The Washington Post - USA (2020-12-11)

KLMNO

METRO

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ SU B

THE REGION

Metro’s board moved a

step closer to adopting a

plan that significantly cuts

back on transit service. B2

THE DISTRICT

Officials are concerned

they won’t receive enough

vaccine doses to cover

health-care workers. B5

OBITUARIES

Dick Allen, a talented and

misunderstood baseball

player known as a slugger,

41 ° 54 ° 58 ° 51 ° was 78. B8

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 3 p.m.

59

°

Precip: 0%

Wind: SSW

7-14 mph

The hotel is a hotel

again. City life

moved on.

The tourists

who stay at the

Quality Inn on

New York Avenue

NE probably don’t

know that they’re

paying $58 a night to stay in

what used to be one of the city’s

largest homeless shelters.

And anyone who gets Room

214 probably won’t know that’s

the room where a baby girl with

a wide, sweet smile slowly died.

Makenzie Anderson was 11

months old th at February day

when she suffered injuries to

her head that made it “soft like

jello,” Makenzie’s mother,

charged last week with her

killing, told a homicide

detective, according to court

documents.

Makenzie was living in Room

214 with her mother, Tyra

Monae Anderson, 27, back when

D.C. sent homeless people to live

at the Quality Inn. Anderson

told detectives she was in the

hotel room looking at her

mobile phone that cold Monday

when her baby girl reached for

something and fell off the bed,

according to the affidavit asking

for an arrest warrant.

The li ttle girl cried and, later

in the day, started shaking. Over

SEE DVORAK ON B3

Mother charged, n othing

solved in baby’s death

Petula

Dvorak

BY GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER

richmond — Gov. Ralph

Northam will outline plans on

Friday for an ambitious effort to

reimagine the site of the Confed-

erate Gen. Robert E. Lee statue

that towers over Monument Av-

enue and has become an interna-

tional symbol of this year’s pro-

tests against racial inequity.

The plans are part of a broader

push to recast all the public spaces

along the grand avenue, as well as

to better commemorate African

American history and mark the

legacy of slavery throughout Rich-

mond and beyond.

Northam (D) has asked the Vir-

ginia Museum of Fine Arts to lead

the Monument Avenue project,

which will include other institu-

tions and the city of Richmond. It

is contingent on getting spending

approval from the Democratic-

controlled General Assembly.

“This is potentially a model for

other parts of Virginia, other

parts of the United States [or]

other parts of the world as people

struggle with monuments —

when to create them, when to take

them down,” Alex Nyerges, the

museum’s director, said in an in-

terview. “What we hope is to cre-

ate a vision that unites us and

brings us together.”

Long a seemingly untouchable

SEE STATUE ON B10

Northam wants

to reimagine

site of Lee statue

in Va. capital

BY LAURA VOZZELLA,

RACHEL CHASON,

ERIN COX AND

MICHAEL BRICE-SADDLER

A new wave of coronavirus-re-

lated restrictions was introduced

in the Washington region Thurs-

day, with more Maryland juris-

dictions eliminating indoor din-

ing and Virginia imposing a state-

wide curfew to keep residents

home late at night.

The executive order from Vir-

ginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D)

also includes an expanded mask

mandate and lowers the number

of people allowed in social gather-

ings. The measures, which will

take effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday,

do not change rules for restau-

rants, stores or houses of worship.

The tougher restrictions come

as the seven-day average number

of new infections set a record

Thursday across the greater

Washington region, with Mary-

land and Virginia each hitting a

new high.

The Virginia curfew, which

Northam called a “modified stay-

at-home order,” will require resi-

dents to stay home between mid-

night and 5 a.m. Exceptions will

be made for people traveling for

work or seeking medical atten-

tion and certain food items.

Police will not stop anyone at

those hours, as Northam inten-

tionally did not include an en-

forcement mechanism, adminis-

tration officials said. They said

the curfew, similar to one im-

posed in North Carolina, is most-

ly intended to encourage — rather

than force — r esidents to stay

home late at night, when people

tend to become more lax about

observing health guidelines.

Northam acknowledged the

curfew is essentially “messaging

... but it’s also about saving lives.”
He tried to encourage Virginians
to comply by playing a video
message from Emily Nichole
Egan, a coronavirus ICU nurse in
hard-hit Southwest Virginia.
“I’ve put an ungodly amount of
people in body bags,” she says
from behind a mask. “I under-

stand the sacrifice, and that it’s

hard to stay home and it’s hard to

wear a mask and you feel like you

can’t breathe. But seeing these

people die that can’t breathe — it

starts to take a toll on you.”

Virginia Republicans were crit-

ical of Northam’s new restric-

tions.

In a s tatement, Senate Minori-

ty Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr.

(R-James City) and other GOP

Senate leaders said the new cur-

few “smacks of martial law.”

House Minority Leader Todd Gil-

bert (R-Shenandoah) called it

“blatantly unconstitutional.”

In Maryland, Prince George’s

County Executive Angela D. Also-

brooks (D) said Thursday that

indoor dining will be eliminated

in the suburban county, while

outdoor dining will still be al-

lowed at 50 percent capacity.

She said casinos and retail es-

tablishments will be limited to

25 percent capacity. The new re-

strictions will take effect at 5 p .m.

Wednesday and last at least

through Jan. 16.

“The numbers that we are see-

ing tell us we are headed in the

wrong direction and that we need

to take swift and quick actions

right now,” Alsobrooks said at a

news conference.

Similar restrictions were add-

ed Thursday in neighboring Anne

Arundel County, where County

SEE REGION ON B2

Va. sets curfew, Md. counties cut indoor dining as virus a verages hit record

New cases in region

Through 5 p.m. Thursday, 7,361

new coronavirus cases were

reported in the District, Maryland

and Virg inia, bringing the total

number of cases to 520,996.

D.C. MD. VA.

+244+3,202 +3,9 15

24,098 225,855 271,043

Coronavirus-related deaths

As of 5 p.m. Thursday:

D.C. MD.* VA.

+4 +50 +5 4

7085 ,012 4,335

* Includes probable covid-19 deaths

BY MICHAEL KRANISH

President Jimmy Carter put

on a dark overcoat on the eve-

ning of Dec. 17, 1979, walked

across Pennsylvania Avenue and

arrived at Lafaye tte Square to

perform an act no president had

ever publicly done.

He prepared to light a m eno-

rah in commemoration of the

Jewish holiday Hanukkah.

For weeks, Carter had been

largely holed up in the White

House because of the Iranian

hostage crisis, a saga marked

nightly by television shows such

as “America Held Hostage.” But

now he emerged, urged on by a

Jewish aide who had fought for a

menorah to have equal rights

with a Christmas tree.

There was one problem. The

silver menorah, shielded from

the wind by a tall, narrow glass

enclosure, was too deep to be

easily lit with a tiny match. A

Secret Service agent hurried to a

Scandinavian design store one

block from the White House

called the Midnight Sun, owned

by my mother, a Jew who well

understood the moment’s im-

portance. She retrieved a box of

Swedish eight-inch-long match-

SEE RETROPOLIS ON B5

RETROPOLIS

When Jimmy Carter lit a menorah,

a shop owner was thrust into history

KARL H. SCHUMACHER/NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Aided by matches provided by a

reporter’s mother, President

Jimmy Carter lights a menorah

in Lafayette Square in 1979 —

the first public lighting of a

menorah by a U.S. president.

BY REBECCA TAN

Coronavirus deaths in D.C.,

Maryland and Virginia surpassed

10,000 on Thursday, a s omber

marker of the region’s failure to

contain the crisis.

The District reported four new

deaths, for a total of 708. Virginia

reported 54 deaths, for a total of

4,335. Maryland reported 50

deaths, bringing its total fatalities

to 5,012.

For weeks, health officials

warned that a record surge in

infections would be followed by

rising hospitalizations and

deaths. Their fears materialized

in late November, as rampant

community spread and Thanks-

giving travel gave way to a return

of the virus to the region’s nursing

homes and a steady rise in fatali-

ties not seen since the spring.

The seven-day average in daily

reported deaths exceeded 60 this

week — the highest since June.

Given that new daily infections

have continued pushing higher,

and that deaths tend to lag cases

by two weeks, the increase in

fatalities is likely to continue.

As of Thursday, about 340 of

every 10,000 people in the region

had tested positive for the coro-

navirus — and seven of every

10,000 had lost their lives.

There had been 103 deaths for

every 100,000 people in the Dis-

trict, 83 deaths per 100,000 resi-

SEE VIRUS ON B6

Virus fatalities pass grim milestone

Community spread and Thanksgiving travel contribute to regional r eports not seen since spring

MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ/THE WASHINGTON POST

Eugene Grant, the mayor of Seat Pleasant, pays his respects during the funeral of Bishop James N. Flowers Jr. on April 13 in Landover.

More than 10,000 people, including Flowers, have died of covid-19 in D.C., Maryland and Virginia during the pandemic.

10,000 DEATHS

Lives lost: A “ collector of friends,” a

barrier breaker, a devoted mom. B 7

BY HANNAH NATANSON

Loudoun County Public

Schools announced Thursday that

it will return all students to online

learning, a reversal that affects

roughly 18,000 children who had

gone back to school buildings over

the past few months.

School officials in neighboring

Fairfax County, meanwhile,

shared a draft of a plan with a

special school board meeting to

return the system’s 186,000 stu-

dents to in-person instruction in

January. Of ficials also introduced

an unusually lenient grading pol-

icy — meant to combat a spike in

fa iling grades as the novel corona-

virus pandemic continues to up-

end American education.

Loudoun’s decision, which

takes effect Tuesday, will send

SEE SCHOOLS ON B4

Loud oun

halts

o n-site

learning

FAIRFAX LOOSENS

GRADING STANDARDS

School changes spurred

by continuing virus crisis