Good morning, RVA! It's 64 °F, and today looks like another hot and humid day with a chance for storms later this afternoon. You can expect delightfully cooler temperatures the next couple of days, though!
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 143, 30, and 10.1, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 11.7 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: -0.1; Henrico: 3.3, and Chesterfield: 8.6). Since this pandemic began, 1,340 people have died in the Richmond region. 45.1%, 56.4%, and 52.8% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. For what it’s worth, I have no idea what’s going on with Richmond’s case numbers. The VDH dashboard has reported a very small negative number of new cases for the past several days, and now we have a negative seven-day average of new cases. I suspect it’ll sort itself out later this week.
Well, we’re still a full percent short of President Biden’s goal of getting 70% of adults with at least on dose of a vaccine. I think, given the recent rates, we’ll be super close 10 days from now. Let’s check in next Thursday or Friday. Related, an interesting thing has happened with the graph of new people with at least one dose in Virginia: It has flattened out. Finally, here’s the graph of our region as a whole inching closer and closer towards (mostly) Biden’s goal.
As expected, the University of Richmond announced that they will require students to get COVID vaccinated before returning to campus this fall. A couple of interesting differences between UR’s policy and VCU’s: UR will require the vaccine only once one receives FDA approval (remember, they’re all currently authorized for emergency use), and UR will also require faculty and staff to get jabbed.
Whoa! Huge news! The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Michael Paul Williams won the PULITZER PRIZE. Williams won it for commentary, and for his “penetrating and historically insightful columns that led Richmond, a former capital of the Confederacy, through the painful and complicated process of dismantling the city’s monuments to white supremacy.” You should definitely tap through and read the the reactions from around the RTD newsroom—and especially the reaction from Williams himself. You should also definitely read through the list of columns that won him the PULITZER PRIZE in commentary in a year when literally everyone had lots of commentary to say.
City Council meets tonight and will consider a handful of interesting papers I’ve mentioned over the last couple of weeks. Most sit on the Consent Agenda, but the regular agenda holds RES. 2021-R034, the casino resolution, and a handful of papers about earmarking portions of the American Rescue Plan money. I can’t see a world where the casino paper faces even the slightest opposition from councilmembers (but can totally see a lonnnnng line of public commenters). Tune in tonight at 6:00 PM...if you dare!
Possibly related to those ARP money papers, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the City will consider buying a hotel to serve as an emergency shelter. Robinson also says Council will consider a handful of other creative options like partnering with VUU to convert a motel they own and plan to redevelop or repurposing an old elementary school. I don’t know enough about the physical needs for an emergency shelter, but I do like the idea of exploring all of the resources available to the City. Better than collectively shrugging and throwing up our hands!
Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury reports on the staffing issues facing daycare programs across the state. This stuck out to me: “Statewide, nearly 10 percent of Virginia’s 6,047 licensed child care facilities were still closed as of May 28, according to data from the Virginia Department of Social Services. But even when centers reopen, they may be doing so with less capacity.” I have to imagine that the impending summer plus a lack of childcare options will have a pretty wide-reaching impact on employment opportunities for folks.
Richmond Public School will host a Regional Community Conversation for the West End tonight from 6:00–7:00 PM. They’ll discuss the plans for fall reopening and have some doctors from the Children’s Hospital of Richmond to answer any of your burning kid-COVID questions. Zoom info here.
Today at 10:00 AM the Richmond Police Department will report out and analyze crime data for the first half of 2021. In Chief Smith’s words: “We’ll share the information on crime trends and discuss our collaborative efforts with the public as we focus on a successful second half of 2021 and beyond.” You can either wait until reporters write it up for tomorrow’s news or tune in and watch for yourself on the RPD facebook.
Via /r/rva, a video of a blue heron stabbing a fish out of the river and then flying away with it. Nature!
This morning's longread
We’re Gonna Carry That Weight a Long Time
Here’s a kind of meandering essay about the stuff we accumulate and the mark we leave on the planet through all of that stuff. It’s something I think about a lot!
Like Woolf, Landy discovered that losing everything he owned was a negotiation with memory. His artist’s archive—the record of a lifetime’s work—was broken up. The most difficult thing to destroy was a sheepskin coat that had belonged to his father, which he saved until the very end. Despite this, the experience was “a huge rush,” he later recalled. And yet by eviscerating the material evidence of his entire life, he was guaranteeing that he’d be remembered in a particular way. “I kind of knew that as it was going on,” Landy said, “that I would always be known as that person who destroyed all his worldly belongings.” And in any case, “destroyed” is really just a euphemism. The remains of Landy’s things ended in landfill, to begin a new, patient existence among the 16 million metric tons of household waste that enters UK landfill every year.
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