David Bryce walked up to a Norfolk office of the Department of Motor Vehicles with a title in his hand Friday afternoon. Because of the state’s coronavirus-inspired procedures, he’d made an appointment weeks ago. He’d bought his son a car and needed to finalize the paperwork. But Bryce then realized the doors were locked. Gov. Ralph Northam, with three days notice, had deemed Friday a holiday for most state employees.
Saying he would bring an “important perspective” to the conversation around criminal justice reform, Virginia’s governor on Tuesday named Norfolk Police Chief Larry Boone to a state panel tasked with recommending public safety policy. Gov. Ralph Northam announced Boone’s appointment during a press conference in Richmond, praising him for marching with demonstrators during a protest calling for police reform in Norfolk last week.
Nicole Seretis didn’t know who to call May 15 when she wanted to add patio dining to her family’s Norfolk restaurant, Orapax. Gov. Ralph Northam had announced that restaurants could open up patio seating that day, at half capacity — and that dining rooms would have to stay closed. But the Chelsea District mainstay did not, strictly speaking, have a patio.
It isn’t always who you know. Bill Meyer, the owner of Meyer Fitness in Norfolk was, like many in his industry, disappointed in the initial order made March 24 by Gov. Ralph Northam to close businesses such as his, and he had some questions. He emailed what he thought was a thought-out, bullet-pointed missive. A few hours later he got a terse and generic response that repeated what he already knew — all fitness centers must close.
Gov. Ralph Northam announced Friday that he was issuing an executive order to delay local May elections by two weeks. The elections for city and town councils, mayors, county boards or school boards in several localities across the state — including Chesapeake, Norfolk, Hampton, Newport News and Williamsburg — were scheduled for May 5.
It took three weeks for Virginia to receive its first shipment of personal protective equipment from Northfield Medical Manufacturing after signing a roughly $27 million contract with the Norfolk-based company on March 31. The lengthy lead time was just one of the unusual features of the procurement agreement, said Virginia’s Secretary of Finance, Aubrey Layne. Operating amid a chaotic global supply chain, it took state officials weeks to parse through a list of more than 100 potential vendors.
On April 10, Eric Nelson got an email that meant the difference between being open and being closed: His loan had come through. His restaurant in Norfolk’s Ghent neighborhood, Crudo Nudo, had been shut down for weeks — though he still serves free food once a week to people in the neighborhood who are down on their luck. He’d had to cut all his staff in March ...
Andy Revell feels responsible for his coworker and friend dying from the coronavirus last week. To try to make sure no one else dies, he’s leading a strike of shipyard workers. Revell and about 40 other General Dynamics workers didn’t show up for their Tuesday shifts because they believe the company isn’t doing enough to make sure the virus doesn’t spread in the Norfolk shipyard of BAE Systems.
Dr. David Zelinskas got the call Thursday night: be ready to go within 72 hours to help fight the coronavirus. “We all kind of had the feeling it was a matter of time,” said Zelinskas, 37, who works at Tidewater Physicians Multispecialty Group and lives in Virginia Beach.
Two Hampton Roads health systems will now test patients for the coronavirus at their own laboratories, a new capability that could deliver quicker results for patients who think they’ve contracted the illness. Sentara Healthcare, which operates a majority of hospitals in the region, had been sending nasal swabs and spit samples to either a commercial lab or the state’s facility in Richmond, both of which are overwhelmed with the influx of cases driven by the pandemic.