampshire before the pandemic, preliminary data suggests an increase over the last few months. And while providers have been innovative in meeting the challenges posed by the pandemic, they are struggling financially, the group wrote.
“As COVID-19 strains both people and providers, it has become more critical than ever that Congress provide substantial funding for substance use disorder efforts,” they wrote. “Congress must continue to play a role in supporting communities devastated by COVID-19 and the substance misuse crisis.”
The earlier round of federal coronavirus aid included $425 million for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
UNH sports: University of New Hampshire athletes won’t be competing this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The university’s athletic department said Friday that no sports teams will compete in the upcoming semester. The announcement applies to men’s cross country, men’s soccer, football, women’s cross country, field hockey, women’s soccer and women’s volleyball.
Officials said once classes start and safety protocols are in place, athletes will be allowed to practice and work out. The university also has canceled homecoming weekend and its family weekend in October.
Decisions about winter sports will be made in early fall.
The numbers: As of Friday, 6,165 people had tested positive for the virus in New Hampshire, an increase of 21 from the previous day. The number of deaths stood at 395. The number of infections is thought to be far higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected with the virus without feeling sick.
For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause more severe illness and can lead to death.
Vermont
On an idyllic summer evening not far from the shore of Lake Champlain, the immortal words of William Shakespeare float from a lush backyard, professionally performed — for an audience of six.
Jena Necrason of the Vermont Shakespeare Festival throws herself into the role of Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” lamenting the vagaries of the heart. Her husband John Nagle follows, performing Jaques’ famous soliloquy from “As You Like It”: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”
Shakespeare came to this audience — a Burlington couple, their son and three of his middle-school aged friends who took a break from bicycling — through a program established after COVID-19 forced the festival to cancel its summer season.
So far Necrason, Nagle and about a dozen other actors have performed about 30 times, sometimes in backyards (safely socially distanced from their audiences), via Zoom or even on the phone. It’s free of charge.
“Instead of having to retreat and say ‘well, we have to wait, there’s nothing we can do right now except things that are virtual or online,’ we wanted to find a way to actually continue to play live,” Necrason said after the recent Burlington performance. “Theater is always an ignition point for conversation, dialogue, connection, joy, problem solving and hope.”
Originally, the festival had planned to present “The Merry Wives of Windsor” as its summer 2020 production. The actors were preparing for rehearsals, the performances had been scheduled and the venues chosen. But then, the virus swept across the world.
Festival officials pushed “Merry Wives” to 2021, but they wanted to find a way to give to the community, especially in uncertain times. Their solution: Shakespeare to You, also known as Bard to Your Yard.
“The idea is just a single person going up to a yard and ringing the doorbell, wearing a mask, stepping back, at least 6-feet apart, delivering a live Shakespeare monologue or sonnet as a way of connecting in a real, face-to-face, live way,” Nagle said.
To order up a performance, aspiring audiences go to the Vermont Shakespeare website and choose from among a dozen Shakespeare selections. They might choose Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech, or the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet” (“But soft, what light from yonder window breaks”) or Cassius’ lines in “Julius Caesar”: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves.”
A friend ordered up the performance for Jen and Jean Andre DeBedout, which they held in the backyard of their Burlington home. They watched from the deck as Necrason and Nagle gave their brief performances; the actors don’t wear costumes aside from the Elizabethan ruffs on their necks.
“I loved the way that it was performed, I loved the pieces that they picked, actually,” said Jean Andre DeBedout. “It expressed a little bit of the humor of Shakespeare as well as some of the serious notes that you get in there as well.”
Timothy Billings, an English professor and Shakespeare expert at Middlebury College, said the program was reminiscent of how early performers of Shakespeare would travel throughout England when the plague was hitting London.
“Obviously it’s very different in all sorts of ways, but I like that there’s this, kind of, historical echo of what happened in (Shakespeare’s) own time,” Billings said.
School reopening: Vermont schools should be able to reopen safely this fall with at least part-time, in-person, learning, but school will not be the way it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Phil Scott said Friday.
Speaking at his regular virus briefing, Scott and health experts said Vermont currently has a low rate of infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 and studies across the world show that children in schools have not been major sources of infections.
“We know we cannot completely shut down while we wait for a vaccine,” Scott said. “We’ve had success with a cautious reopening so far and if we are going to do our best we possibly can for kids, it’s vitally important, based on recommendations from health experts and where we are with the virus today to reopen our schools.”
Dr. William Raszka, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Vermont Medical Center, said at the event that even if children become infected, they are less likely to develop severe disease and less likely to transmit the virus.
He also highlighted studies from across the world that found schools are not significant sources of infection.
Scott said Vermont’s plans could change depending on the progress of the virus.
The current plan for school reopening includes a combination of in-school and continued remote learning. The plans also call for regular health screenings and temperature checks for students and staff entering schools and facial coverings to minimize the risk of transmission of the virus.
Possible Manchester outbreak: Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said experts were continuing to monitor a possible outbreak in the Manchester area that followed 59 people who tested positive for the virus after taking a type of test not considered to be as accurate as that used by the Health Department.
The Health Department has completed retesting 17 of the 59 individuals and two of those tests came back as confirmed cases of the virus that causes COVID-19.
After the 59 cases were reported, the Health Department and the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center from Bennington opened pop-up testing sites beginning Wednesday in Londonderry and Manchester for members of the community to try to determine if the virus had spread.
So far the laboratory has reported that all 405 tests that have been completed came back negative, although testing is continuing and positive tests are possible, Levine said.
“This is a good indication that these cases are not spreading within the community,” Levine said. “Remember, we know of two positive cases.”
The Health Department has reached all but 11 of the 59 people who tested positive. No links between the potential cases have been found.
Unemployment numbers: The Vermont Department of Labor says the state’s unemployment rate dropped to 9.4% in June, down from 12.8% in May.
The June unemployment rates for Vermont’s 17 labor market areas ranged from 7.1% in Newbury to 16.6% in Woodstock
“Unemployment insurance claims continue to be elevated and are providing a more-timely picture of the economic hardship that many Vermonters are facing,” Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington said in a statement. “Until these claim numbers come down, the department will continue our expanded efforts to support claimants and job seekers with employers looking to hire.”
The numbers: On Friday, the Health Department reported nine new positive cases of the virus that causes COVID-19, bringing the total since the pandemic began to more than 1,330.
It was unclear if the new case number included the two new cases confirmed as part of the possible Manchester outbreak.
The number of deaths from COVID-19 in Vermont remained at 56, where it has been for more than a month.
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