Good morning, RVA! It's 50 °F, and today's weather looks excellent. Expect highs near 70 °F and no rain. Get out there, and let the sun recharge your battery.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 842 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 21 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 85 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 46, Henrico: 33, and Richmond: 6). Since this pandemic began, 1,290 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 912. No idea what he'll say, but the governor will hold a press conference today at 11:00 AM to "provide updates on the Commonwealth's response to COVID-19 and vaccination program." I don't see a placeholder for it yet, but you can most likely stream the event live from VPM's YouTube. Since we've got a sizeable loosening of coronarestrictions headed our way on May 15th, I'd wager that he'll mostly speak on the State's vaccination program. Maybe he'll talk through the new walk-up options at CVS that fall in line with President Biden's announcements earlier this week?
Over in vaccine world, Cameron Thompson at WTVR reports that Henrico County will host their last mass vaccination event at the Raceway on May 27th. Between now and then you can just walk on up—no appointments required—on the 11th, 12th, 19th, 20th, 26th, and 27th and get yourself vaccinated. Remember: You can also walk up to George Wythe High School on Wednesdays for a one-and-done Johnson & Johnson shot. Closing the Raceway, of course, does not mean that all of Henrico County got jabbed and is now good to go. It means that demand has dipped and public-health humans will need to change things up in clever ways to make it as easy as possible for the rest of the region to get vaccinated. Thompson grabbed this perfect quote from someone at yesterday's walk-up event at Wythe: "I kept saying I was going to make an appointment, make an appointment, never did. But, once I've seen this become available I just decided to jump on." I wouldn't call this vaccine hesitancy, I would call it "people have lives to lead and hopping through technology hoops to find inconvenient vaccination appointments at a hard-to-reach racetrack doesn't work for some folks."
This is something I have nightmares about, from the Richmond Police Department: "At approximately 9:16 p.m., Nicholas Anthony Smith, 23, a male and sole occupant, was operating a vehicle southbound in the 100 block of South Arthur Ashe Boulevard and lost control of the vehicle. The vehicle left the roadway and struck a pole near the intersection of West Cary Street. Witnesses stated that he swerved to avoid striking two pedestrians that were crossing Arthur Ashe Boulevard from east to west at that location. Smith was transported to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. Investigators determined that speed was a factor." My question remains the same after all fatal crashes in the City: What are we going to do to physically change the street to keep this from happening again? How do we narrow Arthur Ashe to slow traffic? Can we retime lights to prevent drivers from catching a wave of greens? How do we protect major pedestrian intersections like Arthur Ashe and Cary? The point of Vision Zero is not that people won't make mistakes while using our streets, it's that they won't die or kill others as a result of those mistakes.
Council's hope for an orderly 2021 budget season has kind of gone out the window. I've got the fifth budget amendment work session up on The Boring Show, and they've scheduled another session for today at 4:00 PM. I'm having a hard time keeping up, and, after listening along, so are the councilfolk. Here's my biggest takeaway, 11.5 episodes in: If you are even the tiniest bit defund-the-police-curious, you have between 0 and 0.5 people representing that position for you on City Council. There's just absolutely zero willingness to even entertain the idea that we maybe have too many, too much, too intense, too militarized, too funded police.
Unrelated to budget, the City's Urban Design Committee will meet today with a bunch of chill stuff on their agenda that will not make your blood boil. Did you know they're putting new roofs on the massive water tanks in Byrd Park? Plus, a fancy new parklet is planed for the intersection of Brook Road and Marshall Street.
West Enders! If you're a part of the RPS community, tonight's your night for the West End-specific Reopen With Love 2.0 conversation. Here's the presentation from these meetings if you're more of a flip-through-slides kind of person. There are a lot of thoughtful mitigation measures explained in those slides, and, while it kind of feels like "when will we ever get back to normal!," it also kind of feels like "wait, how many fewer gross illnesses will my child now bring home from school next year?"
The Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will hold a free COVID-19 community testing event today at the East Henrico Health Department from 2:00–4:00 PM. Testing continue to be an important part of containing the spread of COVID-19, and these events take place every Thursday.
This morning's longread
The Incredible Rise of North Korea’s Hacking Army
What!? This is bananas.
The process by which North Korean hackers are spotted and trained appears to be similar to the way Olympians were once cultivated in the former Soviet bloc. Martyn Williams, a fellow at the Stimson Center think tank who studies North Korea, explained that, whereas conventional warfare requires the expensive and onerous development of weaponry, a hacking program needs only intelligent people. And North Korea, despite lacking many other resources, “is not short of human capital.” The most promising students are encouraged to use computers at schools. Those who excel at mathematics are placed at specialized high schools. The best students can travel abroad, to compete in such events as the International Mathematical Olympiad.
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