(Updated 4 p.m.) Officials with Arlington County Public Health Division say they are not wasting coronavirus vaccine doses, but they also do not condone people getting vaccinated out of turn.
During a COVID-19 work session on Tuesday, County Board members told health division staff that their constituents frequently express concerns about line-jumping by those who do not currently qualify for vaccinations under Virginia Dept. of Health’s Phase 1b guidelines.
“Everyone knows someone who isn’t in the 75-plus category or the personnel identified yet but got vaccinated because their eye doctor, brother or psychiatrist,” Board member Katie Cristol said, listing the kinds of connections that people are allegedly using.
January 11, 2021 at 3:45pm
(Updated at 4:30 p.m.) Arlington County says it is “taking all necessary steps to ensure public safety” ahead of the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration.
In a statement issued this afternoon, County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti thanked the county police officers and firefighters dispatched into D.C. as mutual aid during last week’s pro-Trump storming of the U.S. Capitol, and assured residents that the county will “protect our community and help keep the peace in the coming days.”
De Ferranti said he has “full confidence” that Acting Police Chief Charles “Andy” Penn and County Manager Mark Schwartz are “taking the steps necessary to keep Arlingtonians safe” in the lead-up to president-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
December 29, 2020 at 2:45pm
Longtime Arlington residents who founded a Rosslyn-based online university are donating $50,000 to help local small businesses.
In 1998, Yanping Chen and J. Davidson Frame established the University of Management and Technology, a fully online school enrolling national and international students, located at 1901 Fort Myer Drive. Their $50,000 donation comes from the Chen Frame Foundation, which they started to support educational causes across the world.
But now, they are thinking closer to home.
“COVID-19 brought to mind that we’re not focused enough on our own backyard,” Frame said.
Arlington Economic Development will use the money to help pay for new initiatives, such as educational programming and online services, to help small businesses through the pandemic.
December 16, 2020 at 11:45am
The County Board has granted restaurant and bar owners more leeway as to where they can set up and winterize outdoor seating.
Owners will now be able to set up temporary outdoor seating areas or TOSAs in common areas, such as plazas, following a vote during the recessed County Board meeting on Tuesday.
In May, when the County first established a program to allow TOSAs to respond to the pandemic, the seating on sidewalks and patios had to be associated with specific restaurants and bars.
The decision to give restaurants more space and flexibility is partly in response to a request from representatives of a plaza in Shirlington to open the space to outdoor seating for several nearby restaurants.
Arlington County police officers will start wearing body cameras on Wednesday, the police department announced today.
The relatively swift implementation of the new body-worn cameras follows a community discussion of police practices in Arlington, which itself followed the civil unrest caused by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis this past May.
“Effective Wednesday, December 16, 2020, Arlington County Police Officers assigned to the Operations Division will begin wearing body worn cameras and recording all dispatched calls for service, enforcement contacts and investigative contacts,” ACPD said today. “The deployment of cameras includes officers assigned to Patrol, Special Operations, Community Outreach, K-9 and the Emergency Response Team (commonly referred to as SWAT).”