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Virginia has become the first state in the nation to roll out a mobile app intended to track COVID-19 cases and alert users if they have been close to any positive cases. Governor Ralph Northam made the announcement yesterday.
"I want to be clear that this app, COVIDWISE, does not track or store your personal information," Northam said. "It does not track you at all. It does not rely on GPS or your personal information. And while we want everyone to download it, it is voluntary."
Northam said people who are alerted are advised to get tested as soon as possible and to quarantine.
"You are in control,” Northam said. “All of this is your choice, to download the free app and use it. But I hope Virginians across the state will use this."
Northam also said rapid COVID-19 testing will come to Virginia thanks to an interstate compact entered into with several other states. The antigen tests have already been approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“Antigen tests are different from the PCR test which is primarily what Virginia and other states use,” Northam said. “As we are seeing days [for] test results on PCR tests, we believe this compact is a way to get faster testing.”
Each state hopes to purchase 500,000 antigen tests and Northam said it is intended to signal to the pharmaceutical companies that there is a demand for the tests. He said efforts to conduct contact tracing have been hampered by long delays for testing. The new test results are expected to come back within twenty minutes.
“We want everyone to get tested if you think you need to,” Northam said.
Dr. Keith Jones is the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Norfolk. He is involved in efforts to get more people tested in Black communities and said the COVID era is shining a light on fractures in society.
“It’s shown us the need to have people who sit on boards of caring agencies who actually know something about the communities that they advocate for,” Jones said. “This pandemic fixes the glaring beam on all types of racial, policing and most of all health care disparities.”
Dr. Jones said more genuine efforts need to be make sure people have access to information, including boosting broadband and wi-fi efforts. He and other pastors in the Hampton Roads made a video of themselves getting tested, and are holding testing events in their churches.
Governor Northam will attend a virtual town hall on the future of policing in Virginia beginning at 6 p.m. (register)
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The Virginia Department of Health is reporting another 818 cases of COVID-19 this morning for a cumulative total of 95,867. Another 25 deaths have been counted for a total of 2,299. The seven day average for PCR tests has risen to 7.3 percent. The Thomas Jefferson Health District reports another 17 cases today for a total of 1,845. There’s another seven cases from Albemarle, one in Charlottesville, one in Greene, three in Fluvanna, and two in Nelson. There are three more deaths reported for a total of 44.
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The City of Charlottesville’s Economic Development Department has announced an initiative to promote the city’s “key commercial districts.” The city will use funding from its CARES Act allocation to install signage with reminders on physical distancing, hand sanitizer stations, and to provide 5,000 facial coverings directly to businesses. On-street parking spaces that have been set aside for curbside pick-up will be made permanent, and there will be free parking in the Water and Market Street parking garages on Saturdays and Sundays through the end of the year.
“Consumer driven tax revenues, such as sales, meals and lodging taxes, which are largely derived from these key corridors, comprise approximately 20% of the City’s annual revenues; making restoration of these revenues critically important,” reads a release on the initiative.
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The Madison County Board of Supervisors voted just before 2 a.m. this morning to approve a special use permit for an agri-tourism resort, according to the Madison County Eagle’s Facebook page. Orange County resident Barbara Miller had filed an application for an event center attached to a hemp farm on Route 231. Opponents said the proposed Crescere project is out of scale with the community. According to the MThe master plan for the project includes a 12,000 square foot event center, a 7,000 square foot welcome center and restaurant, and space for up to 230 overnight guests.
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The Jefferson Madison Regional Library (JMRL) will consider changing its name, as well as the name of the main meeting room in its downtown Charlottesville branch. Director David Plunkett said JMRL’s mission statement was updated to reflect an awareness of the system’s problematic past.
“The public library of today strives so hard to be free and open to the public, but that was service wasn’t available for Black families for a long time in the area here so that by your bootstraps story about public libraries being a cornerstone of education for Americans to improve their lot in life wasn’t available for Black families,” Plunkett said.
The first library in Charlottesville opened in 1921, but a segregated library for Black people did not open until 1934 and closed in 1948. Plunkett said the library is working with filmmaker Lorenzo Dickerson on a documentary. He said a working group will consider the library’s naming convention and whether the current name is a barrier to access for people.
Plunkett said the entire staff of the library has gone through racial awareness training using something called the Groundwater approach.
“It was really eye-opening for a lot of staff to just see number after number after number that really showed a disparity in equity in this country and that opened up a conversation for us about where libraries fit into that and not only where have libraries participated in systemic inequalities in the past but also what we can to knit those together in the future,” Plunkett said.
Plunkett’s comments came during a panel discussion held last night on race and representation in library collections. Meredith Dickens is JMRL’s collection manager. \
“We want to make sure that everyone who walks into the library sees material that fits their needs, maybe it mirrors them, allows them to see their voice in the collection and their story, but also allows them to learn about other voices and stories,” said Meredith Dickens, JMRL’s collection manager. “So even when you are a white library patron, you need to be able to learn more than about white people, so we need to make sure there is as broad a range of materials as possible.”
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In government meetings today, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing at 6 p.m. on the future of Confederate representations in Court Square, the county seat and location of the general and district courts. The county has been holding a series of community engagement efforts on the topic. One of those was on July 20. Here’s UVA Historian Kirt von Daacke with some context about how the Jim Crow era got started.
“The Confederacy fails after a four year attempt to create a slave-holding empire and Virginians and the locals return and support that effort,” von Daacke said. “They are unwilling to accept the social, economic, and political realities of defeat and this includes in 1865 more than 14,000 freed people. By the 1880’s they are steadfastly committed to re-imagining the war and the past
The Board of Directors for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission meets virtually tonight at 7 p.m. Among the items are the funding agreement for the rent and mortgage relief program the TJPDC is administering, as well as a framework for how the agency will support broadband expansion in its member counties. They’ll also consider a proposal to purchase property. (agenda)
The Charlottesville school board will meet at 5 p.m. and among the items on the agenda is a discussion of childcare, special education, preschool and nutrition will be handled as the school system begins the academic year online only. (agenda)
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