Good morning, RVA! It's 49 °F, and we've got a potential bit of rain moving through the area this morning. After that, though, get stoked for temperatures in the mid 70s and beyond until at least next week. Find a reason to spend some time outside!
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 946 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 36 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 92 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 25, Henrico: 40, and Richmond: 27). We'll get one more round of data this afternoon before the Governor's planned move into Phase One, but, over the last couple of days: the seven-day average of the number of new cases has gone up, the seven-day average of hospitalizations has gone up, the seven-day average of the number of new deaths has gone up, the seven-day average of percent positivity (using unique people tested) has gone up, and the seven-day average of percent positivity (using testing events) has gone up. Some of those data points, especially the Governor's key metric of percent positivity, rely on testing, which has also steadily gone up over the last couple of weeks. However, we just learned from Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, in The Most Important Coronavirus Piece That I've Read In A While, that VDH had started to mix antibody test results with its standard, viral test results. To me—not a doctor or an expert—that seems confusing at best and misleading at worst. Yesterday, Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyer at the Atlantic have this incredibly damning piece that confirms a lot of my concerns with how the Governor is using unreliable data in his decisions to move into Phase One of recovery. You absolutely must read the entire thing, but I'm going to quote some of the more enraging bits. First, "Virginia’s decision to mix the results of two different kinds of tests marks a new low in data standards...By combining these two types of test, the state is able to portray itself as having a more robust infrastructure for tracking and containing the coronavirus than it actually does." A Harvard professor of Global Health said of the practice, "It's terrible. It messes up everything." Meanwhile, the Governor's Chief of Staff says that the practice is totally fine because other states are doing it too, but the Atlantic "could not find evidence that other states are blending test results in the way that [the Chief of Staff] claimed. In an email, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Health claimed that Arizona, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia also mingled viral and antibody results. This is false: Those three governments either separate out, or do not report, the result of negative antibody tests to the public." Then, about how this impacts the Governor's key percent positivity metric: "But because Virginia combines viral and antibody results, its positivity rate is unusable, said Jha, the Harvard professor...By lumping the two tests together, as Virginia has done, states can artificially improve their test-positivity rate." Keep all that in mind as the Governor drags the Commonwealth into Phase One tomorrow.
Obviously, as an amateur spreadsheetidemiologist, I'm against the Governor's rushed recovery plan—but I'm not the only one! Yesterday, the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus sent a letter to Governor Northam opposing the plans to begin Phase One tomorrow. I strongly agree with this: "Yet a premature reopening of Virginia’s economy under these aforementioned weaknesses in proper medical infrastructure and capacity will hit Black Virginians and Virginians of Color even harder. Under the current plan, and with the already existent racial disparities that this pandemic and economic crisis are perpetuating, we will be creating a situation where Black and Brown Virginians outside of Northern Virginia will become guinea pigs for our economy." It's times like these I'm proud that both of my state legislators are members of the VLBC.
Locally, Mayor Stoney has voiced some of the same concerns as the VLBC and has hinted at asking the Governor for an exemption similar to that given NOVA. Stoney's position makes a ton of sense, even if none of his regional partners in Chesterfield or Henrico agree. Regardless, Richmond is different than the surrounding counties. Over 20% of Richmond's population lives below the poverty line, compared to less than 10% in Chesterfield and Henrico. Black people represent 47% of Richmond's population and just 30% in Henrico and 23% in Chesterfield. Read what the VLBC said again and think about how that plays out locally. We do not need to set Richmond up as an experiment for how putting service industry folks back to work—without the proper testing and tracking infrastructure—impacts the health and lives of Black and Brown people. If you agree with the Mayor, I'd encourage you to let him know. You can drop him an email at RVAmayor@richmondgov.com or send him a tweet at @LevarStoney. It may seem like a small, inconsequential action, but we should publicly support our locally elected leaders who are making the right decisions.
I don't know how this came about, but ChamberRVA got $250,000 from Facebook to start providing unrestricted grants to small businesses. The application is open until this coming Tuesday, May 19th, so if you've got a small business (two to 25 employees) and need some extra cash it's definitely worth giving the application a once-over.
Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense has some of the details on the next batch of rezonings to come out of the Pulse Corridor Plan. This next phase would tackle a lot of the weird industrial no-zones between Arthur Ashe Boulevard, the highway, Lombardy, and Broad. Yes! More density on and along Broad Street, please! Planning Commission will take a look at the related ordinance (ORD. 2020-103) on May 18th.
Also from Richmond BizSense, Jack Jacobs says area malls plan to reopen tomorrow? Sure. Do the malls count as "non-essential brick and mortar retail"? Will they have to monitor folks coming in for coronavirus symptoms? Will they need to limit occupancy to 50% of their legally allowed limit? Do the rules only apply to stores within malls? I have so many quesitons.
This morning's patron longread
The Sickness in Our Food Supply
Submitted by Patron Zac. While I knew the supply chain was busted in all kind of ways due to the coronavirus, I didn't know about this existing, two parallel food chains nonsense! Seems...suboptimal.
Today the US actually has two separate food chains, each supplying roughly half of the market. The retail food chain links one set of farmers to grocery stores, and a second chain links a different set of farmers to institutional purchasers of food, such as restaurants, schools, and corporate offices. With the shutting down of much of the economy, as Americans stay home, this second food chain has essentially collapsed. But because of the way the industry has developed over the past several decades, it’s virtually impossible to reroute food normally sold in bulk to institutions to the retail outlets now clamoring for it. There’s still plenty of food coming from American farms, but no easy way to get it where it’s needed.
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