North Carolina’s Rural COVID Problem
Everything you need to know for Monday, Dec. 7: the downside of the Triangle’s real-estate boom + Raleigh’s COVID crackdown + Nancy Pelosi’s gamble
Monday, Dec. 7, 2020
3 days until Hanukkah
7 days until the Electoral College votes
18 days until Christmas
24 days until this cursed year ends
44 days until this cursed presidency is over
Today’s Number: 46
Percentage of 2020 voters who had progressive views on both economic and social/cultural issues, according to Navigator research. Only 32% scored conservative on both measures.
+ ABOVE THE FOLD
—> COVID Is Thriving in NC’s Rural Areas
Tiny Avery County was the last in North Carolina to have a confirmed coronavirus diagnosis. As of last week, NC Health News reports, it’s “just shy of 1,000 cases per 100,000 residents (928/100,000), the highest rate in the state.”
“Metropolitan areas continue to have more total coronavirus infections, but sparser, more rural counties such as Avery, have been seeing community spread accelerate in recent weeks, the state’s county alert system shows. That spread pattern follows national trends, data from the CDC shows. Coronavirus could potentially devastate smaller communities, where hospitals are small or nonexistent and the residents are generally older and sicker.”
“The virus’ spread is particularly pernicious in rural areas because many residents there have pre-existing conditions that could result in more serious coronavirus infections. As those people become critically ill, even a small number of infections could potentially overwhelm rural hospitals.”
As the N&O points out in noting this same trend, “cases are surging in places where a not-insignificant segment of the population, for whatever reason, has long dismissed the precautions public health officials have urged people to take: wearing a mask and keeping a distance from others, for starters.”
—> RELATED: North Carolina recorded more than 6,000 new COVID cases on Saturday, a record.
“‘In less than a week, we went from exceeding 5,000 new cases reported in one day to exceeding 6,000,’ Dr. Mandy Cohen, DHHS secretary, said in a statement released Saturday. ‘This is very worrisome. We are looking at what further actions we can take as a state to protect North Carolinians and save lives.’”
+ LOCAL & STATE
—> Skyrocketing Real Estate Values Aren’t Great for Everyone
This isn’t a paragraph you expect to see in the Business Journal:
For those who own or develop property in this market, yet another top-tier national ranking bodes well for values and real estate wealth. But for the people who live here but can’t afford the cost of housing—neither ownership nor renting in close proximity to their work—the promise of rising real estate prices simply portends increased disenfranchisement.
In October, Raleigh-Durham ranked No. 1 on the Urban Land Institute’s “real estate markets to watch” list. But it’s no secret that the market boom has been unevenly divided, especially as cities have focused on densifying their urban cores over the last two decades.
In Durham, Bull City 150 project director Mel Nortan explains: “If you look at the people who moved in between 2012 and 2014, there were 70 percent more white people moving in than the people living there. The only areas of town increasing in the number of people of color are on the outer edges of the county. In a very short period of time, the processes of gentrification are reordering our county demographics.”
In Raleigh, N.C. State professor Kofi Boone says: “What did not occur was stabilization of those existing communities … and that’s where East Raleigh-South Park finds itself, and any other community that is predominantly African American, and where most people do not own their property, finds itself.”
In Chapel Hill, former mayor and state senator Howard Lee adds: “Chapel Hill is not very inviting to people of color and we still do not have very many people of color choosing to live here. This community needs a broader array of diversity than it has, both socioeconomically and ethnically as well as youth.”
None of this is particularly new or surprising. The question is how to fix it. Here, too, however, the ULI-Triangle virtual conference that served as the basis for this story evidently offered little new: targeted investment strategies, community engagement, leaning on developers to keep equity in mind, etc.
—> Raleigh to Enforce Capacity Restrictions
To date, Raleigh cops have cited only two businesses—both sports bars—for violating Governor Cooper’s COVID-19 capacity limits. That’s about to change, the city told the TBJ.
“According to Whitney Schoenfeld, emergency management and special events coordinator with the city of Raleigh, enforcement is about to beef up.”
“Now that repeated conversations have taken place, enforcement will step up when it comes to repeat offenders, she said. ‘We’re getting to the point where we are starting to issue citations, and those are going to be for the most egregious violations,’ Schoenfeld said.”
The NCGOP, which has a habit of not reading the stories it tweets, declared that “King Roy” is “threatening the rights of business owners.”
—> In Other News: NC
The state’s Labor Department won’t enact stronger workplace protections against the coronavirus because outgoing Elevator Lady Cherie Berry believes COVID “has not been proven likely to cause death or serious physical harm from the perspective of an occupational hazard.” (N&O)
A state judge appointed a speacial master to oversee the state prison system’s management of the pandemic. (N&O)
While the state’s well-off have recovered from the recession, that’s not the case for those with low-wage jobs. (TBJ)
Parents, today is your last day to apply for COVID-19 relief payments. (N&O)
—> In Other News: Triangle
In a letter last month, Bike Durham urged the city to add protected bike lanes to the Cornwallis Road reconfiguration, which has been planned for nearly two decades. (Bike Durham)
Youngsville went through with its superspreader Christmas parade. (N&O)
The Wake County school system says it will no longer use the word “grandfathering.” (N&O)
Weather: Mostly cloudy, chance of rain, high of 47 (WRAL)
Random: Say this for the Trumpers: at least they were dedicated to the cause (r/ Raleigh)
+ NATION & WORLD
—> The Lede: Nancy Pelosi’s Gamble
On Friday, Nancy Pelosi announced that she—and, presumably, House Democrats—would accept the $908 billion bipartisan COVID aid package being negotiated in the Senate, though before the election, she’d rejected the Trump administration’s offer for a $1.8 trillion deal as insufficient. On the surface, this seems like another example of politics at its most cynical: She refused to give Trump a win that would boost his electoral standing even though it would help people.
Pelosi rejected that characterization.
Asked what changed when she dismissed a larger compromise package in the House only to later support a smaller one from the Senate, Pelosi responded: "A vaccine, an answer to our prayers with 95% effectiveness with Pfizer and Moderna, and there may be others coming forward. That is a total game changer: a new president and a vaccine." …
Some House Democrats called on her to strike a deal before the election, but Pelosi said the administration was putting forward only "half a loaf" that was inadequate to address the health and economic crises.
—> BEYOND THE TOPLINE: There were political calculations, no doubt. But there’s also the fact that President-elect Biden has backed the deal. And there’s the fact that the White House’s $1.8 trillion offer never had sign-off from Senate Republicans. Most important for Dems, this deal contains aid to beleaguered state and local governments.
—> RELATED: The unemployment rate fell from 6.9% to 6.7% last month for the wrong reason: the recovery is slowing, and fewer people are in the workforce.
“The U.S. economy added 245,000 jobs in November. … The number of jobs gained last month is down sharply from the gain of 610,000 jobs seen in October. It's the kind of number you see during a normal expansion, rather than during a sharp rebound from pandemic lows.”
—> ICYMI: India’s MASSIVE General Strike
I’m sorry I missed it when it happened—but then again, so did nearly the entirety of Western media. But in late November, a reported 250 million (!) Indians went on a general strike, perhaps the largest such action in human history, in protest of Prime Minister Modi’s policies.
Last week’s general strike in India featured some of these components: the call by national-level unions in response to the BJP’s anti-worker policies; the claims of massive turnout (250 million people, in this case); and the time-limited nature of the strike. But this being 2020, the November 26 walkout also had a different quality to it. Back in March, the government used the pandemic as an excuse to crack down on and clear the last physical remnants of widespread protests against its discriminatory citizenship laws. And so the sight of people out on the streets in protest was a striking display.
Even more importantly, the general strike converged with a march launched by a broad group of farmers’ organizations, all planning to descend on the capital of Delhi.
The farmers—tens of thousands are still amassed outside New Delhi—are protesting laws they believe will “open them up to corporate exploitation.”
—> Briefs: 3 Stories to Read Today
“Disinformation and its fallout have defined 2020, the year of the infodemic. Month after month, self-serving social media companies have let corrosive manipulators out for dollars, votes, and clicks vie for attention, no matter the damage. After an initial showing of unity as the coronavirus pandemic hit North American shores, people in the US became divided over basic scientific facts about COVID-19. Then, after a horrified country watched George Floyd take his last breaths as a police officer pushed a knee into his neck, some members of the right-wing media recast peaceful demonstrators exercising their civil rights as violent thugs. And, as the year closed out, the president and his enablers smeared the simplest, most fundamental democratic act of counting a ballot as fraud.” (Buzzfeed)
“The White House removed nine members of the Pentagon's Defense Business Board on Friday and installed people loyal to President Donald Trump in their place, including presidential allies Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie. The firings marked the latest effort by the Trump administration to clean out the Defense Department in the final weeks of the president's term.” (Politico)
“The House endorsed a landmark retreat in the nation’s decades-long war on drugs Friday, voting to remove marijuana from the federal schedule of controlled substances and provide for the regulation and taxation of legal cannabis sales. The vote was 228 to 164 and was the first time either chamber of Congress has voted on the issue of federally decriminalizing cannabis. The measure is not expected to pass into law.” (WaPo)
—> The Rundown
For the first time, the CDC has urged “universal” mask usage. (WaPo)
Over the last week, President Trump has tweeted about 145 times about the election while ignoring the pandemic. (NYT)
Trump ordered the remaining 700 American troops out of Somalia. (NYT)
Rudy has COVID. (WaPo)
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to immediately restore DACA. (WaPo)
Iran will ramp up its nuclear enrichment in reaction to its nuclear scientist’s assassination. (Reuters)
Much of California—including the Bay Area—will soon be under another COVID lockdown. (NYT)
Today is the voter registration deadline for the Georgia runoffs. (NYT)
—> Tweet Du Jour
This probably isn’t real, but it should be:
+ OUR SO-CALLED LIVES
—> Cultured: How to Survive a Formula 1 Race Car Accident
Yesterday I was joking with my friend Rachel Lance, a Duke biomedical engineer who studies impact trauma, that she’s become Wired’s Explosions Correspondent. Her latest piece looks at how Romain Grosjean survived a nightmarish accident at the Bahrain International Circuit last week.
The car tore in half, clean open, rupturing the full gas tank and spraying gasoline everywhere. Gasoline, when aerosolized and in the presence of extreme heat, such as the heat from a high-performance engine or even the heat generated by the friction of the crash itself, makes fire.
The terrifying orange-red plume was massive. It engulfed everything—the steel barrier, the front end of the car, and Grosjean himself. … A car engulfed in flames can exceed the temperatures required to cremate a human body. But after a 137-mph collision and 10 to 15 seconds in which he had to unbuckle his harness, grab blindly for support in the inferno, and pull himself out of the car, Grosjean emerged like a phoenix with nothing more than minor burns and injuries to his hands, feet, and ankles—and not one broken bone.
How did that happen?
From his hospital room after the wreck, Grosjean credited his relative lack of injury to the recently implemented Halo device, a ring positioned above the driver compartment that is designed to absorb crash impact. … The Halo was certainly one factor; it kept Grosjean’s head from impacting the shredded roadside barrier. … But there were at least three other brilliant scientific advances that, together, kept him alive: his Head and Neck Support system, his racing harness, and his logo-covered high-tech suit.
We are desensitized by cinematic images of grimy tank-top-clad heroes walking slowly away from blazing car explosions. But a real-life human being, one composed of easily singed meat, clambering out of the center of an orange-red inferno is nothing short of astonishing. What most fans and viewers don’t know is, the credit for Grosjean’s survival goes to a hundred years of automotive science.
—> Et Cetera
The Star Wars: Kenobi series will begin filming in Boston next month. (CBS Boston)
The NBA won’t drug test for weed next season. (ESPN)
Time Magazine named a teenage inventor its Kid of the Year, which I guess is a thing now. (The Guardian)
Random: At the behest of the dairy industry, the US once declared war on “butterine” (i.e., margarine)—and in so doing, paved the way for the Pure Food and Drug Act. (National Archives, AgDaily)
A poll found that 61% of Americans are likely to get a COVID vaccination. Not surprisingly, Democrats are more willing to get vaccinated than Republicans. Very surprisingly (to me), men are considerably more willing to do so than women. (National Geographic)
Thanks for reading. And special thanks to Beth Keena for helping me putting together today’s newsletter.