Good morning, RVA! It's 49 °F, and we have another day of beautiful weather ahead of us. Expect highs in the mid 70s, out-door lunches, walks around the block, and maybe a little bit of sneezy allergies. Clouds, cooler temperatures, and possibly rain move in tomorrow.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,246 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 59 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 107 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 50, Henrico: 31, and Richmond: 26). Since this pandemic began, 1,135 people have died in the Richmond region. At the rate we're going now, we should expect to see a seven-day new reported case count below 1,000 pretty soon—not that that means anything real, but three digits is one fewer than four digits and that certainly feels significant. Also, I think we're pretty much through the winter death certificate reporting backlog. VDH's data dashboard still has a notice posted about it, but today's seven-day average of new deaths is 74.7—still very high—but just a week ago it was 217. Finally, the CDC says 9.9% of the total population is fully vaccinated and 18.8% has received at least one dose of the vaccine. Here in Virginia we see similar numbers, with 18.5% of Virginians having received at least one dose and 10.3% of the population fully vaccinated. It's wild to me to think about one-in-five folks walking around out there, significantly protected from this virus.
Yesterday, Congress approved the American Rescue Plan, President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. The president plans on signing it into law tomorrow. Individually, this means $1,400 relief checks for most folks, and Vox has some FAQs about who and how you qualify. The bill also does a ton of other, less-headliney stuff to combat poverty like expanding Obamacare subsidies and food assistance programs, extending unemployment benefits, and directing $30 billion in emergency relief to public transit. President Biden will address the nation tonight at 8:00 PM to both mark the one-year anniversary of the pandemic and begin walking folks through what exactly the American Rescue Plan does. I love that he's doing that second thing, and hope he's successful at it.
Connor Scribner at VPM reports that "In the Richmond area, the number of active listings has dropped by over 60% since October of 2018." Tap through to see a pretty wicked chart comparing the available housing inventory compared to the median home sale price over the last three years. Further, check out this quote from Damon Harris of Teal House Co., "This time two years ago, someone could be approved for [$180,000], we could take them to Henrico, Richmond, Petersburg, Colonial Heights, you name it. Now, they’re down to one or two places, and there may be three houses on the market at that price point." Not great. After writing about the region's approaching housing crisis for a couple years, I...think we're here? In the middle of the crisis? As per the last one million things I've written about housing, we have to use as many tools as we can to crate as much affordable housing as quickly as possible—that's increasing our contribution to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, pushing for state-level policy change, upzoning neighborhoods where it makes sense, and allowing small-scale multi-family housing (like sixplexes) by-right across the entire city. We should just do that last thing immediately.
Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has the details on the legislators trying to convince Governor Northam to amend the marijuana legalization bill. Specifically, they want legalization to start now, not three years from now, and cite disparate enforcement of the newly-decriminalized $25 civil penalty for possession. For example: "The disparity was particularly stark just north of Richmond in Hanover County, where Black people make up just 10 percent of the population but accounted for more than 60 percent of the 240 tickets issued."
Today at 1:30 PM, join RVA Rapid Transit and GRTC CEO Julie Timm for a conversation about "the benefits, costs, and future possibilities of zero-fares." The event is free (like the bus!), but you'll need to register over on Eventbrite. GRTC has been fare-free for almost an entire year, and now we get to have the interesting conversation—as a region—about if that's something we want to continue post-pandemic. I've come around on this a bit and think there are pretty compelling arguments on either side—especially when you get in to the specifics about where the money is coming from.
Today from 9:00–11:00 AM, the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host a community testing event at Regency Square (1420 N. Parham Road). If you can't hang with this way-late notice, register for a future community testing event online, or check out this list of COVID-19 testing locations.
This morning's patron longread
The Dolly Moment
Submitted by Patron Erin. Former Richmonder and always brilliant Tressie McMillan Cottom writes about women, race, the South, and Dolly Parton.
The plantations, the tea parties, the “bless your hearts,” the genteel traditions, the towheaded babies, and “Farmhouse” lifestyle chic are the unique province of Southern womanhood to the national consumer. Sure, there are non-white women in the South, but they produce its problems, not the spectacle. Southern womanhood is afforded to, in order of importance of criteria, white women of a certain social class, with the proper disposition to marriage and motherhood who uses her womanhood in service to others. To achieve those ends, white Southern womanhood is armed with charm. And charm is decidedly a weapon, one without which a proper Southern woman could not do her job. Her job is two-fold. She reproduces Southern culture and she makes non-southerners feel good about the violence necessary to do so.
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