Good morning, RVA: More progress on baby vax, racism is a public health crisis, and red bus lanes

Racism is a public health crisis.

Good morning, RVA! It's 73 °F, and today looks hot and cloudy with maybe some rain here or there. You can expect highs in the 90s, which, while hot, will seem real temperate compared to what tomorrow has in store. Stay cool, and make sure to check on your outdoor plants.

Water cooler

Yesterday, the FDA's advisory committee voted to unanimously recommend both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for children under the age of five. Step 1: Complete! Now full FDA needs to have their say, then CDC's advisory committee (which meets on Friday and Saturday), then full CDC, and then, finally, the Virginia Department of Health. Those last two usually happen fairly quickly, and it still looks like the littlest Richmonders will be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine early next week. I'm so stoked for the families who've been waiting literal years for this. Katelyn Jetelina has a great post answering some common questions folks may have—specifically, I think families should read through the answers to "Does my child actually need the vaccine?", and "Which vaccine should my kids get?" The answers to the former is easy: Yes! The number of COVID-19 deaths among kids this young is way, way higher than flu, Hepatitis A, or rotavirus. COVID is no joke, even in babies. The answer to the latter question, though, is a bit more complex, and Jetelina lays out four reasons why her daughters will be getting the Moderna vaccine. Anyway, tap through, read the post, call your pediatrician and ask for their recommendation, and then make a plan to get the littlest kids in your life vaccinated.

Jenna Portnoy at the Washington Post reports on some really horrible comments made by the Comissioner of the Virginia Department of Health about the role racism plays in public health: "Virginia’s chief public health official...has rejected the state-recognized declaration that racism is a public health crisis and downplayed the role of racism in health disparities, leaving some fearful for their jobs." VDH is my place of employment and this person is, ultimately, my boss, so it puts me in a difficult place about what to write this morning. So instead, let me quote a few things:

The CDC says, "Racism—both interpersonal and structural—negatively affects the mental and physical health of millions of people, preventing them from attaining their highest level of health, and consequently, affecting the health of our nation. A growing body of research shows that centuries of racism in this country has had a profound and negative impact on communities of color."
The American Public Health Association says, "Racism structures opportunity and assigns value based on how a person looks. The result: conditions that unfairly advantage some and unfairly disadvantage others. Racism hurts the health of our nation by preventing some people the opportunity to attain their highest level of health."
The General Assembly, in declaring racism a public health crisis in 2021, says, "...more than 100 studies have linked racism to negative health outcomes, including research supporting that the cumulative experience of racism throughout one's life can induce chronic stress and chronic health conditions that may lead to otherwise preventable deaths."
Richmond's City Council, in also declaring racism a public health crisis, says, "it has been shown that racism is linked to more negative health outcomes for Black people, most recently in the detrimental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but more commonly in the high rates of infant mortality, maternal death, breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and mental health crises in Black communities."
Finally, in response to the WaPo article, Senator Jennifer McClellan says, "As a Black woman who almost died in childbirth, I’m outraged. We don't need to 'start fresh' researching the Black maternal mortality crisis, we need to take action on well-established research. If the Virginia Department of Health's Commissioner refuses to understand that, he should find a new job."

Governor Youngkin turned in his budget amendments last night—about three dozen of them—and Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a nice summary. I don't know enough about how state government works to know what happens next, but the General Assembly will return tomorrow to tackle these changes, some of which seem like complete nonstarters to me.

Big, red news! 12 hours ago, the GRTC Twitter account posted this teaser of a tweet hinting that details on painting the median-running bus-only lanes red will drop today! Yesssss.

Big, block news! Trevor Dickerson at RVAHub reports that LEGO will build a factory in Chesterfield County—out of cement and stuff, not LEGO bricks, one assumes. I look forward to the day when every local elementary school gets to take a field trip to see how LEGO are made (and hope one of them will invite me along). Exhausting aside: Ned Oliver at Axios Richmond has two fascinating notes about how LEGO went out of their way to distance themselves from Governor Youngkin's positions on renewable energy and racial equity. Despite whatever the Governor thinks, his backward social and climate policies are increasingly unappealing to business.

Maymont will host a conversation with Peggy Singlemann, master gardener and author of a lovely column over on VPM, tonight at 6:00 PM. Tickets cost just $10 and will get you some Q&A time with the person responsible (somehow!) for keeping Maymont looking tip-top. I mean, get excited: "Peggy will provide insights into how she and a dedicated army of staff and volunteers have carefully researched and restored the historic gardens and arboretum, while expanding the native species, controlling invasive species and adding pollinator plants."

Tonight is the debut of the Northside Farmers Market! Stop by 201 E. Brookland Park Boulevard (behind Richmond Community High School) on Thursdays between 4:30–7:00 PM or on Saturdays from 9:00 AM–1:00 PM. I'll tell you what, I love an afternoon/evening market.

Via /r/rva, here's a picture of thousands of mayflies down by the canal. The original poster says it's "cool," but now I feel like there are things crawling all over me. Richmond Axios's Karri Peifer talked to the Science Museum's director of education who assures everyone that "Mayfly emergence is a good thing. It means we have some healthy waterways for them in our area." OKKKKKK.

This morning's longread
How San Francisco Became a Failed City

Whoa, this long article in the Atlantic about the political tension in San Francisco gave me a whole lot to think about. I didn't agree with everything in here and don't know much about what's actually going on in SF, but dang I see a lot of myself—both good and bad—throughout this article.

What happened to the man at the Safeway, what happened to Dustin Walker—these are parables of a sort of progressive-libertarian nihilism, of the belief that any intervention that has to be imposed on a vulnerable person is so fundamentally flawed and problematic that the best thing to do is nothing at all. Anyone offended by the sight of the suffering is just judging someone who’s having a mental-health episode, and any liberal who argues that the state can and should take control of someone in the throes of drugs and psychosis is basically a Republican. If and when the vulnerable person dies, that was his choice, and in San Francisco we congratulate ourselves on being very accepting of that choice.

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