Good morning, RVA! It's 75 °F, and highs today are back up in the 90s. As of right now, the region is under a Tropical Storm Warning. This means a tropical storm is headed our way and you should take some precautions to stay safe, batten down the hatches, and charge up your devices in case we lose power. The Richmond Times-Dispatch's John Boyer has put together a bunch of great maps, and NBC12's Andrew Freiden says we should expect the biggest impacts between 7:00 AM–2:00 PM on Tuesday morning. Take some time today to prepare!
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 981↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 3↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 109↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 52, Henrico: 47, and Richmond: 10). Since this pandemic began, 296 people have died in the Richmond region. 🚨Emoji indicator methodology update!🚨 Moving forward the emoji arrows now compare the average of the past seven days to the average of the seven days before that. For example, over the last seven days the Richmond region reported an average of 137 COVID-19 cases each day. The seven days before that, the region reported 98 per day. So that means you see an up arrow. I'm hoping this will make for less wobbly and more useful arrows.
Today at 5:00 PM, City Council will hold the State-required public hearing on removing the Confederate monuments which have, of course, already been removed (ORD. 2020-154). You can email the City Clerk (<CityClerksOffice@richmondgov.com data-preserve-html-node="true">) before 10:00 AM with any comments you may have or if you'd like to sign up to speak virtually. Because the State doth require it, you can also go speak for this paper in-person with a bunch of other people down at City Hall. I'm looking forward to seeing how the technology to blend virtual and in-person meetings works, because I think that's something we'll need to do for a good, long while. Immediately following the closure of today's hearing, Council can vote to remove the monuments and start the process of figuring out where to permanently put all the bronze bits. Right now they're chilling at the water treatment plant!
Quick update on Richmond Public Schools: The School Board will meet at 6:00 PM tonight and receive reopening next steps from the Administration. Normally there's a rad PDF attached to an agenda item like this, but, as of right now, I don't see it. You can, however, tune in tonight to watch live over on the RPS facebook page, and I'll keep an eye out for that PDF.
The Richmond Free Press has what I think is the first public polling for the mayoral election, and it is fascinating! The results: Mayor Stoney, 36% (ahead in the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Districts); Councilmember Gray, 31% (ahead in the 2nd, 3rd, and 9th Districts); Alexsis Rodgers, 16% (ahead in the 8th Distrcit), and Justin Griffin, 11%. Remember, a mayoral candidate needs to win five of the nine districts, not a city-wide popular vote. It's early, but I'm surprised at how tight the race is between the (current) top two candidates. I know some election wonks are out there comparing 2016's precinct results to these polls and looking at where Stoney should focus to pick up another district (I'd guess the 1st) and where Rodgers could start to break into a few more of her own (maybe the 9th and 5th?). If anyone sees a good-and-wonky post or thread, please let me know! Also included in the polling: "88% of those polls opposed raising real estate taxes to provide additional funds to support public schools." Hey, that's OK, we'll use an increased real estate tax to pay for a lot of other things instead of public schools!
Hmmmm, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense says that the City has filed a permit to demolish the Fulton Gas Works building. While it makes a ton of sense that there's a lot of environmental remediation work that needs to happen at the site of an old gas works, I'm not sure that necessarily makes tearing it down the best option. In fact, Spiers points out that demolition conflicts with the draft Richmond 300 master plan which has as a next step for Rocketts Landing, "Redevelop the Fulton Gas Works site and preserve the historic gasometer and the Fulton Works building." I'm not a fan of moving forward with decisions now that'll clearly conflict with an in-progress public planning process later.
From a million coronayears ago and via /r/rva, someone filmed the implosion of the old Dominion building on Super 8 film. So cool!
After the successful splashdown of American astronauts in the Dragon spacecraft, Pinboard, one of my favorite Twitter accounts, re-upped their thread from back in May. I always thought I'd be an astronaut, so it bums me out on some level to agree with this: "We could be launching the coolest robot probes into space right now, to capitalize on 80 years of miniaturization and automation, but nope. It's going to be space dads inching back towards the moon...and suborbital billionaire selfies"
This morning's longread
Triangulating Evidence on Outbreaks in Kid Settings
Another Emily Oster piece looking at some summer camp and child care coronadata as a proxy for when schools do reopen. As always, Oster provides important context to many of the COVID-19 headlines that you see pop up.
I have maintained since the start of this, back in March and April, that summer camps and others child care settings are a source of information on what to expect school reopens. In the service of this, I (with some COVID-Explained team help) have been trying to aggregate information. Today, I want to talk through what I think we are seeing, triangulating from several sources. Before getting into this, I want to be clear on what we are looking for in the data. From a decision-making standpoint, the central question is whether these settings are sources of outbreaks. That is: if we open schools will they contribute to spread, make it worse, raise the “R0” value we hear so much about?
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