FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU B5
BY LOLA FADULURegional coordination will be
paramount for the successful dis-
tribution of an eventual coronavi-
rus vaccine, a D.C. health official
told the Metropolitan Washing-
ton Council of Governments on
Thursday, and overcoming mis-
trust among communities of col-
or will be essential.
“Individuals get care across the
borders, we have a lot of workers
that move across the borders, es-
pecially amongst the federal gov-
ernment,” said Patrick Ashley, the
senior deputy director of emer-
gency preparedness and response
at the D.C. Department of Health.
He noted that the politics
around the creation of a coronavi-
rus vaccine have been polarizing,
and that vaccines are a touchy
subject for Black and Latino com-
munities given historical exam-
ples of health experiments that
caused people harm, such as the
Tuskegee Study.
Several vaccine candidates are
in the third phase of clinical trials,
and Pfizer recently announced a
study showing its vaccine was at
least 90 percent effective.
With the novel coronavirus
raging across the country at rec-
ord levels, Pfizer is likely to ask for
an emergency use authorization
next week, and approval could
come sometime later this month,
or in early December.
That means about 25 million
people could get vaccinated by
the end of the year.
“This is the fastest vaccine de-
velopment in history, not just for
the United States but also world-
wide,” Ashley said. “With that
being said, there’s a l ot of stuff
that we don’t know yet.”
Loudoun County Board of Su-
pervisors Chair Phyllis J. Randall
(D-At Large) echoed Ashley’s ur-
gency about building community
support for a large-scale vaccina-
tion program.
“We cannot wait until even like
January, February to have these
conversations and think that we
are going to be able to penetrate
the communities that need to be
spoken to so that they feel com-
fortable and receive this vaccine,”
Randall said.
L ocal officials will also have to
figure out the logistics of han-
dling the virus. Both the Pfizer
vaccine and one being developed
by Moderna must be stored at
minus-70 degrees Celsius, Ashley
said, but Pfizer will ship the vac-
cine with boxes that keep the
vaccine cold for up to 15 days.
There is a window, around one
day, in which the vaccine can
safely stay at refrigerator temper-
atures. Both vaccines would re-quire two doses, so officials will
have to keep track of whether
people receive them.
“Many health-care institutions
are not used to dealing with vac-
cines that are stored at those
types of conditions,” Ashley said.
Falls Church City Council
member David F. Snyder suggest-
ed that the emergency prepared-
ness council of the Metropolitan
Washington Council of Govern-
ments (COG) get involved in the
effort. The board includes not
only elected officials, but also po-
lice, fire, school board and mili-
tary officials.
“It’s the largest table at COG, so
I think at some point there’s a r ole
for that group, once the distribu-
tion, logistics and ideas have been
circulated, to reach a very large
segment of the community at one
time,” Snyder said.
Not everyone will be able to get
a vaccine when it first becomes
available. The federal govern-
ment has outlined four phases of
distribution. High-risk health-
care workers, people with under-
lying conditions and people living
in congregate care settings will be
among those prioritized in the
first phase.
Still, “each jurisdiction does
have some authority to decide
within these phases how it dis-
tributes out to the populations,”
Ashley said, noting that there may
not be enough vaccine to cover
everyone in a particular phase.
[email protected]THE REGION
Coordination vital to vaccine rollout
Officials also stressed
need to build confidence
in communities of colorBY RACHEL WEINERWhen the call came in to New
Hope Baptist Church on a S un-
day in June, it was the middle of
Bible study. An assistant minis-
ter put the caller on speaker-
phone, and so her three young
grandchildren heard the voice on
the line call them a racial slur,
tell them to “shut... u p” and
threaten to burn the Virginia
Beach church down.
On Thursday, John Malcolm
Bareswill, 63, was sentenced to
two years in prison for making
that threat — more than prosecu-
tors requested.
According to court records,
Bareswill targeted New Hope
because a pastor from the church
had taken part in a local vigil the
previous day honoring George
Floyd, who was killed in police
custody in Minneapolis, and pro-
testing racial injustice. He also
called another church involved
in the vigil, but the call was not
answered.
“Bareswill’s threat terrified
the adult Sunday school teachers
who heard it and affected the
entire church community,” G.
Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. attor-
ney for the Eastern District of
Virginia, said in a statement.
“While this sentence cannot
undo that harm, it sends an
important message: Our com-
munity will not tolerate at-
tempts to silence free speech or
interfere with the free exercise
of religion.”
An attorney for Bareswill ar-
gued that the threat was an idle
one and an aberration for the
law-abiding small-business own-
er who served in the Navy for 24
years. Bareswill is from North
Carolina and operated a package
delivery business in Virginia
Beach.
“The mere minutes that it took
for Mr. Bareswill to commit this
heinous act are but a tiny frac-
tion of the life of an otherwisehonorable and decent man,” de-
fense attorney James Broccoletti
wrote in court filings.
Bareswill said in court filings
that he had been worried about
the potential impact of the pro-
tests on his business. Some of the
speakers at the vigil advocated a
boycott of local businesses.
Broccoletti argued that his
client has already suffered deep-
ly, having contracted the novel
coronavirus in jail and enduring
physical and verbal abuse from
other prisoners.
Prosecutors had asked for a
punishment within sentencing
guidelines, which called for 12 to
18 months in prison. U.S. District
Judge Raymond A. Jackson in
federal court in Norfolk imposed
two years.
Both women who were lead-
ing the Bible study that day told
the court in letters that the
threat continues to haunt them;
both have restricted their church
activities for fear of being at-
tacked.
“It’s in the back of my head
always,” one wrote.
[email protected]VIRGINIA
Man gets 2 years for threat to church
He targeted building
because of racial justice
vigil, records sayBY CATHY FREEJohn Adams has been anxious
lately. The nuclear engineer and
his wife brought home their new-
born son shortly before the pan-
demic started, and working from
home has been challenging.
For stress relief, Adams, who
lives in Bedford, Va., likes to scroll
through social media looking at
woodworking projects, and one
of his favorites places is Reddit,
where there’s a community dedi-
cated to woodworking.
About a month ago, a post
jumped out at him.
“Are there any craftsmen here
who would be willing to make a
shallow cabinet for me so I can
create a ‘busy box’ for my brother
with Alzheimer’s?” it read.
The poster, Sharon Elin of
Mechanicsville, Va., near Rich-
mond, explained that she hoped
to attach several kinds of latches
and hooks on the doors to pro-
vide her brother with something
to fiddle with and engage his
mind. Her brother had become
more frustrated lately and had
been wandering around his two-
acre property in North Carolina.
Adams, 31, knew right away
that he was the person for the
task. Woodworking had been his
favorite hobby since college,
when he’d refinished a dining
room table for his future wife, he
said. And it would be a great
distraction for him.
He agreed to make the box,
then he stayed awake in bed for
hours that night coming up with
a design for it.
“I thought, ‘I can’t pass this up
— it seems like fate,’ ” said Adams,
who lives about 30 miles from
Roanoke. “Here was somebody in
need, just a few hours away. And I
had plenty of scrap wood waiting
to be used in my shop.”
After consulting on Reddit
with Elin, Adams spent a week-
end in his shop building a pol-
ished pine busy box. As he
worked, he kept in mind Elin’s
brother, a retired chemistry
teacher he’d never met, hoping
the box would engage him and
bring him joy.
Elin had mentioned that fidget
lap quilts with buttons, pockets
and zippers can help keep people
with dementia busy and give
them something to do with their
hands when they become agitat-
ed.
She said she’d noticed that as
her brother’s memory loss pro-
gressed, he became more restless
and could spend hours doing the
same tasks repeatedly, often old
habits, such as folding towels or
arranging bird feeders on the
porch.
“That’s when I started think-ing that maybe a busy box would
help,” Elin said. “I envisioned
putting little surprises inside for
him to find, like a new baseball
cap or a pair of socks.”
Her brother, Chad Chad-
bourne, developed early-onset Al-
zheimer’s about nine years ago
when he was in his early 60s.
Now 70, he lives with his wife,
Kathryn Chadbourne, in rural
North Carolina, and will soon be
moving into a care center, Elin
said.
“He’s always loved tools and
tinkering with things, and I
thought he’d enjoy something
that had hardware on it instead
of some of the lap cloths I’d seen
with zippers and Velcro,” said
Elin, 65.
“I could envision a ‘busy box’ in
my mind, but I had no idea how
to make it myself,” she said.
She and Adams messaged on
Reddit about her idea, then he
designed a box that he thoughtChadbourne would appreciate.
Rather than look at other busy
boxes online, Adams came up
with his own vision.
“Sharon initially said she
wanted a cabinet, but then we
agreed that something light-
weight was better,” he said. “I
envisioned a box that her brother
could sit down at the table and
open.”
Adams understands the pain
of Alzheimer’s.
“My wife’s grandmother is go-
ing through dementia right now,
and my grandmother passed
away from it about six years ago,”
he said. “I know that she would
have enjoyed something like this.
I thought about her a lot when I
went into the shop to work on the
box that weekend.”
Adams said it took him about
10 hours to make and put the
finishing touches on the busy
box. Then on Sunday, he ar-
ranged to meet Elin in a store
parking lot in Lynchburg, about
30 minutes from his house. Elin
arrived with the latches she’d
bought for the project, and Ad-
ams brought along his drill and
attached them.
“He put them on right there on
the spot,” Elin said. “I’m so appre-
ciative of what he did for my
brother. He didn’t want to accept
payment — he just wanted to do
something nice for a stranger. It’s
really been heartwarming.”
The past few years have been
difficult for her family as they’ve
watched Chadbourne’s memory
decline, said Elin, who is a retired
teacher like her brother.
“He was always so bright, and
we suspected something was go-
ing on when he had a hard time
grading papers on the computer
in 2011,” she said. “But for quite awhile, his general practitioner
thought it was just the normal
result of aging.”
Then, over the summer, Kath-
ryn Chadbourne took him to a
gerontologist. Tests revealed that
he had middle-stage Alzheimer’s
disease.
“We have no history of it in our
family; it’s heartbreaking,” Elin
said.Before he lost his memory,
Chadbourne had a small day lily
flower farm that he’d started as a
hobby on his property, and he
carried a pair of clippers every-
where in his pocket, she said. As
Alzheimer’s took hold and he
began cutting flowers repeatedly,
her sister-in-law replaced the
clippers with a set of pliers to
help keep him safe.
“It became important for him
to have those pliers in his pocket,”
Elin said. “Being outdoors on his
farm was calming and took him
back to something he enjoyed
doing.”
When Elin posted on Reddit
about her idea, she said she
received a couple of responses,
but was struck by Adams’s enthu-
siasm and sincerity. It also helped
that they lived in the same state,
just 2^1 / 2 hours apart.
Elin replied with a very grate-ful yes.
“I was so impressed that he
jumped right in to help a strang-
er,” she said. “He did a beautiful
job and his compassion has
blown me away.”
Several people on Reddit told
Adams how much they admired
what he did — one called it “some
Mr. Rogers-level kindness” — and
a few told their own stories of
relatives with Alzheimer’s.
Adams responded that Elin
“caught me in a rare period where
I had finished everything on my
wife’s honeydo list for the year
but still had some warm-weather
months left and was itching for
another project. Came across B’s
post while doomscrolling reddit
and couldn’t pass up the opportu-
nity to help!”
Elin said she’ll take the busy
box to her brother in a month or
two after he has settled in at his
new care facility. Kathryn Chad-
bourne said it will be a welcome
gift during a difficult time for the
entire family.
“We’re going through a stress-
ful change, so this kindness is
coming at the perfect time,” Kath-
ryn Chadbourne said. “My hus-
band has always loved to do
things with his hands. It’s per-
fect.”
Adams said the weekend he
dedicated to making the box was
time well spent, and a welcome
relief from the stressors outside
his home.
“I personally like a challenge,
and if I feel like I’ve accomplished
something each day, I’m fulfilled,”
he said. “If Sharon’s brother
spends a d ay trying to get the box
open and finally does it, then I
know that my time spent build-
ing it was worthwhile.”
[email protected]VIRGINIA
For one woodworker, the key to kindness is ingrained
SHARON ELIN
John Adams of Bedford, Va., made this “busy box” for Sharon Elin’s
brother, Chad Chadbourne, who has Alzheimer’s.“I was so impressed
that he jumped right in
to help a stranger.”
Sharon Elin, referring to John
Adams, who responded to her Reddit
request and made a “busy box” for
her brother, who has Alzheimer’sthat’s a good thing,” Bowser said.
Virginia also hasn’t added re-
strictions during this most recent
surge, although leaders have said
they are monitoring the rise in
cases.
Richmond Mayor Levar
Stoney continued to quarantine
Thursday after someone in his
office became infected with the
coronavirus. Stoney said he was
“feeling very well” and expects to
be tested Friday.
The mayor’s staff member
came in contact with the Rich-
mond voter registrar’s office,
which developed an outbreak
days after last week’s elections.
Eleven registrar staffers have
tested positive, city Health Direc-
tor Danny Avula said Thursday.
Officials have said none of the
registrar’s office staffers came in
contact with members of the
public, although Avula and
Stoney said extensive contact-
tracing is underway. The infec-
tions have complicated the city’s
efforts to close out vote totals, but
officials said the outbreak won’t
interfere with certifying results.
Avula said the investigation
into the outbreak suggests that
“while mask-wearing was en-
forced well, that perhaps hand-
sanitizing and physical distanc-
ing was not enforced as well.”
Speaking on a video feed from
his home, Stoney said Thursday
the situation should serve as a
warning to the public at a t ime
when coronavirus cases are
climbing.
“These numbers are a wake-up
call,” Stoney said, adding that 57
city staffers are in quarantine,
including 37 members of the
police department. “This virus is
real. Let my of fice serve as an
example to all of us — we must
stay vigilant.”
In Maryland, Hogan respond-
ed to the surge Thursday by
releasing an additional $70 mil-
lion in t he final tranche of federal
aid that had been disbursed to
the state this spring, with
$31 million funneled to health
initiatives and $39 million put
toward the economic crisis.
About $10 million will go into
planning for mass distribution of
vaccines, and about $20 million
will bolster the state’s stockpile of
personal protective equipment
so Maryland has at least a 90-day
supply of gloves, gowns and
masks. Another $1 million will
launch an initiative to monitor
wastewater for early warnings of
outbreaks at correctional facili-
ties, senior housing and low-in-
come public housing.
Hogan said $15 million will
expedite unemployment claims,
some of which have been linger-
ing for months, while $10 million
will go to rent relief, $10 million
to food banks, $2 million to fos-
ter-care providers and $2 million
to food assistance programs.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]increasing restrictions.
Infections in D.C. jumped to
levels Thursday that could bring
stricter restrictions under the
city’s guidelines, but Mayor Muri-
el E. Bowser (D) and Health
Director LaQuandra Nesbitt said
new measures, while possible,
are unlikely in the short term.
New daily cases topped a s ev-
en-day average of 15 for every
100,000 residents for the first
time since May, meaning the case
rate is more than triple where it
stood at its nadir in July.
Under guidelines instituted in
September by the D.C. Health
Department, reaching a c ertain
level of any one of more than 10
metrics could indicate a need to
return to Phase 1 restrictions —
when gathering sizes and com-
mercial activities were more lim-
ited. Thursday’s rise in the daily
case rate was the first time the
city had crossed one of those
red-flag metrics since they were
announced.Bowser and Nesbitt said
Thursday that what is most need-
ed at the moment is not new
actions on the part of the city but
instead greater caution from
residents in their personal be-
havior.
Nesbitt suggested stricter lim-
its on gathering sizes in the city
would not prevent most infec-
tions, which often emerge from
smaller gatherings.
Among people who tell contact
tracers they attended a social
event before becoming sick, half
had attended gatherings of five to
10 people, she said. Bowser mini-
mized the increased infection
rate as “one of the metrics out of,
I think, about a dozen.”
She said D.C. might not need to
roll back its Phase 2 guidelines
even as parts of nearby Maryland
tighten rules.
“If we look at the District,
we’ve been able to contain this
virus very well through our re-
sponse.... Some states that were
not as conservative as us may
need to make some changes, andhouse parties and family gather-
ings are the most common
sources for contracting the virus,
he said.
In neighboring Anne Arundel
County, a new order announced
Thursday will limit outdoor
groups to 25 people starting Fri-
day and suspend youth sports
starting Monday. Next week, res-
taurants must further reduce
their indoor dining capacity to
25 percent, down from 50 per-
cent.
“Waiting is not an option,”
Anne Arundel County Executive
Steuart Pittman (D) said in a
statement. “Like our neighboring
jurisdictions, we are acting now
to slow the spread that will
inevitably lead to a hospitaliza-
tion surge at a t ime when our
hospitals are operating near ca-
pacity.”
The new restrictions come two
days after Maryland Gov. Larry
Hogan (R) reimposed statewide
restrictions that had not been in
place since the summer.
Maryland restaurants reduced
indoor dining capacity from
75 percent to 50 percent, while a
health advisory urges a 25-per-
son cap on indoor gatherings and
limits nonessential travel to 35
states.
Hogan said Thursday that he
has not spoken to anyone on the
White House’s coronavirus task
force since the day before the
election.
“It really is becoming a prob-
lem in that I think the people in
the White House are focused on
fighting elections and the people
in the Biden administration ha-
ven’t taken over,” he said. “The
states are out here fighting prob-
ably the worst part of the crisis
we’ve ever had to deal with, and
we don’t really know what’s go-
ing on at the federal level.”
Maryland has allowed local
governments to impose more-
restrictive policies than the state,
and leaders in the Washington
region generally have opted to
reopen more slowly.
In Montgomery County, law-
makers Tuesday approved an or-
der by County Executive Marc
Elrich (D) to limit gatherings to a
maximum of 25 people and re-
duce capacity for restaurants and
shops from 50 percent to 25 per-
cent.
A new Baltimore City order
that requires masks in indoor
and outdoor public spaces goes
into effect at 5 p.m. Thursday.
The order limits the capacity of
indoor and outdoor facilities to
25 percent, halts indoor dining at
11 p.m. and prohibits gatherings
of more than 10 people.
Frederick County’s Board of
Health was considering a 25-
person cap on gatherings and
limits on bars, restaurants and
churches during a Thursday eve-
ning meeting.
Baltimore County officials
have said they also are looking atREGION FROM B1Record infections for 9th straight day
“It really is becoming a
problem in that I think
the people in the White
House are focused on
fighting elections and
the people in the Biden
administration haven’t
taken over.”
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R)