The Washignton Post - 04.04.2020

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saturday, april 4 , 2020. washingtonpost.com/regional eZ su b

religion

clergy are struggling to

minister to the sick, the

dying and the bereaved

while social distancing. b2

the district

a man is charged with

falsely claiming to sell

items protecting buyers

from the coronavirus. b5

obituaries

read about the lives of

people from the region at

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49 ° 56 ° 61 ° 58 ° obituaries.

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

High today at

approx. 5 p.m.

63

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Precip: 10%

Wind: NNE

6-12 mph

BY GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER,

FENIT NIRAPPIL

AND LAURA VOZZELLA

Roughly 1 in every 7 D.C. resi-

dents could get infected with the

novel coronavirus, according to

projections Mayor Muriel e.

Bowser cited Friday that show the

pandemic hitting its peak in the

nation’s capital early this summer

and then g radually r eceding.

The grim estimates c ame as the

number of coronavirus cases in

the District, Maryland and Virgin-

ia sailed past 5,000 on Friday

morning and the total number of

fatalities c limbed past 100.

Bowser (D) said a model on

which city officials are relying es-

timates that about 93,000 people

could contract the coronavirus in

the city, a cumulative figure over

the course of the public health

emergency. The projection in-

cludes people who have been in-

fe cted a nd have recovered.

“This is a tough number to have

to report,” Bowser said. “But we

think that we’d rather be on the

side of underestimating the im-

pacts of social distancing than

presenting too rosy a picture.”

she predicted the District

would see a peak in hospitalized

patients from late June to early

July.

see virus on b4

B owser:

1 in 7 in

D.C. may

get virus

cases in district,

va., md. top 5,000

Leaders’ projections for

case peaks vary widely

BY SARAH PULLIAM BAILEY

AND RUTH EGLASH

The Rev. Richard Mosson

Weinberg canceled the Boston

ferns and the yellow daffodils for

the easter service ordered for his

episcopal church in Washington’s

affluent Kalorama neighborhood.

Rabbi Levi shemtov scrapped

plans for the 200-person seder

dinner for Passover in his Chabad

synagogue nearby. And Imam

Yahya Luqman called off the Ra-

madan dinners at his mosque

down the street.

These three faith leaders, who

normally lead worship within

walking distance from one anoth-

er in northwest Washington, are

all scrambling to find socially

distant ways to celebrate major

religious holidays this month.

They are joined by clergy and the

faithful around the world, includ-

ing at well-known Christian, Jew-

ish and Muslim sites in Jerusalem

and beyond.

on sunday, Christians will

launch Holy Week with Palm sun-

day, preparing to recount the bib-

lical story of Jesus’s death and

resurrection. since st. Margaret’s

canceled services, including for

easter on April 12, Weinberg has

been working on a sermon about

the life and message of Jesus that

see holidays on b2

Faith leaders improvise

ways to mark holidays

BY GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER

AND LAURA VOZZELLA

RICHMOND — Gov. Ralph

northam is considering whether

to delay raising Virginia’s mini-

mum wage and postpone pay

increases for public employees as

the state wrestles with a coronavi-

rus pandemic that could drain

more than $2 billion from its

coffers over the next two years.

The crisis will cost Virginia

hundreds of millions of dollars

this fiscal year, which ends June

30, and it is likely to carve $1 bil-

lion from each year of the two-

year budget the General Assem-

bly approved last month, Finance

secretary Aubrey Layne said.

“That is the minimum, and I

would suggest it’s worse than

that,” he said.

northam (D) is in discussions

with lawmakers about how to

address the shortfalls and wheth-

er to delay long-sought priorities

passed by the state’s Democratic

majority just weeks ago — at a

time when the state budget was

overflowing and the outbreak

was something happening far

away in China and Italy.

“I haven’t made any definite

decisions,” the governor said

Wednesday, a dding that he is con-

sulting business and labor lead-

ers across the state. “A nd what I

will do... after getting input

from these individuals, is make a

decision that’s in the best interest

see budget on b6

Facing

losses, Va.

reassesses

its budget

Northam considers

postponing increases in

minimum wage, raises

BY RACHEL WEINER,

PETER HERMANN

AND DANA HEDGPETH

Authorities continued search-

ing Friday for two members of the

Kennedy family who disappeared

in the Chesapeake Bay after they

had set out in a c anoe to retrieve a

ball in the water — a mission that

the family said had “turned from

rescue to recovery.”

Maeve Kennedy To wnsend

McKean, 40, and her 8-year-old

son Gideon Joseph Kennedy McK-

ean went missing near Annapolis

on Thursday evening while the

family had gathered at a water-

front house owned by McKean’s

mother, family and authorities

said.

At about 4 p.m., children were

kicking a ball back and forth in a

yard, and the ball went into the

water, said McKean’s husband,

David McKean.

He said his wife and son

“popped into a canoe to chase it

down.”

“They just got farther out than

they could h andle and couldn’t g et

back in,” he said in a brief inter-

view with The Washington Post.

He said the family had been at

the shady side home of Kathleen

Kennedy Townsend, a f ormer lieu-

tenant governor of Maryland.

Kennedy Townsend described

her daughter a s a dedicated moth-

er of three a nd public servant with

a “fire emanating from her soul.”

“My heart is crushed, yet we

shall try to summon the grace of

God and what strength we have to

honor the hope, energy and pas-

sion that Maeve and Gideon set

forth into the world,” s he said in a

statement.

Maeve McKean is executive di-

rector of the Georgetown Univer-

sity Global Health Initiative. she

is a granddaughter of the late

senator Robert F. Kennedy and

grandniece of former president

John F. Kennedy.

Capt. erik Kornmeyer, a

spokesman for the Anne Arundel

County F ire Department, said in a

statement that a concerned per-

son called authorities around 4 :30

p.m. Thursday to say he saw the

canoe from the Columbia Beach

pier.

According to the Coast Guard,

the caller said the boaters were

“seen struggling to return to shore

see missing on b3

Kennedy family says search for boaters is now ‘recovery’ mission

Granddaughter of RFK

went with her son to

retrieve a ball from bay

Pete marovich for the Washington Post

BY FREDRICK KUNKLE

Michael s. Megonigal and his daughter,

Marley, wanted to help people who lost

their jobs as the novel coronavirus pan-

demic spread, perhaps by buying someone

some food, but the two weren’t sure about

how to do it.

Then, after stepping in line to buy a

snack at Culmore supermarket in Baileys

Crossroads last weekend, an opportunity

unfolded before them: Another customer

discovered she couldn’t afford everything

and was about to put an item back. Megoni-

gal paid for her groceries, and then some.

“We went there with the intention to

[buy groceries for someone],” s aid Megoni-

gal, 58, an auto body worker at Caliber

Collision in Arlington. “now it just so

happened that when we got in line, there

was a lady who was short already. so I just

said, ‘I’ll tell you what. I got it.’ The girl

behind the register didn’t understand. she

didn’t understand what I was telling her.”

And then Megonigal told the next wom-

an in line he would pay for her groceries,

too, and the next person, and the person

after that. Alex Lee, the grocery store’s

owner, said Megonigal told him to let the

register go u p to $1,000. And then Megoni-

gal told him to let it go a little higher, and a

little higher after that.

see groceries on b4

Making a dent in hard times

A body shop worker and his

daughter help one grocery

shopper, then dozens more

michael s. megonigal

michael s. megonigal, and his daughter, marley, 11, wanted to help people who aren’t drawing a paycheck because of the

coronavirus outbreak, and they decided they would foot the bill for about 30 supermarket customers in baileys crossroads.

BY PAUL DUGGAN

Here’s a story Julie o’Donnell

Buck tells about her friend Jerry

Manley, a gregarious, kindhearted

neighbor, 6 feet tall and 300

pounds, a 58-year-old retired police

sergeant beloved for his generosity

and wisecracking humor, a devoted

volunteer for charities and, now, a

fatal casualty of covid-19.

A few summers ago, when Buck,

in her mid-40s, was undergoing

weeks of daily r adiation t herapy for

cancer, her husband wasn’t always

able to drive her to appointments

25 miles from their home in Calvert

County, Md. so Manley stepped in

to help a half-dozen times.

“He’d come by and pick me up,”

Buck recalled. “He was just so sweet.

see manley on b4

Humor, kindness were his hallmarks

courtesy of the myrick family

Jerry manley, right, volunteered for special olympics maryland.