Good morning, RVA! It's 56 °F, and today looks great weatherwise. I mean, it is still a Monday and the air may still be filled with pollen, but you can expect temperate weather with highs in the 70s. I think that's worth an "Enjoy!".
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,227 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 14 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 157 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 47, Henrico: 67, and Richmond: 43). Since this pandemic began, 1,245 people have died in the Richmond region. I don't know how to do the math in Google Sheets, but the slope of the trend line for the last month of new reported cases would be a very small positive number. The seven-day average of cases continues to increase but pretty slowly—it sits at 1,486 at the moment, for what it's worth.
Over in vaccine world, here's this week's chart of total vaccine doses administered in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield along with the statewide number of doses received. I think we should start seeing the lack of Johnson & Johnson start to show up this week, that is unless an increase in Pfizer of Moderna masks it. Stay tuned! Also, only about two weeks in, and the graph of progress towards "local herd immunity" (which I'm still not sure is even a thing) shows us visibly closing the gap. We're closing the gap statewide, too: Over three million Virginians, or 36.3% of the Commonwealth have gotten their first jab. We're doing this thing!
And the big news, which I'm sure you've all heard by now, is that the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts have moved into Phase 2 of the vaccine rollout. That means every single person aged 16 and up is now eligible for vaccination. If, for some reason you haven't already, please go to vaccinate.virginia.gov and pre-register so you can get that jab! Read more about what Phase 2 means for Richmond and Henrico here.
City Council will host their fourth budget work session today at 1:00 PM, and you can tune in live here or wait for me to put the audio up on The Boring Show. Today, the esteemed Bill Echelberger will continue his operating budget presentation and, assuming there's time, dive into a similar analysis of the Capital Improvement Program. I'm telling you: If you skipped Budget Session #3 you missed out on one of the best budget presentations I've heard and that's all because of Echelberger. While I do feel some sad feelings that this year's budget season lacks the endless parade of department heads telling Council why they deserve to exist, I think I've learned more (so far) from the new Echelberger format. Also, and not entirely unrelated, Council will meet for their regularly scheduled meeting tonight at 6:00 PM. You can find that agenda here. The budget papers have show up on the agenda, which, in the past hasn't meant a ton, but, according to this year's budget calendar, tonight Council will hold a public hearing on the Mayor's proposed budget. Do you have budget thoughts?? Surely! Today/tonight would be a time to send them Council's way (but not the only time!).
Chris Suarez has an interesting piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about some of the Black families who live in the area near the location of the proposed 4th District casino. I learned a lot from this piece—including that there may, or may not, be graves located within the proposed casino site. This quote in particular got me: "They’re trying to erase our history...They’re waiting for the right time...so that they can justify removing things. Now they’re interested in the land that was no good to them before—that’s how we got this land here. Now, it’s a commodity."
This full-page ad for bicycles in the May 4th, 1919 Richmond Times-Dispatch is SO cool! How about this pro-bike, anti-transit ad from a Richmond retailer, 100 years ago, also deep in a pandemic: "Germs love crowds but nobody else does. Why be crushed and trampled night and morning and pay for the privilege? On a bicycle seat there is always room. The air you breathe as you ride is clean, not burdened with infection. Make your trip to and from work something to look forward to with pleasure instead of dread." Apparently a bicycle parade took place on May 7th from Capitol Square to "Reservoir", which I think was Byrd Park. We should resurrect this tradition and do it again!
Yet Another Civic Survey! The folks at RVAgreen 2050 need your feedback on the "RVAgreen 2050 roadmap which aims to achieve a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and help the community adapt to Richmond’s climate impacts." As is their custom, they've put together a menu of ways to get involved, each requiring a different amount of your precious time. You can leave comments on the entire document, take the full community survey, or take the short community survey. I love this approach to digital engagement!
How do people keep running over that Stop for People sign on Brookland Park Boulevard, you may ask? Via /r/rva, here's a video of a handful of people taking left turns off of Richmond-Henrico Turnpike headed west on Brookland Park Boulevard and absolutely annihilating the sign with their cars. And if the sign were something else about that height that happened to be in the middle of a crosswalk, like, say, a kid? I'm thankful for these signs, and I'm thankful for how this one has provided physical evidence of how dangerous this intersection actually is.
This morning's longread
What Can I do? A Calculator.
I know some folks take issue with Emily Oster, but I really enjoy her newsletter. This one from last week felt especially useful in how it compares coronarisks for vaccinated people to other risks we take on the day to day. Maybe y'all are already there, but I need to read about ten more things like this before I'm mentally ready to return to the world.
People do not want to be unsafe. They do not want to be irresponsible. They want to think carefully about these choices and how to make them as safely as possible. But they are hard and confusing. As I thought about answering this questions, regular readers will be unsurprised to learn that I decided we needed…a framework! But then I realized that wasn’t quite enough. The complexity of these questions needed something more precise; basically, they needed a calculator. With actual numbers. So today I’m going to try to give you both: a framework (really, a simplification) which addresses some of your questions, and then a calculator for the rest.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
