Transparency News, 5/5/20

 

After close to two months of collecting data about COVID-19, how it is spreading and how it is being tracked, Virginia health officials said they will begin to release some of the data that, until now, has not been released publicly. On Monday afternoon, officials held a briefing with reporters explaining the difference between the raw data that was coming in and the daily updates that were sent out each day on the Virginia Department of Health’s website. Officials said they were not hiding any information but some of the information that was of interest to scientists to understand how the virus was moving was less interesting to citizens who wanted a big-picture idea of what the state was facing.
The Northern Virginia Daily

Beginning next week, the New River Public Health Task Force will host a series of weekly, interactive, virtual town halls for COVID-19, and invites all area residents to participate. Town halls will be held on Wednesdays, May 6 through June 10, from 6 to 7 p.m. Each will have a specific focus and will feature a panel of local experts, who will offer remarks and answer questions.
The Southwest Times

Portsmouth City Manager Lydia Pettis Patton is proposing hiking the city’s meal tax and several fees for residents — including on stormwater, water and sewer services — even as the government plans large budget cuts during the coronavirus pandemic. The proposals were posted to the city website a week after the City Council sought public input about Pettis Patton’s spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.
The Virginian-Pilot

 

 

 

Attorneys for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration refused Monday to reveal the contents of a $990-million contract for purchasing protective masks from a Chinese electric car manufacturer, even though millions of the masks have already arrived in California to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. In a letter responding to a public records request from the Los Angeles Times, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services insisted the contract with BYD does not have to be made public, despite similar requests made by members of the Legislature since Newsom announced the deal last month. “Cal OES determined all responsive records are exempt from disclosure, including exemptions for records reflecting attorney work product, attorney-client privileged information, or other information exempt from disclosure under federal or state law,” Ryan Gronsky, an attorney with the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, wrote in a letter to The Times.
Los Angeles Times

The Daily Caller News Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on Monday over documents related to federal communication about China and the World Health Organization. The nonprofit news organization filed the lawsuit through conservative activist group Judicial Watch, seeking the correspondence of Drs. Anthony Fauci and H. Clifford Lane, the two top health officials at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who are at the forefront of guiding the federal government on handling the coronavirus pandemic. “We have a legitimate and urgent news purpose for seeking these documents regarding U.S. officials’ communications with the WHO and demand that the agencies in question stop stalling and start following FOIA, which clearly entitles us to this vital information,” the Daily Caller’s co-founder, Neil Patel, wrote in a public statement.
Washington Examiner

The U.S. Supreme Court made history Monday. The coronavirus lockdown forced the typically cautious court to hear arguments for the first time via telephone, and to stream the arguments live for the public to hear. Chief Justice John Roberts was at the court as the telephone session began, one or two other justices were in their offices at the court, and the rest of the justices dialed in from home. Tom Goldstein, publisher of Scotusblog, who has argued 43 cases before the court, said he thought the argument was probably more useful to the public than usual. “But I bet it was less useful for the justices,” he said. “Because there was less opportunity to follow up on lines of questions and less opportunity to influence someone … so there’s much less engagement in the oral argument.”
NPR

Even as government agencies around the world stretch themselves thin to battle the novel coronavirus, they have also had to defend themselves against an apparent surge in interest from hackers. With a large uptick in government telework, the fear and anxiety surrounding cyberattacks has risen, and reports from state and federal authorities consistently indicate hackers are trying to take advantage of the current chaos for their own gain.  At the same time, in certain areas where experts had predicted catastrophic effects, recent reports have shown that those concerns may have been overblown. Here’s a run down of the current trends and the ways hackers are targeting governments as the COVID-19 crisis continues to unfold.
Governing

 

Nearly a year since a city employee opened fire at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center, killing 12 and wounding four, the public still does not have a thorough accounting of what happened. A report by the private security firm helped shed some light on what transpired, but most hoped an investigation by the city’s police department would prove more illuminating. At a recent City Council meeting, however, the former head of that department cautioned that his investigators hadn’t determined a motive for the violence and, worse, that the police were unlikely to release the full investigative record when it is complete. The first issue is reasonably beyond the control of city officials. However, the police department has the power to release its full investigationwhen that work is complete and there is no compelling reason to conceal that information from the public. It’s likely that some of the details in that record will be shocking and disturbing. It will likely make folks angry or sad or frustrated — or all three. And it could include images or descriptions that will prove indelible to those who peruse them. But it’s not the job of law enforcement of city leadership to keep the truth from public view, no matter how distressing that may be. Virginia Beach promised a full accounting of what happened in May, and it must honor that commitment.
The Virginian-Pilot

More than a fifth of the 55,000 known COVID-19 deaths in the United States [as of this writing] have occurred at nursing homes and other elder-care facilities. Federal and state governments have largely turned a blind eye, often making no effort to test residents or staffs and leaving relatives, surrounding communities and the public in the dark. In at least a half-dozen states — most notably Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas and Louisiana — officials have refused to make public the names of facilities wracked by the virus, even as residents and employees there are dying. The states’ nominal reason for their secrecy, privacy protections for institutions, is akin to refusing to identify an airline whose plane has crashed. Many nursing homes have made good-faith efforts to keep relatives informed when outbreaks occur; others have not or simply don’t know. 
The Daily Progress