Category: COVID-19 info
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A pandemic and protests have ramped up interest in city budgeting. Here’s The Citizen’s guide to Hburg’s spending
Continue with the plan for building a second high school? Reduce funding for the police department? The combination of the pandemic’s economic ripple effects and calls for social change out of this summer’s protests have sparked questions and deep-seated opinions about how the city of Harrisonburg spends its money. Residents have been bringing up budget issues in city council meetings, at rallies for racial justice and on social media.
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Region’s top health official discusses COVID-19 from early days to ongoing crisis
“The basics of emergency response, having mechanisms in place locally for continuity of operations and having setups where folks are familiar with command structures and how to respond to emergencies, are things health care providers train for constantly,” said Dr. Laura Kornegay, director of the Central Shenandoah Health District, during an hour-long telephone interview with The Citizen.
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Lightsabers and a little loneliness: How Hburg kids have been coping with the pandemic
The Citizen has covered the pandemic’s effects on Harrisonburg from many angles — how it has afflicted those who have had the virus, slammed local businesses, impacted city finances — even how it’s changed the way we interact. But we’ve mostly covered adults’ points of view and wanted to know how kids in the community have been affected. So we commissioned a student contributor to find out.
Required masks and alternating school days is the plan … for now
The plan for reopening Harrisonburg city schools in the fall by having students alternate days in the buildings won the school board’s unanimous approval Tuesday. But school officials are bracing for it to change right up until schools start Aug. 31.
Another financial effect of the pandemic: international students’ only employment options
As a lesser-publicized consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, many colleges and universities stopped paying for certain on-campus work-study jobs when classes shifted online in March. For many of these students, the checks that were supposed to come until May abruptly ended two months early, creating a cash crunch for those students — and uncertainty about regaining those work-study positions in the fall.
City schools’ plan for fall would mean fewer students in buildings at once, more online learning
Alternating students’ attendance days, more virtual learning and temperature checks at the door are hallmarks of the upcoming academic year that’s beginning to take shape for Harrisonburg city students.
Even recycling looks a little different in a pandemic
The city, earlier this month, reopened its recycling center on Beery Road after a more than 11-week hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For some residents, it was a welcome return to help clear the backlog of cardboard, cans and plastic containers. Others have been seeking out the mobile recycling unit — which kept operating — each week to make sure they’re doing their part for the environment.
How one conversation helped save area farmers markets this year
Back in the early days of COVID-19, neighbors Josie Showalter and Seán McCarthy were walking their dogs when the conversation shifted to the pandemic’s economic effects. Showalter, the manager of the Harrisonburg Farmers Market, told McCarthy, a JMU professor, about how customers were staying home — and away from the farmers market.
