Good morning, RVA! It's 39 °F, and you can expect some fog or rain this morning followed by mid-day temperatures around 50 °F. We might could see a little snow overnight and into tomorrow, but don't get your hopes up for anything major. However, NBC12's Andrew Freiden says we could be in for more snow on Sunday.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 4,707 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 93 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 583 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 230, Henrico: 249, and Richmond: 104). Since this pandemic began, 655 people have died in the Richmond region. Setting aside the typically brutal Tuesday death report and the worrisome level of new reported cases locally, today is all about the vaccine. The Washington Post reports that President Biden has ordered an additional 200 million doses of vaccine, giving the United States enough supply to fully vaccinate 300 million people "by this summer." Those doses won't show up until the end of June, so, unfortunately, they won't do anything to alleviate our current national (which means local, too) vaccine shortage. However, on a call with governors this week, the Biden administration said the existing allocation to states would go up by about five percent for the next three weeks. If Virginia requested 300,000 a couple weeks back, received 105,000, then a 5% increase means we can expect about 5,000 more doses for the entire Commonwealth. I mean, it's not nothing, but it's also not even a single Siegel Center full of people. I expect we'll hear more about this from Governor Northam today at his 2:00 PM press briefing to "provide an update on the Commonwealth's response to COVID-19 and vaccination program," which you can watch live on VPM's YouTube channel. I'm hoping we'll learn how the Governor intends to address the vaccine shortage, and what he'll do after massively expanding Phase 1b only to immediately learn that there's not nearly enough vaccine for the original, un-expanded Phase 1b let alone a group of people that includes almost half of Virginia. Locally, the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors sent this letter to the Governor about their county's struggle with distributing the vaccine. To be frank and fully-disclosed, I'm not sure how to talk about this particular thing given my actual job at the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts. So, until I mentally untie that ethical knot, I will just say that everyone is working incredibly hard. You can find additional context to what's going on in the rest of the region in this press release from January 5th and this Richmond Times-Dispatch story from January 15th.
The RTD's Michael Paul Williams writes about DGS's new fence around Marcus-David Peters circle, saying: "With no removal date in sight, the state’s action Monday represents less the impending removal of Lee from his pedestal than the clearance of a popular circle informally renamed after Marcus-David Peters, who was killed by Richmond police in 2018. As quickly as that fence went up, it’s clear that the state could have waited until it had the court’s OK to remove the statue." I guess I'm on a rollercoaster of emotions here. First I thought the large trucks and construction crews had rolled up to remove the statue, then I thought the fence went up because removal work was set to begin immediately, but now we've ended up in a worst-of-both-worlds place with both a racist statue and a huge, ugly fence designed just to keep people out?
Related, Beth Almore, who you may recognize as the Black cellist frequently seen at MDP Circle, has written an open letter about what she'd like to see the space become moving forward. I especially love this part: "...we would like a community-approved Black curator appointed to ensure that the story of over-policing and disproportionate extrajudicial executions remains at the center of the narrative this space tells...Any efforts to remove signs and symbols which interrogate and speak out against extrajudicial executions from the center of the narrative are not acceptable. We feel—strongly—that the space has already been reimagined, by thousands of community members."
We'll I'm surprised! Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that several councilmembers actually ended up submitting amendments to Richmond 300. At the time, I think I predicted Council would quietly move on from their complaints about the City's new master plan after it passed. Shows what I know! If we're going to take planning seriously, though, we should run serious engagement and outreach efforts for each of these amendments—just like we did for the Master Plan as a whole.
Today, City Council's Governmental Operations committee will meet and discuss RES. 2020-R056, which asks for a study on the cost savings from having a bunch of City employees work remotely. I really like the intent behind this resolution, although the Mayor's administration opposes it because they don't love how the resolution is written and don't track (or have the staff to track) some of the things requested. I'm not smart enough to know how to better write this resolution, but a thoughtful look at how continued work-from-home policies might make the City more efficient seems like a good idea?
This morning's longread
The Big Thaw: How Russia Could Dominate a Warming World
I thought this long piece in ProPublica was fascinating. I never think about how things like "food production" turn out to be national security issues.
A great transformation is underway in the eastern half of Russia. For centuries the vast majority of the land has been impossible to farm; only the southernmost stretches along the Chinese and Mongolian borders, including around Dimitrovo, have been temperate enough to offer workable soil. But as the climate has begun to warm, the land — and the prospect for cultivating it — has begun to improve. Twenty years ago, Dima says, the spring thaw came in May, but now the ground is bare by April; rainstorms now come stronger and wetter. Across Eastern Russia, wild forests, swamps and grasslands are slowly being transformed into orderly grids of soybeans, corn and wheat. It’s a process that is likely to accelerate: Russia hopes to seize on the warming temperatures and longer growing seasons brought by climate change to refashion itself as one of the planet’s largest producers of food.
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