Good morning, RVA! It's 37 °F, and you can probably expect clouds, rain, and slightly warmer temperatures for the rest of the day. Keep an eye on Thursday, though: It's our first, best chance for actual snow.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 3,792 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and -1 (???) new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 438 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 164, Henrico: 180, and Richmond: 94). Since this pandemic began, 647 people have died in the Richmond region. I think we're past a peak. Case counts are lower than at any point this month and the rate of new hospitalizations (which is still extremely high) has started to level off. Maybe we've suffered through all of the new cases that spawned from the end-of-year holidays? Maybe the nauseatingly high numbers from a couple weeks back really were a data reporting issue? Whatever the case, things seem to be cooling off a bit. Unrelated, for now at least, both UR and VCU have opened up their spring semesters (last Tuesday for the former, today for the latter). You can follow each school's COIVD dashboard, if that's your thing: coronaspiders go here and coronarams go here. Keep in mind that VCU has decided to start the semester virtually while UR has partially returned to in-person learning. I guess we'll see how that goes, as Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the UR has already "sent a letter to students Friday warning that parties and other violations of COVID-19 safety protocols could jeopardize in-person learning this semester." As some public schools continue their own debate on returning to in-person instruction, keep your eye on VDH's COVID-19 Outbreaks by Selected Exposure Settings dashboard. You can filter this list down by locality or facility type (like K–12) and see all the outbreaks currently in progress. Keep in mind, though, that "outbreak" has a specific meaning (PDF) and does not include cases of students or staff who get infected outside of a school setting.
Taikein Cooper, Theresa Kennedy, Bryce Robertson, and Thad Williams have a column in the paper about extending RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras's contract for four years—a contract which ends this coming June. Y'all know the gist, but I'll quote this part just to remind you: "A change in leadership, whether by board action or Kamras finding employment elsewhere, in turn would consume the rest of this term. We can’t expose our kids to that risk right now. Now is the time for persistent implementation of a long-term strategy." Our neighboring county got this right last year when their School Board extended Superintendent Amy Cashwell's contract. Two years into a four-year contract and the Board decided to make it six (extending the contract all the way to 2024) so that "Cashwell and her administration can focus on navigating the school system through the challenges of the pandemic and heightened attention around issues of racial justice." The right and obvious move! A move that we can and should make on this side of the city-county line!
City Council will meet today for their regularly scheduled meeting, and, for the first time that I can remember, there's nothing on the regular agenda (PDF). My head wants to write "should be a short meeting," but my heart knows that the agenda is basically never finalized and councilmembers can always find a way to extend these meetings deep into the evening. Two items of note from the informal meeting immediately preceding: 1) Amy Popovich from the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will give an update on vaccination and 2) Reggie Gordon (DCAO for Human Services) and Sharon Ebert (DCAO for Economic Development) will give a "homelessness update." I don't see presentations for either hanging out on legistar yet, but I bet they'll exist tomorrow.
Related to the DCAO's presentation on homelessness, Homeward released "new, verified data on the number of people serviced in 2020 by coordinated shelter programs and the Homeless Crisis Line." This past year, emergency shelters served 2,927 people and the the HCL handled over 52,000 calls. 128,000 "shelter bed nights were recorded."
From a couple of days back, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense has an update on the planned slavery memorial in Shockoe Bottom. You can read through the property disputes if you want, but mostly I'm interested in reminding myself about the renderings of what this project could look like. Adding a bunch of public green space to that part of town would really change the entire neighborhood for the better. Fingers crossed that the City and the Loving family can figure out their beef.
Finally, could today be the day the Robert E. Lee statue gets removed from its plinth? I dunno, but there is a lot of big equipment out there this morning.
This morning's patron longread
Stop Keeping Score
Submitted by Patron Susan. A good January reminder for those of us putting together goals, resolutions, and themes for 2021.
Relying on external rewards lowers satisfaction. You will like your job less if your primary motivation is prestige or money. You will appreciate your relationships less if you choose your friends and partners based on their social standing. You will relish your vacation less if you choose the destination for how it will look on social media. The scorecard approach to life also feeds right into a known human tendency that drives us away from happiness: People often have trouble finding lasting satisfaction from worldly rewards, because as soon as we acquire something, our desire resets and we are looking to the next reward. Check one box, and another one immediately appears. And, of course, it’s always a bigger box.
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