Good morning, RVA! It's 37 °F, but temperatures will return to the mid 60s later this afternoon. Expect some rain over the weekend, but no more of this truly-cold-weather nonsense. Next week could see highs in the 90s!
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,373 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 13 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 174 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 55, Henrico: 76, and Richmond: 43). Since this pandemic began, 1,238 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 1,336. Here’s this week’s stacked graph of new reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Hospitalizations remain pretty flat, which seems like a pretty good indicator—despite the still very high number of new cases reported each and every day. For context, the statewide seven-day average of new hospitalizations, 61, is at the same level it was back in the middle of November. Not great, but not ominously horrifying (unless you’re one of the 61).
Governor Northam clearly thinks the coronanumbers and progress with vaccination are getting it done, because, just a couple of days after loosening restrictions a teeny bit, he’s announced much broader loosenings. On May 15th, the Sixth Amended Executive Order Seventy-Two.pdf) will go into effect and will: Increase the cap on indoor social gatherings from 50 to 100 and outdoor social gatherings from 100 to 250; indoor entertainment venues can operate at 50% capacity or 1,000 people, up from 30% and 500 people; outdoor entertainment venues can operate at 50% capacity with no limit on the total number of folks; the number of allowed spectators at indoor rec sports will increase from 100 to 250 or 50% capacity, which ever is less; outdoor rec sports can now host 1,000 people, up from 500, or 50% capacity, whichever is less; and finally, restaurants can sell alcohol after midnight. Scrolling through the actual EO PDF, I see a few more tweaks, mostly increasing capacities here and there to around 250 people allowed. I’m really interested in how fewer restrictions play out in areas with different levels of vaccine uptake—especially so because, at least at the moment, those areas seem loosely defined by politics? It’s going to be a weird summer.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet today from 11:00 AM–5:00 PM and will, with any luck, decide the fate of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the United States. You can listen live to the six-hour meeting at the aforelinked website, if that’s your jam!
The City needs your feedback on a fun little green space created by the triangular intersection of W. Broad Street and Cutshaw Avenue. Pro tip: In the City’s Konveio feedback platform, the proposed plan just looks like a white triangle to me, so I suggest checking out this PDF which will give you a better idea of what’s actually up. Angled intersections are such an easy place to block off and reclaim space for people, and this is a great example of exactly that. I’d go even harder on reclaiming space from cars, though, and close N. Belmont Avenue to vehicle traffic between Cutshaw and W. Broad, too. Why not!
I’m late in getting it posted, but Council’s fifth budget work session is up on The Boring Show. I promise I’ll get the first amendment work session posted today or tomorrow!
I know /r/rva’s obsession with Brookland Park Boulevard’s Stop for People sign started out as mostly a joke, but it’s been fun to watch things turn into actual advocacy for better streets. Check out the latest, in which a City employee (I think) hints that they may install a hard curb to protect the sign. Protecting this brave and honorable sign is great, but a hard curb would also have the additional benefit of slowing traffic down a bit more. Great work everyone!
Did you know April 23rd is Barbara Johns Day? 70 years ago, Barbara Johns walked out of Robert Russa Moton High School and kicked off a movement which would eventually get folded into Brown v. Board of Education. Back in 2017, Virginia’s General Assembly passed a resolution designating April 23rd as Barbara Johns Day in Virginia, which you can read in its entirety over on the Robert Russa Moton Museum website.
This morning's patron longread
Irrational Covid Fears
Submitted by Patron Stephanie. Have I shared this already? I can’t remember. Either way, hearing a smart doctor person talk about their return to life as “psychologically hard” was helpful for me!
“We’re not going to get to a place of zero risk,” Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, told me during a virtual Times event last week. “I don’t think that’s the right metric for feeling like things are normal.” After Nuzzo made that point, Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University told us about his own struggle to return to normal. He has been fully vaccinated for almost two months, he said, and only recently decided to meet a vaccinated friend for a drink, unmasked. “It was hard — psychologically hard — for me,” Jha said. “There are going to be some challenges to re-acclimating and re-entering,” he added. “But we’ve got to do it.”
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