Good morning, RVA! It's 40 °F, and we might could see temperatures a few degrees warmer later this afternoon—but this is about what we've got. For the rest of this week, you can expect a bunch of days with highs in the 40s and 50s and lots sunshine. I think that sounds pretty good for the first week of December.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,893↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 4↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 180↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 68, Henrico: 69, and Richmond: 43). Since this pandemic began, 464 people have died in the Richmond region. I feel like I haven't written enough about coronavirus vaccines in this space, and that's probably about to change—which is good news! The New York Times has put together a wonderful COVID-19 vaccine tracker that should give you all the information you need on each specific vaccine in development. The two we'll most likely see in Richmond (and soon) are the Moderna and Pfizer candidates. Both companies have announced that they will apply for emergency use authorization, which, if approved by the FDA, would mean—boom!—vaccines on the ground. NPR's Sarah McCammon sat down with Governor Northam to talk about vaccine timelines and availability, and it sounds like the first round of vaccines will exist within the next two weeks, but will, of course, be extremely limited and reserved for hospital workers. Northam says Virginia will get 70,000 doses in this first round, which is not a ton of doses to spread around to eight million Virginians. Also, and only kind of related, I learned from reading this interview that the governor's sense of smell still has not returned from his coronavirus infection.
Yesterday, I was like "I guess we'll just have to see what individual schools and school districts decide to do about winter sports." Then, last night, I saw Tom Lappas from the Henrico Citizen report that Henrico County has canceled their school-sponsored winter sports. Also on schools, Jessica Nocera at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a quick follow up on Chesterfield County's decision to have students move back to virtual learning. Two items of note! First, while the County did see student and staff with positive cases of the coronavirus, "there is no substantial evidence of schools-related coronavirus transmission." Second, this quote from Chesterfield School Board Chair Debbie Bailey gets it right, "The community needs to pick cocktails or schools. I mean because literally the community transmission rate is so high and that’s why we had to shut down our schools, not because our mitigation strategies were not successful."
On Thanksgiving Day, a driver ran through a red light at the intersection of Chamberlayne and Brookland Park Boulevard, hit two other vehicles, killing Karen Murphy and Kevin Hancock. The driver "was transported to a local hospital with injuries that were not considered life threatening." Chamberlayne is a dangerous, way-too-fast street, and, within the City, intersections along its length see frequent crashes. Just this year, according to the TREDS crash map, we've seen seven crashes at Westbrook Avenue, five at North Avenue, five at Walton Avenue, five at Westwood Avenue, five at Brookland Park Boulevard, six at Edge Hill Road, five at Graham Road, six at School Street, and seven at Bacon Street. Just compare the number of crashes along Chamberlayne to those along Brook—a much slower and safer street. As I keep saying in this space, when someone dies using our streets the Department of Public Works, the Richmond Police Department, and the newish Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility should get together, analyze what happened, and implement immediate, pop-up safety improvements. In my opinion, the easiest and cheapest thing to slow traffic down on Chamberlayne would be to convert a lane in either direction into a dedicated bus-only lane.
The Governor's Virginia Marijuana Legalization Work Group has released their report on how to go about legalizing in the Commonwealth. You can read the Governor's press release here or the full, 482-page report here (PDF) (most of which is appendices, though). Of note from the much shorter Recommendations section (p. 7): a "social equity license category," a push for local control (obviously), some shade thrown on allowing folks to grow their own plants, and a recommendation for higher taxes for higher THC doses. Honestly, this is a pretty good PDF for learning what other states are doing when it comes to legalizing, taxing, and regulating marijuana. I've saved it to my PDF library! Who knows what Virginia will end up doing, but I imagine it will be methodical and take a bunch of years. Related, according to Jack Jacobs at Richmond BizSense, Richmond's first medical cannabis operator is now up and running in Manchester.
Yesterday, the Capital Region Land Conservancy announced that they'd been gifted 13 acres of land on the City's Southside along Grindall Creek that they'll, in turn, transfer to the City for use as public open space. Since it's the Land Conservancy's entire deal, the new parkland will be protected under a conservation easement in perpetuity. This announcement fits well with the Mayor's plan to get a park within a 10-minute walk of every Richmonder—especially Black and Brown folks. CRLC says "1,145 people live within a 10-minute walk of the property, of whom 71% are African American."
The Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host another free COVID-19 testing event today from 10:00 AM—12:00 PM at the Eastern Henrico Health Department (1400 N. Laburnum Avenue). Did you travel over the long weekend? Did you get tested after you returned home? Should you probably go ahead and do that?
This morning's longread
Pandemic-Proof Your Habits
I really enjoyed this piece about how important creating new routines during the pandemic can be for one's mental health. I like that framing, too. We can find new routines and traditions to celebrate and placate our lizard brains.
Our brains are literally overburdened with all the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Not only is there the seeming capriciousness of the virus, but we no longer have the routines that served as the familiar scaffolding of our lives. Things we had already figured out and relegated to the brain’s autopilot function — going to work, visiting the gym, taking the kids to school, meeting friends for dinner, grocery shopping — now require serious thought and risk analysis. As a result, we have less bandwidth available for higher order thinking: recognizing subtleties, resolving contradictions, developing creative ideas and even finding joy and meaning in life.
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