Good morning, RVA! It's 38 °F, and, with highs around 50 °F, today looks like the coldest day of the week. Should the five-day forecast hold, Friday’s got temperatures in this 70s! Stoked for that.
Water cooler
This past week’s coronanews was all about Omicron, a worrying new SARS-CoV-2 variant—B.1.1.529, to be specific. The [World Health Organization Technical Advisory Group designated the mutated virus a “variant of concern” on the 26th][1], and since then Omicron has dominated headlines (at least the headlines various algorithms chose to show me). Interestingly, and not related to any anxiety you’re feeling right now, WHO decided to skip “nu” and “xi”—the former because saying “the new nu variant” feels dumb and the latter because “xi” is a common surname. If you would like to start stirring up your coronanxiety, the best thing I read over the long weekend is this piece from Katelyn Jetelina, aka Your Local Epidemiologist. You’ll definitely want to scroll to the colored mutation list to see just how many mutations Omicron contains and how many of those are bad, probably bad, or totally unknown. The takeaway, and a takeaway reflected in this NYT piece by Zeynep Tufecki, is that we don’t know enough about Omicron yet to justify full freakouts _or_ total chill vibes. It’s not all bad news, though: Omicron can be detected by our current PCR tests and “we’re seeing a lot of cases but not a lot of severe disease” (yet). But, again, we’re still learning, and I imagine we’ll have new news every day this week. In the meantime, if it were me, I’d take this opportunity to get vaccinated. For those of you already fully vaccinated, make your booster appointments today (or walk up to any of the Richmond and Henrico Health District vaccination clinics this week—no appointments required).
John Reid Blackwell at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on an interesting back-to-work survey conducted by the University of Richmond and the Virginia Council of CEOs. When asking CEOs of 53 companies about their return-to-work plans, “only 24% of CEOs said they definitely are going to require a return to the office. About 45% said they are not going to require it. However, almost one-third — about 31% — said it remains ‘unclear at this time’ whether they will require employees to return or adopt some hybrid model.” Like Anne Helen Petersen says, now is the absolute best time to reevaluate what Work looks like and to implement bold, striking changes to make workplaces more humane.
Last week I wondered aloud about the status of both Richmond’s Civilian Review Board and its Marcus Alert Program. An astute reader sent me this job posting from the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority looking for clinicians to join their Community Response team. That team is a direct result of the Marcus Alert legislation and “aims to reduce the number of people with mental health issues in the jail system.” More from the description: “Clinicians work in close partnership with the Richmond Police Department, responding to calls involving people who suffer from mental illness and/or co-occurring substance use issues. Clinicians are trained to assist people in crisis and provide the most effective services for resolution.” Are you a clinician who wants to be part of the early work to build Richmond’s Marcus Alert program? Do you know someone who fits that description? Seems like it could be really fulfilling work for the right person, so give it a think and share that job posting widely.
Thanksgiving has passed, but you still need to watch this thank-you video dedicated to Richmond’s bus operators. Put together by RVA Rapid Transit, it’s a combination of appreciative voicemails from riders and thoughtful interviews with operators. Maybe it’s just me, but it made me feel some emotions.
Via /r/rva, some very intense feelings about Richmond’s cheesesteak options.
This morning's longread
How Much Longer Will Roquefort Reign as the King of Cheese?
I thought for sure this would be about how climate change is ruining the cave environments necessary to make Roquefort. Instead, it’s just that young people don’t seem to like real intense cheeses, which is a shame in my opinion.
The resulting mold is taken to the dairy and added directly to 5,000 liters of raw milk soon after it arrives from the farm. The milk curds are then separated, left to drain, and formed into loosely packed loaves. Each loaf is between 3.3 and 4.1 inches thick and weighs between 5.5 and 6.4 pounds. The loaf is then pricked with 40 holes—not 39 and not 41. This gives the penicillium enough air to extend its gorgeous greenish veins throughout the cheese. Along the way, coarse salt is rubbed all over—two times, five days apart—to stop the mold from reaching the surface. This makes Roquefort intensely salty.
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