Good morning, RVA: 1,302↗️ • 6↘️; a quarantined mayor; and a strange tax vote

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and, whoa temperatures. You can expect highs today near 80 °F, which is surely fine on this the 10th of November and not at all concerning in a climate-change way. Rain moves in tomorrow and Thursday, so bask in the sunshine this afternoon if you can.

Water cooler

Richmond Police are reporting two murders. This past Thursday, November 5th, officers responded to the 6800 block of Midlothian Turnpike and found Ja’Shawn Pressley shot to death inside of a car. Then, yesterday, officers were called to the 1700 block of W. Cary Street and found Christina Cunningham stabbed to death in a nearby residence. An arrest was made on the scene.

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,302↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 6↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 167↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 90, Henrico: 33, and Richmond: 44). Since this pandemic began, 439 people have died in the Richmond region. VDH has updated their weekly pandemic metrics, and the Central Region (where we live) continues to experience “substantial community transmission,” the highest level. We’ve been at this level of community transmission for five weeks now, but hovering just on the edge between “substantial” and “moderate”—aka could be worse, I guess. Related to spreading the virus in the community, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that three people in Richmond’s General Registrar’s office have tested positive for COVID-19 as well as a person associated with Mayor Stoney’s reelection campaign. This means 15 folks in the registrar’s office are headed to quarantine, and…so is the mayor! Stoney says, “My staff & I are well prepared to serve the residents of Richmond from home. It’s the safe, responsible thing to do while RCHD traces possible exposures stemming from the Registrar’s Office. This should serve as a sobering reminder that the pandemic is still very real.” Yes, yes it is. Oh, also! Read the Biden transition team’s response to the news that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine looks to be 90% effective. How normal and reassuring! BREATH OF FRESH AIR.

As foretold, last night City Council adopted ORD. 2020–222 and ORD. 2020–224, the pedestrian improvements near St. Catherine’s School and the renaming of Confederate Avenue respectively. They also ended up deciding to continue the rezoning of properties along and around Broad Street, ORD. 2020–103, until their December 14th meeting. Apparently, Council also had a bit of discussion around ORD. 2020–215, their regularly-scheduled ordinance to keep the real estate tax rate at $1.20. I didn’t even flag this ordinance as worth noting yesterday, because voting against it and allowing the real estate tax to drop to $1.176 (which happens automatically without this ordinance because of a dumb, austerity-inspired state law) would be absolutely catastrophic to the City—especially this year as a coronarecession looms. This paper comes up every year, has passed unanimously for at least the last five years without issue, yet this year Councilmembers Gray and Trammell voted against it. Absolutely shocking, and I’d love to hear what services Councilmember Trammell had planned on cutting in the 8th District to keep the budget balanced.

Yesterday’s email from RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras included a reflection from Thomas Jefferson High School principal Cherita Sears, which you should read in full. I’ll quote a bit here: “I have been holding my breath for 4 days. Waiting for relief. Waiting for peace. In my daughter’s words ‘We are free.’ Interesting how November 7th feels like Juneteenth. When the word came, I cried…screamed…and danced. Not only is it freeing. But as a black woman, living in an America that does not fully love me, my black husband, my black son, and my black daughter… it is spirit-lifting to finally see a woman of color in the white house…as a leader, not a servant.”

Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in California v. Texas, a case which could decide the fate of Obamacare (again). The Virginia Mercury has a What’s At Stake piece that’ll give you some of the scary context. Also, Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring has a column supporting the ACA in today’s paper.

Logistical note! Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day, a federal holiday, and as such I’ll be taking the morning off to ride my bicycle in the rain. I hope you’ll find time to do whatever the equivalent is in your life, too!

This morning’s longread

Climbing’s Little Helper

I continue to love reading about whatever thing is tearing some specific, unknown-to-me community apart. The high-altitude climbing community is reeling, I’m sure!

The doctors immediately sent a Sherpa to Easterling’s tent to collect any drugs he could find. When the Sherpa returned, the doctors gasped: he was carrying a tray full of dexamethasone, also known as dex, a controversial anti-inflammatory steroid. Prescribed to treat everything from tumors to asthma, dex has become popular among mountaineers in recent years because it can mitigate some of the effects of altitude sickness and high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE), like brain swelling, and because, when taken prophylactically, it can help climbers ascend quickly. Used to excess, it can also have dangerous side effects. On the tray sat 30 unopened vials of dex—more than Goodman stocked to serve every climber on Everest for an entire season. The Sherpa also handed Goodman a bottle of pills. At one point it had contained 90 doses of dexamethasone. Now it contained four.

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