🧐 Good morning, RVA: 821 • 24; stumbling toward Phase One; and learn about trails

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and so long, excellent weather. Today you can expect highs in the mid 50s and rain later this afternoon. Rad weather maybe returns on Thursday?

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 821 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 24 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 26 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 0, Henrico: 10, and Richmond: 16). Today is Tuesday, so you can probably expect a spike in those numbers. At the Governor’s press conference yesterday, he announced that, despite whatever the data may say, he expects Virginia to move into Phase One of recovery by May 15th. Here’s Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury: “The announcement comes before a 14-day downward trend in new COVID-19 cases or a decline in hospitalization numbers — metrics Northam previously said the state would need to meet before loosening the business and social distancing restrictions that have become the new normal for Virginians since March.“ This is incredibly frustrating. What was the point of announcing all of those data-based guidelines if Northam just had his sights set on May 15th anyway? What happens if the data don’t cooperate and get in line for his new two-week deadline? Northam’s also switching his messaging to “safer at home” instead of “stay at home,” but, as always, safer at home for whom? Phase One sends employees at “restaurants, recreation, and personal care business such as hair salons and spas”—mostly working-class people—back to work. Folks who are privileged enough to have good insurance and can work from home are encouraged to continue doing so. Here’s a quote from the Governor, take a second and think about who the “you” in this quote is: “Here’s the bottom line…You’ll be able to get your hair cut, but you’ll need an appointment. It means you can go out to eat again, but restaurants will use less of their seating to spread people out. Phase One means more retail establishments can be open, but they’ll have to operate at lower capacity.” At some point we substituted “flatten the curve” for “the healthcare systems will not be overwhelmed,” and those two things are not at all the same. We wanted to do the former to prevent the latter, but just because we’ve managed to keep our hospitals up and running doesn’t mean that the virus has vanished. In fact, the Commonwealth is still short on testing, more and more Virginian’s are reporting positive every day, and new hospitalizations are not going down. Plus, do we even really understand the impacts of COVID-19 yet? This sentence, again from Kate Masters, shouldn’t make any Virginians feel great: “The new guidelines align Virginia more closely with southern neighbors, including Tennessee and Georgia, than with other regional partners including Maryland and Washington, D.C.” Great.

Here, instead, is some guidance from Mayor Stoney: Stay home! You can also read the memo the Mayor sent to Council the other day (PDF). It’s got lots of good info, including a breakdown of Richmond’s COVID-19 data by race. As of May 1st, 14 out of 15 Richmonders who have died as a result of the virus are Black.

As previously mentioned, Virginia lags and has lagged for weeks and weeks in testing. Megan Pauly at VPM submitted a bunch of FOIA requests and found at least one possible reasons: The supply chain for testing swabs is an absolute cluster. Tap that link, read it in full, and then let the feelings of despair wash over you.

RVAHub has a quick story about The Pick-Up, a new contactless pick-up service for all of the shops at Willow Lawn. This totally reminds me of olde-tyme, as-seen-on-TV Wild West general stores, where you could roll in and they’d have your entire order ready for you. This is the kind of thing I could see existing after The Time of Coronavirus.

Tonight you’ve got another opportunity to join a virtual urbanism happy hour, this one focuses on regional bike and pedestrian initiatives. On the Zoom: Todd Eure from Henrico County, Louise Lockett Gordon from Bike Walk RVA, and Chet Parsons from Plan RVA. This is a way-smart group of folks, and you have a great opportunity to ask them about what the region is doing to make walking and biking safer for everyone. I’m sure they’ll be talking the Ashland to Petersburg Trail, but, also, Henrico People!, get in there and ask about sidewalks and paths in your neighborhood!

This morning’s longread

How Long Will a Vaccine Really Take?

Over the weekend, the NYT had this neat / depressing / realistic look at what goes in to manufacturing a vaccine and how long each phase takes. Turns out, a long time! This seems obvious, but we never say it outloud: Lots of viruses we’re extremely familiar with don’t have vaccines.

“The manufacturing task is insurmountable,” Mr. Samant said. “I get sleepless nights thinking about it.” Consider just one seemingly simple step: putting the vaccine into vials. Manufacturers need to procure billions of vials, and billions of stoppers to seal them. Sophisticated machines are needed to fill them precisely, and each vial is inspected on a high-speed line. Then vials are stored, shipped and released to the public using a chain of temperature-controlled facilities and trucks. At each of these stages, producers are already stretched to meet existing demands, Mr. Samant said.

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

This morning’s Instagram