Good morning, RVA! It's 70 °F, and yesterday's cooler temperatures continue right on in through today. That chance of rain also continues, so keep an eye to the sky for most of the day. Tomorrow, the 90-degree heat returns.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 847↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 11↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 113↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 19, Henrico: 76, and Richmond: 18). Since this pandemic began, 321 people have died in the Richmond region. VCU did, after taking a couple of days off, update its data dashboard last night, and I had a heckuva time figuring out just what was going on. The University's primary piece of data—or at least the first one on their dashboard—seems to be active cases. This, I think, is different from new cases or total cases, and can presumably go down over time as people recover from COVID-19. I don't think we have anything like that at the state or locality level, so keep that in mind. At the moment, VCU reports 17 new positive coronavirus cases, 104 active cases, 159 total cases, and 137 people in isolation or quarantine. That's a lot of numbers without much context! To help with that, I'll get you a graph or two later this week once I feel like VCU has settled a bit more on which data they report and when.
Sort of corona-related, I stumbled across this neat map of Virginia's Return to School Instructional Schedules for Fall 2020 on the Virginia Department of Education's website. Out of 132 school divisions across the Commonwealth, 68 will head into the first day of school fully remote, just 10 (including Hanover) will meet in person, and the rest will use some sort of hybrid approach. Two things that stand out to me from this map: 1) There is definitely some geographical unity going on here with almost the entire Shenandoah Valley opting for partial in-person while almost all of the localities east of I-95 choosing to go fully remote, and 2) Some of the independent cities embedded within those western localities have picked a closer-to-remote option than their surrounding county. It's not strictly an urban vs. rural situation, but some of that is certainly going on. Now, the bigger question is how will these different reopening decisions impact the spread of the virus in these different localities?
A couple weeks ago (I think?), I mentioned that the City had asked the Richmond School Board for permission to use a couple school buildings as emergency daycare sites as we head into various kinds of reopenings. Kenya Hunter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that last night the School Board voted to do just that (6-0 in favor, with Kenya Gibson and Scott Barlow abstaining, and Linda Owens absent). Hunter also has a few of the program's details, including the list of school buildings that will participate and that "two thirds of the school-based slot [will] be made available for free to categorically eligible families." I'm not quite sure what that last bit means, but the Mayor says he'll have more information to share over the next few days.
The Virginia Mercury's Ned Oliver says that Del. Jeff Bourne's bill on qualified immunity died in the Democratically-controlled General Assembly. I'll quote this bit from Oliver: "Two Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, Dels. David Bulova of Fairfax and David Reid of Loudoun, joined Republicans in opposing the legislation. Neither spoke about the legislation during the meeting and did not respond to emails seeking comment Monday afternoon."
Gregory J. Gilligan at the RTD says the new Trader Joe's over in Bon Air will open sometime in October. This is the first bit of grocery store news I've heard in a while, and that must have been hard for a lot of folks because I know how much Richmonders are deeply bananas about grocery stores. I've complained that the new location is hard to get to by foot, bike, or bus—and that's still true! It is, however, easier to get to than the Short Pump location, and I wonder if TJ's will soon start to show up in the grocery deliver apps?
Dang, Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense says Metro Bar & Grill in the Fan has closed for good. I hope someone is keeping a list of all the restaurants that have closed (and opened!) up shop as a result of the coronavirus. I don't know what I'd do with that dataset, but I bet it'd be fascinating/sad to look through in a couple of years.
Just a quick reminder: The application for the Richmond Recovers small-business / small-organization grant program goes live today over on the RVA Strong website.
/r/rva has put together a definitive ranking of all the Nightengale ice cream sandwich flavors. This is important news and you should take the time to read it. I just learned that Nightengale offered a ice cream sandwich delivery service earlier this summer?? Sure you had to order 12 or more sandwiches, but, like, is that even enough ice cream sandwiches?
This morning's patron longread
TikTok and the Evolution of Digital Blackface
Submitted by Patron Casey. I think a lot about digital blackface, especially when it comes to which gifs we choose to express ourselves both in public and in private.
Over a period of two months, I heard from 29 Black creators who shared stories about muted posts, in-app harassment, and incidents of racism. They said the problems on the app are deeper and more widespread than simple isolated incidents. “Ever since I joined I've felt like the app is against me,” one told me. Another added, “It's disgusting how much they have allowed to go unchecked.” Together, their experiences belie the perception of TikTok as an app of joy and creativity, revealing instead a place tangled up in an ancient pain—a site of blurred visions and youthful ignorances, where flattery quickly turns into mockery, mockery into theft, and theft into something altogether more disturbing.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.