Good morning, RVA! It's 26 °F, and today you can expect highs in the low 40s and some sunshine. Soak it in, because we’re under a Winter Storm Warning from 1:00 AM Thursday through 7:00 AM Friday. The National Weather Service at Wakefield says to expect a couple inches of snow followed by even more ice, and, yikes, “widespread power outages, significant tree damage, and difficult travel conditions.” Gather your supplies and loved ones and make sure all of your devices are charged!
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,770 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 21 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 251 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 129, Henrico: 81, and Richmond: 41). Since this pandemic began, 722 people have died in the Richmond region. The number of new deaths reported each day has finally started to mirror the precipitous drop we’ve seen in cases over the last couple of weeks. The seven day average of new deaths, 19.9, fell below 20 for the first time since December 4th. Since that date, COVID-19 killed 2,877 people in Virginia. That’s shocking to me, and I had to triple-check my math to make sure it was right.
In vaccine news, yesterday morning the Virginia Department of Health launched a statewide COVID-19 vaccine pre-registration form at vaccinate.virginia.gov. This replaces the interest forms you may have already filled out on your local health district website, and, if you already filled out one of those local interest forms, you do not need to fill out this new statewide form. In fact, you should have gotten an email last night (or maybe will get one shortly?) confirming that you're in the system. You can also verify that you're in the system by searching for yourself or a loved one by email or phone number on this page. One note: email search (at this moment) is case sensitive so pay attention if your browser autocapitalizes the first letter of your email address! I think, all things considered, the public rollout of this new form—at least from the technology side of things—went pretty well. Remember! This is NOT registering for a vaccine, this is getting in the system! Local health districts will then slice, dice, sort, and prioritize these massive lists of interested humans and work to get them all vaccinated as quickly as possible given the (extremely) limited supply of vaccine.
So the technology parts went pretty OK, but from the accessibility side of things, Sabrina Moreno at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that VDH is still using Google Translate to provide a Spanish version of this new form: "Until about 11 a.m., three hours after the centralized portal allowing Virginians to add their names to a long waiting list went live, there was no Spanish translation...When a Spanish version of the form was added, it was powered by Google Translate and returned a decipherable but faulty product." This is, to say the least, suboptimal: "On Tuesday, the registration system’s using Google Translate meant 'your first name' was translated to 'nombre de pila.' The term is rarely used on Spanish forms, and refers to the name given to children upon baptism, or on the 'baptismal font.'" This should all sound super familiar, because literally one month ago, on January 17th, Moreno reported that VDH had used Google Translate on one of their vaccine FAQs and translated "the vaccine is not required" to "the vaccine is not necessary."
Governor Ralph Northam will hold a press conference today at 2:00 PM, presumably to officially announce the new vaccine pre-registration system and maybe the statewide call center that's he's mentioned a couple of times. Tune in over on VPM's YouTube.
Not a lot of details on this, but the RTD's Kenya Hunter reports on Twittter that Richmond's School Board met last night and unanimously passed the Superintendent's proposed budget (3rd District's Kenya Gibson was not present for the vote). You can download the full proposed FY21-22 budget here (PDF), if you want to flip through it. Additionally, the board discussed a proposed calendar for sort-of-year-round schooling (PDF). I haven't had time to fully process it yet, but if you've already got thoughts you can fill out this survey if you're a parent or a caregiver or this survey if you're an RPS teacher or staff. One question I do have, that I'm sure someone out there knows the answer to, is: Are the additional cost for this new calendar included in the budget that the Board just passed?
Wyatt Gordon at the Virginia Mercury has a piece about Virginia's manufactured housing aka mobile homes or trailer homes. This quote from Jonathan Knopf, the ED of the Manufacture Home Community Coalition of Virginia, is fascinating: "[Manufactured homes] are the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the country, but it’s the one that we know the least about." I know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about manufactured home communities, and that's part of the problem, but these neighborhoods are often affordable places for folks to live. Plus they are naturally pretty dense—at least way denser than a couple single-family homes plopped down on the same acreage. Related, the RTD's Michael Paul Williams has a column up about affordable housing that includes this excellent quote from Laura Lafayette, the CEO of the Richmond Association of Realtors: "To be blunt, I think we need to have a long, hard, honest conversation about NIMBYism and the ability of neighbors to stop affordable housing developments in their tracks."
Today, City Councilmembers have the first day of their two-day virtual retreat. This is when they all get together and learn how the City Council works within Richmond's...unique...government structure. I don't know why it takes place this deep into the year, but I'm sure there's a good reason. If you're interested in what all they'll learn, download this 168-page PDF packet that includes the City Charter, org charts, Roberts Rules of Order, and a pretty nitty-gritty look at how stuff gets done in Council. This is a good and useful PDF! Store it away for later reference.
This morning's patron longread
The Hard-Partying, Rock-Obsessed Nurse at the Center of a Massive Opioid Bust
Submitted by Patron Susan. I think my takeaway from this article is that people love their drug dealer.
It doesn’t sound like much of a sell—a middle-aged man doling out medical advice in a city midway between Memphis and Nashville. But Young was eager to let the world know that he was no typical nurse practitioner. Throughout Jackson, he had created for himself a reputation as a rock-and-roll renegade, happily showing off his piercings, tattoos, and goatee. He blasted heavy metal at his private practice and filled his Instagram feed with photos of himself smoking cigars. In his frequent social-media updates, he would drink and flip off the camera. Though he was not an M.D., Young christened himself “the Rock Doc.”
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
