Good morning, RVA! It's 44 °F, and you can expect slightly cooler temperatures today. At some point, it’ll probably rain, but the weekend weather looks thoroughly rad. I expect to spend a good chunk of my time riding bikes around the region.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 856 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 17 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 80 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 38, Henrico: 21, and Richmond: 21). Since this pandemic began, 1,293 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 865. This week’s stacked chart of new reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths really illustrates the—and this is the only word I can think of so I keep using it—precipitous drop off of new cases. It’s incredible, and we saw almost the same exact drop off last year, just in June not May. I’d love some analysis on this (someone should plot the new reported cases graph against temperature)! As for the rest of the charts, we know from the last 12 months that hospitalizations usually lag a couple weeks behind cases, so maybe we’ll start to see those number dip from their weekslong stay on atop the around-60-per-day plateau. Finally, here’s this week’s local graph of new reported cases, which, thankfully, matches the statewide trends.
Sabrina Moreno at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that yesterday Governor Northam announced he “hopes to lift emergency restrictions on public gatherings and social distancing by June 15th.” Importantly, this does not include guidelines around wearing masks! The Governor also “warned that progress in ending public restrictions and, potentially, the state of emergency depends on adult Virginians getting vaccinations to help achieve President Joe Biden’s new goal of having 70% of the population vaccinated by July 4 to achieve herd immunity against the disease.” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think this kind of governmental finger-wagging does anything to motivate folks on the fence about getting vaccinated. In fact, most of those people are probably out living their (terrifying) carefree, maskless, indoor-gathering lives regardless of the current restrictions. I keep thinking about these three buckets of unvaccinated people: those with real and legitimate reasons to be hesitant toward vaccines, those with barriers preventing them from accessing the vaccine, and those who are just kind of living life and—maybe because they’re young and healthy—haven’t really made the effort to go find a vaccination appointment. I don’t have a sense for how big each of these buckets are, but making it dead simple to get vaccinated addresses at least two of those groups and should be the focus of the next phase of our vaccination campaign. It’ll be way slower than queueing up thousands of people at the Raceway each and every day, but I think that’s OK. You can watch a recording of the Governor’s announcements over on VPM’s YouTube.
Dang, in a press release, the City announced that Jay Brown, director of the Office of Budget & Strategic Planning will leave to take a job as a Deputy County Administrator for Hanover County. Brown has been a constant and helpful presence during budget seasons for as long as I’ve been paying attention, and I’ll miss his voice (even though I’ve only ever heard it sped up 2x). In the same release, the City also announced that the Mayor has appointed Mona Adkins-Easley as the new director of the Department of Human Resources, Sheila D. White as the new director of the Department of Finance, and Jason P. May as the interim director of the Office of Budget & Strategic Planning. The first two on that list were already serving as interim directors for those same positions. I wish someone would make an org chart for the City that highlighted vacant or interim-filled leadership positions. I feel like that would be a useful graphic.
Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reminds me that even more apartments are headed to the VUU / Chamberlayne area—these over by the post office. Now we just need to fill in some retail and improve pedestrian connections over to the eastern side of Chamberlayne. Honestly, maybe we need a pedestrian bridge over that way? It’d be expensive and impossible to get the City to approve, but crossing there on foot or by bike is horrible.
I did not know there was a Democratic gubernatorial debate last night! Somehow I keep missing these things, but, of course, reporters do not. The RTD’s Mel Leonor has the deep-into-the-night updates from the debate for you this morning. If you scroll down to the bottom of this page on WCYB’s site you can find the full recording from last night. Maybe queue it up over the weekend!
Via /r/rva: “In dire need of a good burrito.” Aren’t we all?
This morning's longread
Here’s just how much people have stopped talking about Trump on Facebook and Twitter
I know even mentioning how little we mention him gives him power, but, seriously, there are some days when I forget Donald Trump even exists.
Now, that danger is seemingly less immediate, and there’s a debate about whether Trump should be brought back, or if social media companies should have indefinitely banned him at all. Proponents of the ban argue that if Trump is brought back onto the platforms, he could stoke civil unrest. And they point to how much misinformation on social media has declined after companies banned Trump and his allies — by as much as 73 percent, according to a January analysis by Zignal and reported by the Washington Post.
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