Good morning, RVA! It's 33 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday. Expect cooler temperatures with highs in the mid 50s, plus plenty of sunshine. Temperatures go up from here!
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 2,071↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 25↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 186↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 42, Henrico: 95, and Richmond: 49). Since this pandemic began, 444 people have died in the Richmond region. This is the third day in a row VDH has reported more than 2,000 new positive cases, and the current seven-day average across the Commonwealth stands at 1,761. I probably need to add the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association's Virginia Hospital COVID-19 Dashboard to my daily-read list. Right now—and, remember this is statewide data—27% of ventilators are in use as are 74% of ICU beds. Locally, that ICU bed occupancy numbers looks to be 88.3% and juuuuuust barely under the Uh Oh Threshold. VDH also has a couple graphs about the number of hospital beds occupied, which you can filter by region. I don't know that the Central Region graph tells me much other than we've had a high percentage of hospital beds occupied since even before the pandemic began. Honestly, those last two graphs looks pretty different, and I'm not sure why that is. All of that to say, lots of folks are in the hospital right now, and you should do whatever you can to stay out of the hospital—for coronareasons and otherwise.
Also, and this is petty, but didn't Governor Northam give his final press conference until after Thanksgiving last week? At the time, I thought that sounded bananas, and, it turned out to be actual bananas, as he's had near daily press conferences since his Friday announcement of new statewide restrictions. Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch confirms: "At a news conference a week earlier, the governor had not signaled further statewide mandates and had wished reporters a happy Thanksgiving, promising to not appear again before the cameras until after the holiday." Oops. Anyway, at his press conference yesterday, Northam did say "all options are on the table" as far as further restrictions go, so we'll see what that means and if he'll take any additional action before Thanksgiving. Just thinking out loud: A holiday weekend lockdown would piss a lot of people off, but would probably keep a lot of people from catching COVID-19. Announced soon enough and folks could at least have some time to process what their long weekend will look like stuck inside? I dunno—hard, sad, and complex stuff.
As for schools, Karina Bolster at NBC12 reports that 62% of Henrico County Public Schools students (at least those who responded) plan on remaining fully-virtual. I think those responses came before the District pumped the brakes on reopening to in-person instruction, so I imagine those numbers could change. Related, Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Kamras released the ongoing results of his Should We Stay or Should We Go survey, and, as of 2:00 PM on Tuesday, 63% of family respondents would prefer for RPS to remain fully virtual as would 80% of staff respondents. An important reminder from Kamras: "I do want to note that, while our family data is becoming more demographically representative of RPS each day, it is still under-representing families of color, who make up about 90% of RPS but only 65% of survey respondents. Our goal is to achieve a fully representative picture of how our families feel about the second semester, which is why we're keeping the survey open for the next couple of weeks." If you're a member of the RPS community and haven't take the survey, please do (family survey in English, family survey in Spanish, staff survey)!
It looks like we have official, final election results in Virginia, says the RTD's Andrew Cain, and that means we have official, final results in Richmond's 2nd District City Council race! Katherine Jordan will now represent the City's 2nd District, and you can follow her on Twitter @KatherineJRVA if you want to get in an early word. Congratulations, Councilmember-Elect Jordan!
University of Richmond made a pretty stunning announcement yesterday: "...the University has announced it will meet the full demonstrated financial need for all RPS graduates who qualify to attend with grant aid—not with loans—up to the full cost of attendance at UR." RPS Superintendent Kamras put it well, saying "The word 'equity' gets thrown around a lot in education, but real equity requires real dollars. And that's exactly what UR just put on the table. RPS seniors, if you've never thought about the University of Richmond because of the cost, well, here's the link to apply!"
If you live within 25 miles of the 2610 Buford Road ABC store, which is, like, everyone in the entire region, you can now order alcohol online and have it delivered to your home. This is amazing, and it only took a pandemic to get it. You'll need to make sure you're ordering from the Buford Road store, and it looks like you're limited to that store's stock—but still! Look at us! Reasonably modern alcohol laws in Virginia, who woulda thought. Not me!
Today, the Richmond City and Henrico Health Districts will host a free COVID-19 testing event at Regency Square (1420 N. Parham Road) from 9:00–11:00 AM. If you can't make this one, there are many, many places to get tested. Also, if you're planning to get a test before some sort of holiday travel your window is closing!
This morning's longread
Why Millennials Are Suddenly So Obsessed With Houseplants
This is not a great piece, and I mostly eye-roll at “Millennials do X because of Y” reporting. That said, remember 2019?? I got such a sense of The Before Times nostalgia while reading this. Hilarious that people used to do things for any reason other than to make pandemic life a little more livable.
In addition to social media connections, getting involved in the plant community also provides countless opportunities to meet up in person. Besides plant swaps, enthusiasts of particular varieties can attend shows throughout the year. This coming weekend, thousands of plant lovers will descend on Miami for the International Aroid Society Show and Sale, which the community has dubbed the “Coachella for plants.” That’s not to say there can’t be a dark side to plant collecting. Some plant parents get wrapped up in hunting down super-rare species, adding too many to their collections and spending more money than they can realistically afford. Like any type of collecting, it’s possible to compromise your quality of life and go overboard.
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