Good morning, RVA! It's 68 °F, and we got another hot one. Today you can expect highs in the 90s, Feels Likes near 100 °F, and absolutely zero chance for rain. Stay cool , stay hydrated, and bide your outside time until Friday when things cool off a bit.
Water cooler
It’s Tuesday, and that means checking in on VDH’s COVID-19 data dashboard to see what’s what. Prepare yourself to feel some optimism and take a look at the all-time graphs for COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in Virginia. Have we passed a peak or are we just waiting on some data reporting issue to sort themselves out? I think maybe the former?? Also, severe outcomes for vaccinated humans continue to be exceedingly rare with just 0.4% of fully vaccinated people developing COVID-19, 0.017% ending up in the hospital, and 0.0038% dying. That’s a lot of zeros.
As consumers of fine morning emails, I’m sure many of you get the New York Times Morning Email. I thought yesterday’s edition recommending people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine go out and get an mRNA booster shot was pretty dang close to irresponsible. First, I myself am a J&J person! I have first hand experience with feeling anxiety over blood clots, efficacy, waning protection, and the general lack of communication from healthpeople about the future of this vaccine. So I get folks’ desire to take matters into their own hands, march on down to the local pharmacy, and demand a shot of an mRNA vaccine. Unfortunately for now (and this could change later this week), booster shots are not authorized by the FDA for anyone! Folks with significantly compromised immune systems—like people who just got an organ transplant—can get a third dose as part of their initial series. That’s not a booster, it’s just finishing up their first round of doses. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think lying to medical and public health officials about vaccination status (“Or you can choose to be less than fully honest. You won’t be alone.” as the NYT puts it) is a great way to live your life? Finally, it’s wild to me that after all the fear and panic folks felt over the extremely, extremely rare blood clotting side effect of J&J, the NYT is out here just encouraging people to mix and match vaccines in a way that hasn’t been studied super well. Remember, all of J&J got paused because, at the time, six cases of blood clots had been reported across 6.8 million doses of the vaccine. Yet, based on mostly anecdotal evidence, the NYT feels good about saying “There are no signs of worrisome side effects so far.” “So far” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. For me, I’ll wait until the science is done and J&J boosters are actually authorized.
Here’s the presentation the Mayor gave City Council yesterday on his vision for spending all $155 million of ARPA money. Items that stick out to me: $20 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, $5 million for a Health Equity Fund, a massive $78 million for parks and community centers (82% of which is for the latter), $500,000 for a parks master plan, $13.5 million for stormwater and drainage, and $5 million for “first responder bonuses,” which, according to Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, includes police, fire, 911 call operators and Richmond Ambulance Authority employees. Answering my ever-present question of “But what about Parks and DPW employees, will they get bonuses??” Suarez reports that the Mayor will also try to “adjust the current fiscal year’s budget so that the same $3,000 bonus can be given to all other city employees.” Fair enough! So, some of the mayor’s ARPA items line up pretty well with City Council’s list (especially the AHTF) some do not, and now we get to watch Council work their way to something that can get five votes. It’s like Budget Season: The Sequel over here (2 Budget 2...Bananas?).
School Board met last night and wrapped up at 11:37 PM, way after any sort of reasonable reporter deadline. That means all we’ve got to go off at this point in the day are live tweets, and, after scrolling through for a bit, it sounds like a tense meeting. Here’s a long, long thread from @KidsFirstRPS if you want to dig in. To me, the most stressful part happens way near the end when the School Board tries to get into the nitty gritty of managing the (unrealistic) RFP process they’ve demanded the RPS administration move forward on.
Graham Moomaw at the Virginia Mercury has an update on the Virginia Redistricting Commission which hit a bit of a rocky stretch recently having to cancel a meeting due to COVID and had a member resign. Moomaw reports that the Commission “is dropping its region-by-region approach in favor of statewide proposals expected to be unveiled next week. The commission’s co-chairs announced the procedural change over the weekend and said at a meeting Monday that the chief concern is a lack of time.” No kidding! They hope to have finalized maps by October 10th, just 26 days from now.
The RTD’s Karri Peifer reports that while Del Taco is coming to Virginia, they are not coming to Richmond—at least not yet. Sorry if that last sentence was a rollercoaster of emotions for you.
This morning's patron longread
Adam Pendleton Is Rethinking the Museum
Submitted by Patron Lance. Remember when a video crew set up in front of the Lee monument last summer? Because I am a not super smart I thought it was either a VCU student project or a music video. Turns out it was super famous artist Adam Pendleton who is originally from Richmond and has a massive show opening at MoMA.
While the city had removed other statues of Confederate leaders, Lee’s remained up: It fell under state jurisdiction, and while the governor, Ralph Northam, vowed to take it down, the matter was tangled in court. (On Sept. 8, the 21-foot statue, which had stood since 1890, was finally removed; the pedestal remains for now.) But to Pendleton, the monument in its interim state — gloriously emblazoned with messages celebrating Black, brown, queer and trans lives, denouncing police brutality and more — formed a remarkable text in itself. Even after the city put a chain-link fence around it in January, it still emitted vital, unruly signals. “Writing, rewriting, overwriting,” he said. “That’s what’s embodied visually here.”
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