Arlington County's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad COVID-19 Town Hall
Katie and Matt let county staff skip the tough questions
Two weeks ago, we wrote a piece asserting that Governor Northam’s reopening of Virginia was hasty and dangerous. We ended with a hope that we would get lucky, and the spikes in COVID cases seen in other states would not happen here. We did not get lucky. Virginia now has an infection rate higher than when we moved to Phase One.
Last Friday, we tuned into the County Board’s “COVID-19 Virtual Town Hall” anticipating that some of the questions we (and many other residents) have raised would be answered: Why were we reopening when our infection rate is so much higher than other countries? What will prevent Virginia and Arlington from seeing the same resurgence as other states? Why are we not closing bars and indoor dining at restaurants when we know they are high risk?
None of these questions were answered. Instead, County Board members Matt de Ferranti and Katie Cristol spent an hour asking county staff prescreened questions in an effort to reassure everyone that Northam’s reopening plans are sound. No one from the public was allowed to speak. Much of the content was information that can be found on the county’s website. We will skip that and take you through some of the lowlights and the few interesting tidbits.
The trouble began with Katie Cristol’s prepared opening statement:
“In the past few weeks we’ve seen small upticks in new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths but we are still at lower levels than we saw earlier in the pandemic, back in March and early April”
Katie cheerily delivers the last part of this like we should be relieved - we are still in good shape! Gentle readers, we are not in good shape. Our infection rate is still sky-high compared to the rest of the world.
“Better than the worst part of the pandemic” is not an acceptable standard. We have an infection rate twenty times higher than Italy. We are doing terribly. People in Arlington are catching a terrifying disease that can kill and has unknown long-term effects - and they don’t have to be. Are you a parent that would like to see your kids go back to school in person? It will never happen at with this level of infection, which Katie apparently thinks is acceptable.
Cristol: “We are urging everyone to not get complacent.… The virus is not going to go away because we are wearied of it.… We should be staying home when you can stay home”
This is the first of many times we will be told that the virus is not going away, that we still need to stay home and wear masks and socially distance and wash our hands. It was repeated to the point of absurdity. Do they think we are all the guy from Momento? It was tedious and took up time that could have been used to address questions. It was also a crutch for staff to fall back on when they didn’t want to answer a question.
Cristol: “Our testing continues to increase”
This is extremely misleading. Testing has been flat since May. If you cherry pick your dates, you can make a case for this technically being true, but no reasonable person would look at the chart below and say testing is “continuing to increase” when the little yellow line is lower now than it was six weeks ago.
Katie then asked Dr. Reuben Varghese, Arlington’s Director of Public Health, to explain what Phase Three means and what data led the governor to proceed to Phase Three:
Dr. Varghese: “People need to realize that the governor’s move is part public health and part how do you allow for society to do what it believes is essential at the same time in a controlled fashion.”
We don’t know what Phase Three Dr. Varghese is talking about, but it’s not the one in Virginia. The one in Virginia entails opening things that are non-essential. It further opens bars, restaurants, entertainment venues, non-essential retail and allows gatherings of 250 people. None of that is essential.
The part of Katie’s question about what data led the governor to move to Phase Three went unanswered, and Katie did not follow up on it. This was a pattern - county staff simply not answering questions and Katie and Matt not following up. The questions that got skipped were always ones with embarrassing answers. In this case, there is no good data to support Northam’s move to Phase Three.
Cristol: “What happens if our numbers don’t just plateau but actually start to increase again? Is there a possibility of reverting to Phase Two?”
Dr. Varghese: “Reopening implies also re-closing - but the political frame has to be comfortable as well. One or two days we will not suddenly say go back. Closing or reopening is ultimately a governmental decision outside of public health.”
It was surprising and refreshing to see county staff come out and admit that the reopening was guided by politics and not public health. And Dr. Varghese’s prediction that Northam wouldn’t revert to Phase Two after one or two days of increased infection was correct. We are going on eleven straight days of rising infection rates with no sign of Northam closing things down again.
de Ferranti: “Can you talk about the test positivity rate?”
Dr. Varghese: “Our current positivity rate is about five or six percent, well below the ten percent we have been looking for.”
The ten percent positivity rate is based on guidance from the CDC. It is double the recommendation from the World Health Organization. Why the difference? The CDC is trying to make the Trump administration happy. Positivity rates in countries that have successfully flattened the curve are much lower. Here’s a comparison from Johns Hopkins
There is no reason Virginia and Arlington can’t use the WHO threshold. The reopening is entirely a state decision, and Northam chose to use the Trump-friendly number rather than the one from the WHO because it allowed him to reopen faster.
Our last lowlight came with the follow exchange between Katie and Assistant County Manager Jim Schwartz:
Cristol: “What should you do if you live in an apartment building or work somewhere and management is not taking the appropriate cautions? What resources are available if they need some enforcement to work and live safely?”
Schwartz: “You should monitor your movement when you step out of your apartment. Look up and down the hallways and see what kind of traffic might be there. The risk remains relatively low if you are just passing somebody. Stake out your area before moving. To the question about business not abiding by the governor’s order, we will take some complaints and that and do some follow up and see what we can do to encourage. But perhaps the best thing to do is vote with your feet and not do business with them.”
We guess Jim has never lived in an apartment since the only situation he can imagine is passing someone in the hall. What if the elevator is always full of people not wearing masks? What if the maintenance guy that came to fix your air conditioning isn’t wearing one? It is also telling that Jim’s solution requires you to do the extra work, and not the landlord who is violating the law.
The second part of Jim’s answer seems to be addressing the questions “What should customers do if a store is not following COVID rules?” And his answer is reasonable in that context. But Katie asked what to do if you are an employee. You can’t vote with your feet when your boss doesn’t follow the rules. Another tough question conveniently skipped by county staff.
To her credit, after Jim finished speaking, Katie answered it herself: employees don’t have much recourse. The only thing they can do is report non-compliance on the state’s OSHA website.
By now you get the picture of how this “town hall” played out. We will now share with you the two only interesting tidbits, both from Dr. Varghese.
Arlington’s contact tracing office was not only fully staffed but also had surge capacity in case of a resurgence.
To be considered a “contact” that needs to be traced, you will need to have spent at least fifteen minutes in the vicinity of an infected person.
That’s it. No questions about bars or restaurants or 250 person gatherings. As of writing this article, Virginia continues to see a steady rise in cases and there are no signs Northam intends to do anything about it. It’s madness.
With Trump in the White House, Virginia and Arlington may not be able to get the resources needed to fight COVID with the same playbook European and Asian countries have used. But that doesn’t mean we have to passively accept the Ralph Northam COVID Reopening Playbook Brought To You By The Chamber Of Commerce. The Arlington County Board should publicly call for Northam to close things down until the infection rate is brought under control. And when we do reopen, schools should be the priority, not bars and restaurants.
Until they tell us otherwise, we must assume the County Board supports the business-driven and unscientific reopening that is sickening and killing Virginians.
Spot on. Clarendon and Courthouse bars are packed with unmasked patrons drinking, eating, laughing, spraying droplet nuclei everywhere. Every day a super spreader event. Why can’t these people stay home and drink alone like decent alcoholics.
The email I sent to the county board (countyboard@arlingtonva.us):
Hello,
I’m writing to voice my concern with Arlington’s transition plan into Virginia’s Phase Three reopening. The Governor’s plan falls far short of the WHO’s recommendations, and capitulates to the demands of the Trump White House and and the Dept. of Commerce at the cost of Virginian and Arlingtonian lives.
My full time work is in live theater entertainment, So I am among those hit hardest by Phase One and Two protocols on public gatherings. I understand the economic risks from them because I suffer first hand.
I would find it unconscionable to open my theater to an audience with the infection rates in Arlington as they currently stand and are projected forward. The deaths of anyone who contracted COVID in my theater would be on my hands.
Those deaths and more will be on the hands of the county board if you continue to ignore science in favor of commerce.
You have an opportunity to set a standard here, to be among those who follow the success of stricter European, Asian and Pacific protocols that emphasize distancing by closing businesses, fund contact tracing, and support citizens financially during their loss in work and business.