Good morning, RVA: 882↘️ • 11↘️; safety on Broad Street; and burritos

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and today you can expect a bunch of rain. That bums me out as I wanted to ride my bicycle around, but I’m sure my garden does not feel the same way. Enjoy, garden!

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 882↘️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 11↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 139↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 40, Henrico: 77, and Richmond: 22). Since this pandemic began, 329 people have died in the Richmond region. I haven’t linked to it a ton, but the University of Richmond has their own data dashboard with a few graphs in addition to the daily case number updates. Since July, UR has seen 13 total cases, with four of those reported in the last week or so. UR and VCU’s campuses are so very different—demographics aside, even their size, geometry, and biome (or whatever you want to call the surrounding natural environment) are different. I wonder if the spread of the virus will be impacted more by the two campuses' similarities or their differences.

This is awful: A driver hit and killed a 68-year-old man in a wheelchair who was crossing Broad Street out near Glenside. I’ve talked about it a thousand times before, but the parts of Broad Street west of 195 grow increasingly hostile to humans. As we build more homes and run more transit to reconnect the western parts of our region, we (and by we I mean Henrico) will have to do some serious work to reevaluate the safety and focus of our infrastructure. Right now it’s dangerous, we know it’s dangerous, we know how to fix it, and we just need to start (and fund) the work to do so.

Remember when these Virginia is For Lovers trucker hats dropped and everyone lost their minds? I feel like we’re headed that way with masks. Who’s going to design the most fashionable, most city-reppin' mask that folks will (virtually) queue up for? Maybe it’s these RVA masks that Richmond Region Tourism have put together and are giving out for free at their visitor centers?

Did you know that James River Week begins this Saturday, September 12th? To celebrate, the James River Association has put together these Atlantic Sturgeon Paddle Trips. I will admit, most of what I’ve learned about the (endangered) Atlantic Sturgeon I have learned in the last 24 hours. Talk about fascinating, check this out: “Capable of growing up to 14 feet in length, weighing 800 pounds, and living 60 years, Atlantic sturgeon spend their adult years in the Atlantic Ocean. Every spring and fall, they return to spawn in the rivers where they were born.” Just some cool water monsters living in the river that runs through our city. No big deal.

The Big List of 2020 Candidate Events has finally lived up to its name, becoming almost too unwieldy for a Google doc. That’s great! Nearly every day this week you’ve got a chance to learn about one of the candidates for School Board, City Council, or mayor, and you should take advantage of those opportunities before its suddenly November. If you can’t make any of these events, you should check out this Trello board I put together with all of the ways—social media accounts, email addresses, websites—to connect with those candidates. If you’ve got questions, you should ask them. How these folks respond as a candidates will often give you good insight into how they’ll respond as elected officials.

OK, Jack Jacobs at Richmond BizSense, you had me at…well, every single word in this headline: “Phish’s chef rolls out frozen burrito delivery venture in Richmond.” You also gotta love sentences like this “Jim Hamilton has had a burrito business on his mind for a while, but was too busy touring with Phish as the band’s chef to give it his full attention. He can thank the pandemic for giving him the nudge to dive in.” 2020! Sure! You can place your burrito order over on Sous Casa’s website, which I just did.

If you need a COVID-19 test you can stop by Hotchkiss Field Community Center (701 E. Brookland Park Boulevard) today from 4:00–6:00 PM. That’s rain or shine, too, so weather be damned! And remember, if you’ve got coronaquesitons, you can always call the coronvirus hotline at 804.205.3501.

This morning’s longread

How I Mastered the Art of Ventilating My Home

How much do I want to become obsessed with ventilation??

Become as obsessed with ventilation as I am, and you’ll develop what can be described only as “ventilation radar.” You sense the torpor of a hotel room in which the windows don’t open. You feel suffocated in a café without a breeze. You can walk into a restaurant and instinctively estimate risk, eyeballing potential dead-air hot spots and considering whether aerosols might be a problem. How many windows are open? Is the restaurant using both AC and fans? You start to bail on weakly ventilated joints. Ventilation becomes a proxy for everything. If the ventilation is bad, what about the food? If management can’t get something as obvious as the airflow in check, who knows what horrors might be going on in that kitchen.

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