Good morning, RVA: 1,236↘️ • 11↘️; qualified immunity bill dies again; and GWAR tickets on sale today

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and I think we’ve weathered the weather. There’s a chance of rain the next couple of days, but, overall, it looks like you should have an opportunity to take advantage of dry days and cooler temperatures. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says we can expect an “autumnal” seven-day forecast.

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,236↘️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 11↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 179↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 54, Henrico: 103, and Richmond: 22). Since this pandemic began, 330 people have died in the Richmond region. Yesterday, the Governor announced the easing of restrictions in the eastern part of the state—so more folks can now gather in person, restaurants can open at a higher capacity, and bars can stay open later while selling alcohol longer. The drop in cases in the Eastern region over the past month or so is pretty impressive and the graph kind of looks it’s giving the middle finger to coronavirus. To see how that offensively precipitous drop in the east impacted the statewide numbers, I thought it’d be interesting to look at that same graph (number of cases by date of symptom onset) for every region EXCEPT the Eastern Region. You can see that elsewhere in the state, reported case numbers continue to rise at a pretty steady rate.

Del. Bourne’s bill to ban qualified immunity, HB 5013, died (again) yesterday, this time at the hands of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Will the bill pull the ultra rare Triple Lazarus and find its way back to the living once again? Who knows, but once again Democrats joined Republican in voting down this bill. Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has some reactions, including this quote from Del. Bourne to his colleagues who think qualified immunity is a “tough nut to crack”: "Let me just suggest to each and every member on this committee a tougher nut to crack: Trying to explain to your eight-year-old son why he needs to carry himself differently and why daddy might get nervous when a police officer pulls him over.”

Related, Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch looks at the police reform package—minus a qualified immunity bill—that passed the Senate. I know this summer has radicalized me against the police, but the arguments Republican senators put up against these fairly benign proposals make me roll my eyes: “Republicans focused on what they considered flaws in the omnibus bill, such as a prohibition against local and state law enforcement acquiring surplus military equipment from the federal government, including armored vehicles they said are often used to rescue people in flooding or deep snows.” Sure, deep snows. Anyway, we’ll see how this package of generally good reforms makes its way through the rest of the legislative process.

I thought this statewide Eviction in Virginia During the COVID-19 Pandemic infographic from RVA Eviction Lab was interesting. Make sure you zoom in a bit and look at the overlay of eviction rates and COVID-19 cases. I think some of this is probably just places with more people have more evictions and more COVID-19. That said, it means those places (aka cities) should be the focus of eviction moratoriums and coronavirus relief efforts. You know, that whole equity vs. equality conversation.

GRTC will roll out their fall bus service update this coming Sunday, September 13th. It’s a lot of tweaks here and there across a lot of routes, so if you take a bus in any part of the city it’s probably worth scrolling through the big list of updates. Changes to note: The way the #1 bus works on Sundays has changed, the #39 is cancelled until further notice, and the #50 goes alllll the way to 2nd Street. I’m also interested in this change to the #7: “Because of a new roundabout at 23rd and Jefferson, eastbound buses must now operate from 21st St., turning right on Marshall, left on 25th and continuing outbound. This routing change means that two bus stops are missed…GRTC continues to coordinate with the City of Richmond on a solution that will permit buses to safely resume service uninterrupted along Jefferson Ave.” The new street improvements along Jefferson are pretty awesome, but I wonder how much coordination the City did with GRTC before making the upgrades? I don’t know the details here, but it reminds me of the City’s recent decision to move the Registrar’s office out to end of Laburnum, far from any useful bus service.

The ICA’s new exhibition, “Commonwealth,” opens tomorrow, part of which is Duron Chavis’s “Resiliency Garden.” Chavis installed a ton of raised garden beds in the adjacent surface level parking lot, transforming the space from wasteland into a place where things can actually live and thrive. The Commonwealth Times’s has a few details and pictures, but you should just stop by and check it out yourself.

Metalheads and music fans who love a good spectacle, you need to get yourself on high alert today. Tickets for a drive-in GWAR show at The Diamond go on sale today at 12:00 PM. The October 10th show is described as “A great blood horror to rip out your guts.” Sounds perfect. Here’s GWAR covering (and absolutely crushing) Billy Ocean’s “Get into my car” back in 2013 to get you in the mood.

Do you know about the puss caterpillar? You know, the most venomous caterpillar in the United States? Be honest, did you even know caterpillars could be venomous?? Well, Rex Springston at the Virginia Mercury says a lady in New Kent got stung (??) by a puss caterpillar, went to the ER, and experienced three days of waves of pain. I’m going to need you to look at this picture from a National Geographic article titled “Toxic ‘Toupee’: Explaining the Most Venomous Caterpillar in the U.S.”, so you’ll believe me when I say its puss like Puss in Boots.

This morning’s patron longread

America is Trapped in a Pandemic Spiral

Submitted by a couple of patrons. Well this is depressing. Out of this list of nine failures the United States has made during its pandemic response, the serial monogamy of solutions and constant magical thinking ring truest for me.

The spiral begins when people forget that controlling the pandemic means doing many things at once. The virus can spread before symptoms appear, and does so most easily through five P’s: people in prolonged, poorly ventilated, protection-free proximity. To stop that spread, this country could use measures that other nations did, to great effect: close nonessential businesses and spaces that allow crowds to congregate indoors; improve ventilation; encourage mask use; test widely to identify contagious people; trace their contacts; help them isolate themselves; and provide a social safety net so that people can protect others without sacrificing their livelihood. None of these other nations did everything, but all did enough things right—and did them simultaneously.

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