Good morning, RVA! It's 45 °F, rainy, and it looks like it'll stay rainy for most of the morning. In fact, you should expect a chance of rain each of the next several days.
Water cooler
Richmond Police are reporting that a male 16-year-old was shot to death outside of a store on the 3000 block of Nine Mile Road this past Thursday.
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 219 positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth, and three people in Virginia have died as a result of the virus. VDH reports 22 cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 8, Henrico: 8, and Richmond: 6). You can now start to see the spread of the virus well beyond the urban crescent and into the rest of Virginia. For what it's worth, in his briefing on Sunday, the Governor said six people have died from the virus in Virginia. More on that below.
Not entirely unexpected, but the City will keep their offices closed until at least the end of the month—this ever-updating list of critical services will, however, remain open. But! Pair that closure, with this new service: On Friday, the Mayor announced that, through a partnership with the YMCA and the Community Foundation, the City will "provide emergency childcare to elementary and middle school-aged children of essential medical personnel in Richmond." We've got a need for medical professionals and, with school shut down for the foreseeable future, they've got a need for childcare. This sounds like a great way to meet that need.
According to the legislative calendar, City Council will still meet today at 6:00 PM for whatever remains of their regularly scheduled meeting. You can take a look at the agenda as it stands here (PDF), and with Council's informal meeting canceled, perhaps this is tonight's actual agenda. Every paper has been continued, except ORD. 2020-091 (reallocating money to the affordable housing trust fund) and ORD. 2020-092 (extending the deadline for filing for tax exemptions). As we continue to live in This Most Unusual Time, it's worth reading this opinion from Attorney General Mark Herring about how public bodies can continue to meet during shutdowns, lockdowns, and bans on gatherings of more than 10 folks (PDF). There's a clear tension between Virginia's freedom of information laws and the need for social distancing and isolation during a pandemic. I am obviously not a lawyer, but, reading through Herring's opinion, it seems like City Council will be pretty limited in what business it can conduct until either the General Assembly passes some new state laws or we're on the other side of this crisis. At the moment, "can't they just have a Zoom" is not an option. Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says five councilmembers will meet in person, as required by law, and four will call in (something that they can only do twice per year). This is clearly something the GA will have to address, right?? Localities can't just not have their legislative bodies meeting during a literal state of emergency!
Over on the schools front, starting today, RPS will expand their meal delivery program by using school buses to drop off food at 34 locations around the city. "Each bus will have volunteers to help hand out the grab-and-go meals, including Spanish-speaking staff for our Southside routes." They're also updating their meal distribution sites to focus on the new bus-delivery program. If you want to help out and you've thought long and hard about it, you can volunteer by filling out this form.
At his press conference on Sunday, which you can read about over at the RTD, Governor Northam said folks should expect the coronavirus crisis to "stretch out for several months." There are lots of Northam quotes in this piece about the need to social distance and take seriously the recommendations to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people. There are, however, no quotes about further restrictions from the Governor—which, honestly, seems wild to me. If you want to see how restrictions and control measures can impact the spread of the coronavirus, the New York Times has a good dataviz piece about when peak-virus hits each county in America under three different scenarios. Anyway, the RTD says, ominously, that "Northam said he would announce Monday an update on school closures at a daily press conference that will be moved to 2 p.m. going forward." I guess we'll learn more about schools this afternoon and see if the Governor is willing to implement stronger controls to help slow the spread of the virus.
A couple days ago the Bird app went dark, and I think they've pulled their scooters from Richmond's streets. I haven't left the Northside in a while, so I'm not 100% sure. The Verge says both Lime and Bird have started to pause service as a result of the coronavirus.
Here's an excellent TikTok combining social distancing, VCU men's soccer, and toilet paper. Yes it's a link to a tweet about a TikTok. As an official Old, it's the best I can do.
Classic Richmond emergency supplies: Milk, bread, and now toilet paper—but also liquor. Bob Lewis at the Virginia Mercury says folks are stocking up on booze as part of their shelter-in-place supplies. The piece ends with this excellent quote, "'You can never be too careful,' she said as she walked toward her car with a bulging bag of liquor bottles. 'Besides, I have a college kid who’s over 21 and who’s now back home, so I’ve got to stock up.'"
It's almost time to record a new episode of the Sam and Ross Like Things podcast, and for our 75th episode we're doing things a bit differently. If you're willing, record an audio clip of you saying your first name, location, and a sentence or two about something that you like. Could be ginger ale, hearing the sound of rain from your screen porch, or epidemiology. Literally anything you like! Then email the file to
This morning's longread
'I’m going to keep pushing.' Anthony Fauci tries to make the White House listen to facts of the pandemic
I've tried to keep longreads delightfully unrelated from the coronavirus, but this interview with Dr. Fauci is something else.
Q: You're standing there saying nobody should gather with more than 10 people and there are almost 10 people with you on the stage. And there are certainly more than 10 journalists in the audience. A: I know that. I’m trying my best. I cannot do the impossible. Q: What about the travel restrictions? President Trump keeps saying that the travel ban for China, which began 2 February, had a big impact [on slowing the spread of the virus to the United States] and that he wishes China would have told us three to four months earlier and that they were “very secretive.” [China did not immediately reveal the discovery of a new coronavirus in late December, but by 10 January, Chinese researchers made the sequence of the virus public.] It just doesn't comport with facts. A: I know, but what do you want me to do? I mean, seriously Jon, let’s get real, what do you want me to do?
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.