Good morning, RVA: 2,949 • 5; the #keepkamras vote; and master plan amendments

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and I’m pretty disappointed about this past weekend’s snow accumulation. But, ever onward! Today you can expect dry skies with highs in the 40s and a chance to take a quick stroll around the block wearing your best scarf. If you’re out and about this morning, though, keep an eye out for slippery sidewalks and roadways.

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 2,949 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 5 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 493 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 294, Henrico: 140, and Richmond: 59). Since this pandemic began, 709 people have died in the Richmond region. After a couple of spikey days over the weekend, new reported cases have fallen back below 3,000, and, importantly, new deaths have started to inch downward after their February 1st peak. I didn’t mention it—because I didn’t feel like I needed to with this audience!—but I’m hopeful we won’t see a new spike in cases as a result of Super Bowl parties. Tampa Bay though…whew. Good luck. I know it’s a much, much smaller scale event, and probably well within the Governor’s current guidelines, but if you made jokes about the Super Bowl being an authorized super-spreader event you should think about how the A-10 men’s basketball tournament is headed to Richmond next month. Also, two quick vaccine notes: This past weekend we reached a milestone, and now over one million doses of the vaccine have been administered and over 10% of the population has received at least one dose.

I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, but at his Friday press conference, the Governor, in the words of his press release, “called on all K-12 school divisions in the Commonwealth to make in-person learning options available by March 15, 2021 in accordance with the health guidance (PDF) the Northam Administration put forward in January and new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” I think what this actually means and how serious the Governor is about this remains to be seen. You can read the Governor’s letter to Superintendents and School Boards here(PDF), which includes sentences like “To prevent irreparable learning loss and psychological damage, I expect every school division in the Commonwealth to make in-person learning options available by March 15, 2021, in accordance with the latest guidance.” but also “It’s clear that not all students or staff will be comfortable coming back in person for a while. So as you develop plans to offer in-person instruction to students who wish to return, you should also plan to maintain remote-learning options.” Locally, I think both Chesterfield and Henrico Public Schools' current plans would already meet the Governor’s expectations. Richmond’s all-virtual semester, of course, would not. As with a lot of the Governor’s recent proclamations, who even knows what it really means! Not me and not even RPS Superintendent Kamras, who said in a Friday email: “As I shared earlier today, Governor Northam announced this morning an expectation—though not a mandate—that all school divisions in Virginia provide in-person instruction starting on March 15. What does this mean for RPS? In short, I’m not sure yet, as I’m still sifting through all the details. I’ll provide an update to the School Board during our Budget Work Session on Tuesday, February 9.” This is just me, but I think it’d be way less stressful for everyone if the Governor’s office released a nice, thick PDF of well-thought-out details and FAQs alongside these press conference that end up impacting millions of Virginians.

Speaking of Kamras, tonight at 6:00 PM the RPS School Board will meet and “take action on Superintendent’s Employment Agreement.” I really, really hope at least five board members have listened to the hundreds and hundreds of public comments from Richmonders who want to keep Kamras around for four more years. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard as many public comments in support of any single issue in my entire time paying attention to Richmond City government. It’ll be a heckuva thing if the Board decide to vote directly against that kind of public movement. But who knows, they might do just that! My uninformed prediction: I feel like we’ll get a 5–4 or 5–3–1 vote in support of keeping Kamras for four more years, but, honestly, that might just be my heart talking.

City Council will also meet tonight (why do our two elected bodies meet at the exact same time on the exact same night?). Here’s the regular meeting agenda (PDF), but I’m more interested in the 2:00 PM “Master Plan Work Session” which, at the moment, has no agenda. I’m guessing from the name that Council has decided to get together and hash out amendments to the recently-adopted Richmond 300 master plan. The master plan, which, you’ll remember, took years to put together and was supported by hours and hours and hours of public engagement. I’m not going to let this go: If Council wants to up and amend Richmond 300, they need to commit to doing similar scale community engagement around whatever changes they propose.

Do we still care about Super Bowl commercials? I found myself explaining several-decades-old layers of pop culture so that my 12-year-old son could get any of the jokes. Whatever happened to people just sitting around and going “waaaazuuuuuuppp?” Is this what it’s like to be old? NFL.com has an archive of each and every commercial if you still want to dig in.

This morning’s longread

Why You Should Take Any Vaccine

What happens when we have multiple vaccines with varying efficacies? This newsletter does a great job of laying out why you should just take whatever COVID-19 vaccine you’re offered. I’ll tell you what, I’m really not looking forward to people using their privilege to vaccine shop.

Other than those issues, however, I’m not worried about the variants and the current vaccines for now. We have a problem here with analogies: the so-called “vaccine resistance” is not like antibiotic resistance. Our mental models of “resistance” come mostly from antibiotics, but this analogy isn’t applicable here in the same way. Vaccines aren’t drugs; they are tools to give our immune system test practice so that when the real thing shows up, our body knows what to do. When antibiotics don’t work, they don’t work. Not so here. If the test practice isn’t as precise because the variant is a little different around the spike protein, the conclusion isn’t necessarily that the immune system won’t be able to do its job and stave off illness.

If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Picture of the Day

I thought this week I’d do something a little different and pull my favorite shot from the previous day’s @everylot_rva. Twice per hour, this Twitter bot posts a Google Streetview image from a Richmond address. It’s a great way to see familiar and unfamiliar places in Richmond. Today’s photo comes from 306 Virginia Avenue.