Good morning, RVA! It's 75 °F, and today looks hot and humid with a chance of rain later this afternoon. Feels Likes will hit triple digits, so if you're out and about make sure you hydrate.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,021↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 32↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 175↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 60, Henrico: 92, and Richmond: 23). Since this pandemic began, 325 people have died in the Richmond region. That's a lot of dang new cases in the region, with Henrico now posting a seven-day average of 82 new positive cases per day. That's a full 8% of the seven-day average of new reported positive cases across the entire Commonwealth (997) and 221% of Richmond's seven-day average (37). VCU, on the other hand, reported just six new positive cases, bringing their total of reported cases to 165, and has 126 folks currently in isolation or quarantine. I'm still not ready to put my own graphs out yet, but a reader sent me a link to this neat page someone put together that scrapes the VCU dashboard and autogenerates graphs. Great work, whoever you are! Meanwhile, out in the western part of our state, JMU has decided to "transition primarily to online learning, with some hybrid instruction for accreditation and licensure requirements, graduate research, and specialized upper-class courses requiring equipment and space, through the month of September...Additionally, in an effort to reduce the number of people on campus, residents will be asked to return home by Sept. 7." I'm a little confused about how to read JMU's data dashboard, but they've had 513 active cases since July 1st.
Yesterday, folks protesting coronavirus-related conditions at the Richmond City Justice Center (aka the jail) were met with a violent response from the Richmond Police Department. I don't know how to find the number of COVID-19 cases in jails for just Richmond City, but 8News says that late last month 103 people in the jail and six staff members at the jail were "quarantined, displaying symptoms, or [had] come in contact with those infected with the virus." At that time, the jail housed 675 people with 325 staff. From what I can gather, last night protestors showed up on the sidewalk and in the street on Oliver Hill Way, below a small berm leading up to the jail. At some point things escalated—either between protestors and cops or protestors and a tow truck, it's unclear to me—and the evening ended with almost a dozen people arrested, most for "obstructing RPD officers as they attempted to restore order." You can watch this horrifying video of a police officer tackling a person off of their bicycle, smashing their head onto the sidewalk. It's awful, and I won't blame you for not tapping on that link, but now read how an RPD press release describes what happened to that person riding their bike: "Shortly before 7:00 p.m., a bicyclist blocked a tow truck as it attempted to remove a vehicle parked illegally outside the Justice Center. When an RPD officer arrived, the bicyclist attempted to flee the scene and was stopped by the officer." Would you, or any other sane person, describe what happens in that video as "was stopped by the officer?" This is appalling—and routine!—behavior. Now it's just out in the open, in the daylight, in front of TV news cameras, and white people are generally the victims. We see it more, but it's always been there, and it's the same behavior we've seen from police departments across the country—in big cities, small towns, north, west, south, and east. @tormaid was at the protest and has a long thread with a few pictures and videos if you'd like to scroll through.
Plot twist! Del. Jeff Bourne's qualified immunity bill, HB 5103, rose from the dead yesterday and reported out of the House's Appropriations committee. Del. David Reid, one of the original Democratic NAY votes, switched to YEA. And so the bill lives again! Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says "Bourne introduced a substitute bill to address concerns that Reid had expressed about how it applies to police officers working as off-duty security." So, we'll see how long HB 5103 will live, and if it'll survive a trip to the Senate which has already voted down a similar bill.
Our regional transportation planning body has a transportation-related survey for you to fill out. I know this kind of thing can feel like a drag, but it legitimately does influence how transportation money gets spent in the Richmond region. Do you want it spent on stupid highway building and road widening? Would you rather it go toward sidewalks, trails, bike lanes, and public transportation? Yeah, duh! So fill out this survey and be unabashedly multi-modal about it.
Via /r/rva, for Richmonders of a certain age and era this will bum you out: Mike Levay, announcer for the Richmond Renegades, died last month. Levay spent a lot of time announcing games at the University of Richmond, but I know him from my time spent at Rrrrrrrichmond Rrrrrrrenegades games.
The Henrico and Richmond City Health Districts will host a free community testing event at the Broad Rock Community Center (4615 Ferguson Lane) today from 9:00–11:00 AM. Stop on by if you need, want, or feel like you should get tested.
The Science Museum of Virginia now has an enormous mask covering its entrance colonnade. I love this. Do you make sure to cover your face's entrance colonnade with a mask when you leave the house??
This morning's patron longread
How Do Algorithms Work? A Basic Primer for Non-Marketers
Submitted by Patron Rachel. Algorithms! Are they magic? Are they out to get us? And, more importantly, are they biased?
And, more recently, I saw a comment thread amongst Facebook friends claiming that if you search any 3-digit number and the words “new cases,” you’ll get news about COVID cases with those exact numbers – which to them proved that COVID is a hoax. Political and medical affiliations aside, the underlying issue is often that people don’t trust algorithms and machine learning because they don’t have a complete understanding of how they actually work. So let’s go over a basic primer of how these work for things like search, social media, and other common technology applications we use daily.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.