The Daily Valet. - 2/16/21, Tuesday

✔️ Are They Here to Stay?

Tuesday, February 16th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

Let’s hear it for Tuesdays that feel like Mondays.

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today's edition is presented by

Today’s Big Story

Are To-Go Drinks Here to Stay?

Once you discover the joy of takeout cocktails, you can’t go back

Even as New Orleans—the epicenter of outdoor drinking—tightened restrictions on bars around Mardi Gras this year, the rest of the country has caught on to the joy of a go-cup, embracing the creativity and the, well, freedom that comes with a takeout drink.

By the summer of 2020, well more than half the country had embraced “on-demand alcohol laws,” according to ABC News, as restaurant and bar owners struggled to find ways to stay open. It worked. And now restaurateurs say their ability to offer to-go alcoholic drinks with meals should continue in a post-COVID-19 world. “Restaurants have done this responsibly,” one owner told the Baltimore Sun. “The convenience is something that’s very attractive to everybody.”

You might wonder where these No Public Drinking laws came from ... The assumption is that there must be a rational reason that for them, but as one bartender tells Thrillist, “When you dig into why some rules exist, most of it has to do with either something more puritanical or things that have happened because of geography.”

Relaxing the laws to help out local businesses, cities and states are coming to see that they’re not leading to much, if any, trouble. It’s unclear what the long-term plan for the loosened alcohol restrictions will be nationwide, but many agree the genie’s been let out of the bottle. Or flask. Or juice pouch with a straw ... you get the idea.

Because while it’s no substitute for a freshly mixed cocktail, strained into a chilled coup within a handsomely outfitted bar, there is plenty of thought going into these libations.

For example, there’s the topical Fauci Pouchy at DC's Capo Deli and the old time-y glass flasks at the Mountaineering Club in Seattle. “I like guests being able to control when they’re going to start adding chill and dilution,” says bar manager Jabriel Donohue. “But at the same time, our drinks are such that if you want to walk down the street nipping out of a flask, you can do that, too.”

↦ On the Books: To-go cocktails in California could become a permanent thing with a new bill proposal, but it excludes bars without food.

COVID-19 Numbers Keep Improving

The seven-day average has dipped below 100,000 for the first time since the fall

A hearty thank you to everyone who has been doubling down on mask wearing and social distancing. Health experts say your efforts are paying off.

You might remember, the U.S. shattered its records for daily new infections, hospitalizations and deaths in early January after widespread holiday gatherings and travel. But since then, both cases and hospitalizations have plummeted, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Daily deaths have also decreased but at a slower rate. On Saturday, the seven-day rolling average for deaths was around 2,500, down from a peak of 3,300 earlier this winter, reports CNN. A former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed the idea that Americans are now seeing the effect of their good behavior—not of increased vaccinations. So far, more than 11% of Americans have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

A less optimistic explanation has emerged as well: New cases are simply going undetected. A professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health, tweeted an increased focus on vaccine distribution and administration could be making it harder to get tested.

↦ Meanwhile: America’s wealthiest people are discovering the vaccine is one of the few things money can’t buy.

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Winter Wallops the U.S.

Record cold temperatures make life miserable

In news to pretty much no one, a powerful winter storm continues unloading snow, ice and below-freezing temperatures across the U.S., setting record lows in multiple states and leaving millions of residents without power.

More than 150 million Americans remain under various winter weather advisories as the storm spreads heavy snow and significant ice accumulations from the Southern Plains and Ohio Valley to the Northeast, according to the National Weather Service, which called the area of hazardous weather “unprecedented and expansive.”

In Texas, the governor called out the National Guard to help. In Kansas, the governor asked residents to do all they could to conserve power. In Kentucky, state officials warned that more frigid winter weather is coming. Cities are wrestling with how to shelter the homeless population without exposing them to the coronavirus (which obviously spreads most easily indoors).

The NWS Weather Prediction Center said record lows had already been established in Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, Wisconsin, Colorado, Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma—with temperatures likely to drop even more today.

↦ FYI: The cold is so widespread that you could travel 2,000 miles from the Rio Grande on the Mexican border to the St. Lawrence River on the Canadian border entirely in winter storm warnings.

Is Two Hours Outdoors the New 10,000 Steps?

Time to tap into nature’s therapeutic effects

As people spend more time indoors, a mountain of scientific research says spending time in nature is critical to health and increases longevity. That means being in fresh air, under trees and away from cars, concrete and screens—on a regular basis.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the benefits have been clear to scientists for some time, but the pandemic has made the matter more urgent. The physical and emotional toll the virus has taken, especially in urban areas with little green space, has galvanized doctors, researchers and others to tap into nature's therapeutic effects.

Spending time in the woods—a practice the Japanese call “forest bathing”—is strongly linked to lower blood pressure, heart rate and stress hormones and decreased anxiety, depression and fatigue, reports National Geographic. (I actually tried it at a retreat in 2019 and gotta say, I'm a fan.)

While there's still a lot researchers don't know, they're racing to find answers by scanning brains, quizzing people to see how our environments affect our cognition, and planting a full-grown forest in a schoolyard to learn how much tree canopy is needed to curb air pollution and alleviate asthma.

↦ Dig Deeper: Can we really feel the benefits of nature through a screen? Scientists are exploring this theory right now.

In Other News

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

An interesting style update

The Daytona 500’s 16-car pileup

The stove’s broiler

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