Good morning, RVA! It's 62 °F, and highs today are headed up into the mid 80s! NBC12's Andrew Freiden says today is the best day of the week to chill in your front yard or nearest patch of grass, so make sure to take advantage of it. The weekend ahead of us looks pretty great, with some potential rain as the week approaches. Enjoy!
Water cooler
Late Wednesday morning, Richmond Police were called to the 4300 block of Williamsburg Road and found Dominique Danzy, 22, lying on a bike path, shot to death.
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,067 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 28 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 94 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 47, Henrico: 28, and Richmond: 19). Statewide, 1,067 is a new all-time high for new cases reported in a single day, and, after a week of flirting with 10,000 tests per day, the Commonwealth has fallen back to an average number of reported tests per day under 7,000 (that using either unique people tested or total testing encounters). Yet, for most of the state, today marks the beginning of the Governor's Phase One of recovery. However, in NOVA, Accomack County, and...Richmond City!...Phase One will start no sooner than May 28th. Yesterday, the Mayor held a press conference at which he announced he'd requested a formal delay of Phase One within the city limits from the Governor, and, last night, the Governor approved his request (PDF). You can read the City's press release which contains this graph of percent positivity in Richmond, the Governor's favorite metric, clearly showing an increase over the last two weeks. You can also read the Governor's press release in which he says he is "pleased" to grant delays for both Accomack and Richmond. I'm proud of the Mayor and his team for pushing back on the Governor's timeline, asking for Richmond-specific data, and then making the informed, empathetic, and clear-eyed decision to protect the health and safety of Richmonders. For folks living and working in Henrico and Chesterfield, I'm sorry, and please stay safe. If you can, continue to stay at home and do as much as you can to keep others safe. P.S. Who's asking VDH for percent positivity data for each locality so we can do some before/after Phase One comparisons?
Speaking of the surrounding counties, I want you to read this letter to the Governor—signed by the county executives of Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover—making extra double sure that the Gov knows they are 1000% ready to open today. This letter, honestly, is one of the most bizarre things I've read during the pandemic. The framing of businesses as some kind of living entities that aren't composed of workers—which are, you know, people—is so off-putting. The letter barely even mentions health! During a pandemic! Compare and contrast this letter from county leadership to the letter the city's Mayor sent the Governor. The Counties: "Our business community is vulnerable and for those businesses that were deemed essential from a retail perspective to those operating in office environments, great strides have been made by them to have safety standards above even the state guidelines and executive orders." The Mayor: "As you are aware, the unique nature of Richmond's dense urban environment and the disparate impact this disease is having on our Black and Brown communities merits consideration for Richmond's unique position and responsibilities to its residents." The counties: "We are also aware that many of those businesses, that have not already gone out of business, are dependent upon phase one re-openings as they are currently day-to-day in determining whether to close permanently and are at their most vulnerable point right now." The Mayor: "16 out of 18 deaths in Richmond have been African American. Where we know the race of our positive residents, African Americans have three times the disease incidence as Whites. Where we know the ethnicity of our cases, Hispanic and Latino Richmonders make up an outsize proportion, representing 23% of cases while only accounting for 6-7% of our total population. Additionally, an analysis by zip code data shows that a higher percentage of positive cases are found in the parts of our city with persistent rates of social and economic hardship."
The Virginia Employment Commission's newest unemployment insurance claims numbers are out. The trend over the last couple of weeks continues: initial claims continue to decrease (52,139), while continued claims continue to increase (392,673). The latter is growing more than the former is shrinking, so the total number of folks making unemployment claims has continued go up. These numbers lag a week, but it'll be interesting to see how the Governor's move into Phase One of recovery impacts the unemployment claims—"accommodation and food service" and "retail trade" make up 34% of total claimants last week. Related: Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury says the Governor will continue to allow folks to receive their unemployment benefits without looking for a new job every dang week.
Via /r/rva, here's a picture of two people riding horses in Union Hill? Like, just down the street as if that were a totally normal thing to do in a city? Quarantine life is weird!
This morning's patron longread
A Tale of Two Truths: Transportation and Nuance in the Time of COVID-19
Submitted by Patron Mariia. I liked this piece about the tension between racial justice and the push for open/slow streets. But, as one of my friends always says when presented with a seemingly either-or choice "why not both?"
You can want open streets and want to hold cities accountable to ensuring new policies do not further harm communities of color. You can want open streets and want to prioritize the acute needs of Black and Brown communities that have been forced to show up for themselves in the midst of a crisis that has impacted them severely. Realizing these ideals in tandem may demand greater imagination and the decentralization of personal desires, but they do not necessitate competition. And yet, I’ve repeatedly observed them held in contempt of one another, particularly in the name of closing streets to vehicle traffic.
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