Good morning, RVA: 3,817↗️ • 8↗️; RPS fully-virtual; and getting rid of parking lots

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and the snow’s gone. Highs today should creep back up nearly to 50 °F—and we might even see temperatures in the 60s later this week.

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 3,817↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 8↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 374↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 99, Henrico: 149, and Richmond: 126). Since this pandemic began, 477 people have died in the Richmond region. For the first time ever, Virginia’s seven-day average of new reported cases has broken 3,000 (at 3,005). The seven-day average of new hospitalizations has been over 100 for the last three days, and the number of new deaths—which typically lags hospitalizations by a couple of weeks—has started to creep upwards. In fact, there are so many new cases, that VDH has had to start triaging their case investigation and contact tracing. Bizarrely, in that same news release, the state also announced that they’ll adopt new CDC guidance that gives folks a couple ways to shorten their quarantines should they get exposed to COVID-19. There’s a good table a ways down on the aforelinked page that’ll give you the “residual post-quarantine transmission risk (%) with and without diagnostic testing,” and will show you why the CDC thinks that the numbers work out for shorter quarantines. However, and this is a big however, VDH still recommends that the best option for most folks is to quarantine for a full 14 days: “The safest option is still to quarantine for 14 days after last exposure. Any quarantine shorter than 14 days balances reduced burden against a small possibility of spreading the virus.” Optically, it’s weird to pair this new guidance and a small possibility of spreading the virus with skyrocketing case counts, but, with basically no federal or state-level financial support for folks sent into quarantine, 14 days away from a job can be devastating. At the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Sabrina Moreno reports that the Governor may consider new restrictions this week.

As foretold, the RPS School Board met last night and voted to “remain completely virtual for the second semester beginning on February 8, 2021.” I’m sure we’ll hear more from Superintendent Kamras in today’s RPS Direct email, but, until then, the RTD’s Kenya Hunter has the details from last night’s meeting. This whole thing is so utterly complex, I don’t really have a great take on what it all means right now. Given the terrifying pervious paragraph, planning for fully-virtual school this winter makes a lot of sense. Will that decision still make sense come April, when, theoretically, we’ve got a bunch of vaccine on the ground and jabbed into arms? How can you even know? Is it better to make a long-term plan now or do a whole semester of will-they-won’t-they? I have no idea, but we’re about to find out.

City Council met last night and approved the Mayor’s appointment of Lincoln Saunders as the City’s new Chief Administrative Officer. Here’s the quote from the mayor: "I’m thankful that Richmond City Council has voted to consent to my appointment of Acting CAO Lincoln Saunders. He is familiar with the daily operations of the administration and trusted to lead the city by the members of the administrative team, both of which are vital in serving as Acting CAO. This decision will ensure the continuity of city programs and services. Ms. Reid has been a vital leader during an unprecedented period of crisis in our city, working to keep the wheels of government turning despite a global pandemic. My intention is to appoint her to the CAO position in a permanent capacity as soon as she makes a full recovery. In the meantime, I ask that you join me in lifting her and her family up in prayer.”

The RTD’s Michael Paul Williams has a look at Richmond’s history of social change and civil rights movements. Good stuff if you’re unfamiliar with some of Richmond’s lesser known, post-1860s history. I had no idea about this: “The narrative of Richmond as the land that racial unrest forgot is by design, according to University of Richmond historian Julian Maxwell Hayter. He described a strategy by 20th-century Byrd Machine segregationists to portray Richmond and Virginia as ‘the kind of benign version of their Deep South brethren.’ There was ‘a concerted effort by people in power to try to get the country to look away from Virginia and its relationship to slavery and the segregated system,’ Hayter said – an effort that purposely downplayed racial violence, as part of a strategy to tap the flow of federal dollars into Virginia.” Fascinating/horrible.

Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense says the owner of the former Baja Bean spot (and the old RVANews headquarters, RIP) has two really great infill projects in the works. John Conrad will drop some three-story, mixed-used buildings into one of my most hated surface-level parking lots at 1505 W. Main Street—the one right next to Beauvine Burger Concept. Conrad also has plans to squeeze in some new buildings on top of the parking lot at 1520 W. Main Street. Folks willingly giving up parking lots to build stuff for people brings me great joy!

The City has announced a second round of the Richmond Recovers Grant Program, funded with $2 million of CARES Act money. Small businesses can apply for up to $15,000 to “reimburse the cost of employee wages, including the cost of benefits; rent and utilities for commercial workspaces; PPE and cleaning supplies; E-Commerce expenses; and working capital.” You can find the application here and you have until December 16th to get it filled out and submitted.

Reminder: This coming Monday, City Council will vote on Richmond 300, an update to our city’s Master Plan. If you haven’t already, send your councilmember an email telling them to support this years-long effort. If you’re looking for language to use, check out this thread from @RVAbikedad.

This morning’s longread

How Scientists Tracked Down a Mass Killer (of Salmon)

I know I’m the #bancars guy, but we really should have some bigger conversations about the non-emissions part of car-related pollution.

On a rainy day in 2012, they filled stainless steel containers with a translucent dark liquid coming out of the spout. This time, the salmon exhibited the bizarre symptoms and promptly died. “What is it in that mixture?” Dr. McIntyre recalled thinking. “This is just water that’s on the road, it’s what we tramp through in our rain boots.” It must be something that people don’t regularly measure, she figured. Enter Edward P. Kolodziej, an environmental engineer and chemist at the University of Washington. His lab used a machine called a high resolution mass spectrometer to compare the chemical composition of highway runoff with that of water collected from two urban creeks where the salmon were dying. The samples shared chemicals related to tire particles. So the team brewed up a test concoction by soaking shredded tire tread in water. The salmon died.

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