Good morning, RVA: 10,998 • 372; we need open streets now; and land value tax

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and rainy. But! Later today the rain should stop and the temperatures should head all the way up into the mid 70s. If things work out, we could have some good porch-sitting weather this evening.

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 10,998 positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth, and 372 people in Virginia have died as a result of the virus. VDH reports 1,379 cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 402, Henrico: 718, and Richmond: 259). The data bad news from yesterday: 732 new positive cases marks the most ever reported in a single day. The data good news from yesterday: 3,740 tests is the second most ever reported in a single day. Now we just need to keep it up and, like, quadruple the number of tests we’re doing. Here’s the chart of new cases and new tests that I keep updating, and here’s the chart of the seven-day rolling average of new tests per 100,000 people that I stole from the NYT. Again and always, I don’t think any of these data indicate the true number of folks infected with the coronavirus. They’re just lots of context for folks who don’t know how to process any other way than building spreadsheets.

On the testing tip, the Richmond Times-Dispatch says the Health District will provide walk-up testing in three of Richmond’s public housing neighborhoods: Hillside Court, Gilpin Court, and Creighton Court. This is great to see, and I hope folks take advantage of it. More of this everywhere!

Remember however many virusweeks ago when the Governor announced that he had signed a contract with a private company to wrangle the supply chain and get healthcare workers in Virginia the gear they need? Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury has the details on that contract, and, whoa, what a weird world we are living in. What states must go through to get critical supplies—simultaneously battling each other and the worst parts of capitalism—seems…suboptimal.

The Virginia Employment Commission’s weekly update continues to show massive numbers of new folks filing for unemployment—but massively fewer than the last couple of weeks. 82,729 people submitted initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ending in April 18th, but that’s “a decrease of 21,890 claimants from the previous week.” This particular graph shows how the Commonwealth has passed a clear peak in new claims filed while the number people continuing to file for unemployment insurance keeps climbing (297,993). Since this crisis began, food service workers have made up 20.2% of all initial unemployment claims. That’s wild, and I’d love to see how the occupations groups of folks filing has changed as we’ve progressed through the stay-at-home order. As with a lot of pandemic-related things, these numbers would be way more interesting if they weren’t about actual folks’ livelihood.

I enjoyed this piece by Louise Lockett Gordon over at Bike Walk RVA about what the coronavirus has revealed about biking and walking in the region. I can’t agree with this more: “In this moment, opening neighborhood streets to biking/walking activity only can be done on a less grand scale, simply affording people nearby the opportunity to be active in a car-free environment.” The City should follow Oakland’s lead and close 10% of its streets to through traffic. That doesn’t mean emergency vehicles and residents no longer have access, it just means prioritizing our neighborhood streets for people to have safe places to move around outside of their home. This type of open/slow street policy is one of the easiest and cheapest things the City could do to make Richmonders’ lives better during the coronacrisis, and I’m not sure why we haven’t done this yesterday!

Parks & Rec in Richmond announced that the Manchester Climbing Wall is now closed. I don’t know why people would want to put their sweaty virushands right where other folks’ sweaty virushands have been, but sure. Also, Parks closed Chimborazo Park to cars, which is maybe as close to a slow street as we’ve gotten!

Roberto Roldan at VPM reports on something I’d not even thought of: Collecting signatures to get on the ballot while adhering to social-distancing requirements is…hard?…impossible? While getting on the ballot locally doesn’t require a huge number of signatures—just 125 for City Council—I can see how the tried-and-true ways of gathering signatures like attending large events or door knocking just aren’t going to work. I’m not opening my door for anyone these days, I tell you what.

My pal Nicholas Smith resumed his Virginia General Assembly newsletter right before the GA’s reconvened sessions yesterday. He had a lot of questions that are now answered, but you should still tap through to read his thoughts on the Land Value Tax. Richmond now has access to another (progressive) form of tax! This is rare and wonderful and we should totally get to implementing it as soon as possible. I doubt “hey let’s do a new tax” is on any councilmember’s agenda—especially right before elections—but maybe we start putting the pieces together next year?

At 10:00 AM this morning, ChamberRVA will host a virtual town hall with the Director of the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts, Dr. Danny Avula. I’m sure Dr. Avula is incredibly busy at the moment, so this is a rare opportunity to see him in a setting other than giving coronavirus updates from behind a podium.

This morning’s longread

The Hunt for Planet Nine

Nerds on an adventure is one of my favorite genres of story.

If the planet they’re looking for exists, it is likely six times the mass of Earth, with an atmosphere made of hydrogen and helium covering its rock-and-ice core. What makes it hard to find is its likely location: at least 400 times further away from the sun than our own planet, and 15 to 20 times further out than Pluto. As a theorist Batygin feels that he’s already mathematically proven its existence. But it’s generally accepted that for a planet to be considered discovered in the field of astronomy, the theory must also be accompanied by a photograph. This is where the Subaru telescope comes in. They know that Planet Nine is somewhere in between the constellation Orion and Taurus, but that’s about as exact as they can get, and they’ll need good weather to locate it.

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