Good morning, RVA! It’s 36 °F, and today looks beautiful. Expect highs near 60 and sunshine and people outside doing their thing. This great, unseasonable weather continue through Saturday, after which NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says we could see some snow on Sunday.
 

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Graham Moomaw at the Virginia Mercury has some more reporting on the demise of any and all future mask requirements in our public schools. There are some absolutely wild quotes from legislators in this piece, like:
 

• “We are telling parents what to do…and as a legislator, I just don’t believe that I have the audacity to tell them what they can do and they cannot do.” — Sen. Joe Morrissey, Democrat
• “The truth here is that the only mitigation that actually works is the vaccine.” — Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, Republican (not at all true, by the way)
• I don’t have a doctorate in medicine…but I do have a doctorate in common sense." — Sen. Chap Petersen, Democrat (sponsor of this bill)

Good morning, RVA! It’s 25 °F, and, highs today will hit the upper 50s. I think that’s a wonderful excuse to get outside and move your body through space in whatever way makes you feel good. You’ve got three more days of warmish weather before cold temperatures return—take advantage of them!
 

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The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Mel Leonor reports that, unless something dramatic happens in the next couple of days, the General Assembly will ban mask mandates in schools. Yesterday, the Democratic-controlled Senate approved legislation that would “prevent local school boards from levying mask mandates and from punishing students whose parents opt to send their child to school without a mask.” Legislation that bans mask mandates is a whole different ball of wax than an overreaching, hastily issued Executive Order, and I don’t know that local school boards—Richmond and Henrico’s included—would have much leeway to do anything about it. Katelyn Jetelina said it early this week: Population-level solutions are so much more effective at keeping people safe and preventing the spread of disease than individual-level ones, and the GA’s Democrats are making an incredibly short-sighted decision to forever strip a useful public-health tool from Virginia’s tool box. This isn’t just about COVID, either! The next time—and there will be a next time—we encounter a dangerous airborne illness we will be without an important population-level mitigation measure unless the General Assembly passes a law. So dumb.
 

The Mayor delivered his 2022 State of the City Address last night, and I thought it was pretty good! You can read the speech here, or watch it on the City’s Facebook page or YouTube channel. I think we already knew most of the Mayor’s announcements, given that the more exciting ones come from ARPA funding and we’ve already seen a bunch of presentations on how the City plans to allocate that huge bucket of cash. I hadn’t heard about the $500,000 for a gun buyback program which seems pretty cool, though. Chris Suarez at the RTD has a short summary of the speech which includes pictures of the mayor’s podium surrounded by a dozen ferns. If anyone at the City is looking to re-home some of those plants, please let me know, OK?
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and my weather app has informed me that we have a chance for “FREEZING FOG” this morning until 9:00 AM. I’ve seen The Day After Tomorrow, and I’m sufficiently aware of how dangerous weather can creep right up on you (and chase you through the New York Public Library)—so be careful out there this morning. Warmer weather moves in after lunch when we should see highs near 50 °F.
 

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It’s Tuesday, so here’s this week’s charts of hospitalizations and deaths in Virginia due to COVID-19. Hospitalizations continue to decrease while deaths, now, appear to have plateaued. While I’m not spending as much time tracking the graph of cases, I have been keeping a loose eye on the case rate per 100,000 people. In Richmond it’s 467, in Henrico 562, and in Chesterfield 538. You can find those numbers, updated daily, on this CDC COVID Data Tracker page. Related, and mostly the reason for keeping track of this unintuitive number, Katelyn Jetelina has put together a nice framework for how individuals can re-enter (and retreat from!) the world based on case rates per 100,000. I like this tool because it’s simple to use and helps me avoid constantly thinking through my own personal risk-reward ratio for every dang hangout. If the level of cases is red (anywhere above 100 per 100,000), the framework recommends that you “avoid indoor, crowded public areas where not 100% masked and vaccination status unknown.” Simple! As the case rates decrease, you can mitigate less and do more things; at a yellow case rate (between 10 and 49 per 100,000) indoor, crowded events are fine without even masking! Jetelina is quick to point out that individual actions are not the way out of this pandemic but, unfortunately, it’s the focus of today’s reality: “This is for individual decision making. In other words, it answers: What should I do today? As a public health official, I do not agree that we need individual-level solutions. They are far less effective than population-level ones. But in our increasingly individualistic society, we need to arm people with evidence-based solutions in the landscape they are forced to navigate.” Anyway, I hope this tool helps—it certainly gave me some clarity on how to navigate the spring and summer.
 

Mayor Levar Stoney will deliver his sixth (I think?) State of the City address tonight at 6:00 PM. If you’re using the above framework and trying to avoid large, indoor public gatherings, you can livestream the address on the City’s Facebook page. I always enjoy the State of the City. Yeah it’s a lot of victory-lap stuff, which, to be honest, at this moment in time it’ll be pretty nice to hear about some successes, but it’s also a chance for the mayor to lay out his vision for the year ahead. Sometimes we even get cool policy and project announcements, later expanded upon in his budget presentation. It’s a good night to curl up on the couch and root for the home team.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 33 °F, and, once things get going today, it looks cold and rainy. Highs should trend upward for the rest of the week, though.
 

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I’m sure y’all saw this already, but VPM reports that “an Arlington judge ordered on Friday that schools can continue requiring students to wear face masks - for now.” I’m sure the Governor and his team will appeal this temporary decision and we’ll have to keep hearing about this—possibly through the end of the school year (137 days from now). I enjoyed this email sent to Henrico County Public School families following the court’s decision: “…HCPS will strictly adhere to our universal mask requirement except during mealtime, when students are outdoors (with appropriate physical distancing), or when they participate in designated athletic activities. Recent accommodations made in place of mask use, based on parent choice and the executive order, will end immediately. Students are expected to adhere to the universal masking requirement, and anyone who refuses to wear a mask will face disciplinary action in accordance with the Code of Student Conduct for disruption of the school day.” Emphasis theirs!
 

Today, both the City’s Planning Commission and Council’s Organizational Development committee meet and will take up a few papers that we’ve been tracking for a bit. First, Planning Commission will consider the W. Broad Street rezoning (ORD. 2022–017). Rezonings, as you know, have to jump through a bunch of different hoops before they get implemented, the last of which is City Council passing this ordinance after Planning Commission has their way with it. You can flip through a presentation on the rezoning here; you’re probably looking for pages 17 and 20 which will let you see the current and future zoning maps. The proposal will replace a quilt of different zoning district running mostly along Broad and down Hamilton with TOD-1. The residential neighborhoods south of Broad stay residential, so folks shouldn’t (but probably will anyway) fire off angry emails about parking and high-rises blotting out the sun. I imagine since this rezoning tightly aligns with the City’s master plan, it will easily pass Planning Commission. Then, later this evening, Council’s Org Dev committee will take up both the City employee union papers: ORD. 2021–345 and ORD. 2021–346. The former would authorize collective bargaining for a whole set of City employees (including police) while the later just for employees in the Departments of Public Utilities and Public Works. I don’t have a great sense of how Council feels about this issue, but I think if you looked hard enough you could probably find five votes for authorizing collective bargaining across the board.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 62 °F. What the heck! Despite this morning’s late-spring temperatures, you can expect a cold front to move in this afternoon and for the day to end somewhere in the 30s. Boringly, the rain will let up just as temperatures start to drop. Expect cold—but clear—weather for the rest of the weekend.
 

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Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury has some good reporting on the Youngkin Administration’s refusal to turn over communications and documents pertaining to the governor’s education-related executive orders. I’m sure y’all have read about the Governor’s tip line for parents to report educators who dare to teach their students about the existence of systemic racism. He casually rolled it out a couple weeks ago on a right-wing radio show, and then it got picked up by national news and spread around on social media—mostly by liberals hoping to encourage other liberals to flood the email address with sickburns. While this seems like another misstep for the new, inexperienced governor, I think things are pretty much going according to plan! Remember, the goal here, as always, was not to collect actual feedback from parents concerned over the teaching of “divisive” subjects, but to make liberals angry. Not only did the tip line succeed at that primary objective, its also convinced thousands of folks to spend what little civic time and energy they have shooting off angry emails into a black hole rather than emailing their legislators, submitting public comments, or attending a public meeting. Honestly, I would not be surprised if the tip line inbox literally did not exist (which would explain why subsequent FOIA requests for tips submitted have been denied by the Administration). I appreciate Kate Masters reporting, though, because she points to a larger trend within the Governor’s team to improperly use FOIA exemptions to shield their work from the public. This lack of transparency is Not Good—especially around topics like the enforcement of Executive Order #1 which, theoretically, bans the teaching of systemic racism in classrooms. Have they denied these FOIA requests because what they’d turn up would be embarrassing or damning (or both)? I think that’s an important question.
 

You should read this piece by Mel Leonor in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about how the Virginia Senate has slowly started to dismantle the Governor’s agenda piece by piece. That was a smug sentence! I thought two things while reading through this good reporting: 1) Bills in the General Assembly die and resurrect with alarming, unpredictable frequency, so don’t consider Governor’s push for all charter schools all the time dead until the end of the session, and 2) Folks really need to vote! Can you imagine how different things would look without that slimmest of majorities in the Senate? Big yikes.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, and today looks warm and rainy. Expect highs right around 60 °F and a persistent chance of rain basically until the sun sets tomorrow. Good sloshin' around weather!
 

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I’ve really enjoyed some of the salty ledes that reporters at the Richmond Times-Dispatch have written while covering the Youngkin administration’s early attempts to push its agenda. Here’s a good one from Michael Martz about Youngkin’s effort to get rid of the grocery tax (which, at this point, does not have universal Republican support): “Legislators are beginning to remember why eliminating the sales tax on groceries has been hard to do, after decades of trying.” Who knows what will come of any of these grocery tax bills—between skeptical Republicans; a slim Democratic majority in the Senate; and an oppositional quote from Sen. Peterson, one of the few swing votes in that chamber—but a lot of critical school funding for localities hangs in the balance.
 

Ben Paviour at VPM details another one of the many small decisions made by Governor Youngkin to walk back Virginia’s progress on racial justice wherever he can—this time in the governor’s mansion. From the piece, “[Kelley Fanto] Deetz’s work updating the mansion’s tours is part of a multiyear project that draws heavily from the experiences of descendents of enslaved workers. It’s not clear where it stands after Youngkin’s Jan. 15 inauguration.” Deetz, who has done similar work elsewhere, had started to shift the public history of the governor’s mansion away from “oil paintings and whimsical gubernatorial anecdotes” to include the lives and stories of the enslaved people who built and staffed the building. We’ve seen similar, very successful efforts at other Virginia historical sites like Montpelier and Monticello. I know Republicans like to do these small, performative erasures to make folks mad, but this part seems particularly mean: “A planned educational room for schoolchildren had been turned into a family room for Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, and today looks warm and rainy. Expect highs right around 60 °F and a persistent chance of rain basically until the sun sets tomorrow. Good sloshin' around weather!
 

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I’ve really enjoyed some of the salty ledes that reporters at the Richmond Times-Dispatch have written while covering the Youngkin administration’s early attempts to push its agenda. Here’s a good one from Michael Martz about Youngkin’s effort to get rid of the grocery tax (which, at this point, does not have universal Republican support): “Legislators are beginning to remember why eliminating the sales tax on groceries has been hard to do, after decades of trying.” Who knows what will come of any of these grocery tax bills—between skeptical Republicans; a slim Democratic majority in the Senate; and an oppositional quote from Sen. Peterson, one of the few swing votes in that chamber—but a lot of critical school funding for localities hangs in the balance.
 

Ben Paviour at VPM details another one of the many small decisions made by Governor Youngkin to walk back Virginia’s progress on racial justice wherever he can—this time in the governor’s mansion. From the piece, “[Kelley Fanto] Deetz’s work updating the mansion’s tours is part of a multiyear project that draws heavily from the experiences of descendents of enslaved workers. It’s not clear where it stands after Youngkin’s Jan. 15 inauguration.” Deetz, who has done similar work elsewhere, had started to shift the public history of the governor’s mansion away from “oil paintings and whimsical gubernatorial anecdotes” to include the lives and stories of the enslaved people who built and staffed the building. We’ve seen similar, very successful efforts at other Virginia historical sites like Montpelier and Monticello. I know Republicans like to do these small, performative erasures to make folks mad, but this part seems particularly mean: “A planned educational room for schoolchildren had been turned into a family room for Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 23 °F, but temperatures today could stretch into the 50s—and you can expect even warmer weather tomorrow. Unfortunately, I’ll be spending my afternoon at the dentist, but I do expect some of you to get out there and take advantage of the pleasantish weather for me. Wish me luck.
 

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A single, quick COVID update this morning: Pfizer did go ahead and ask the FDA to authorize a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine for children under five yesterday. According to the aforelinked NYT article, the now-familiar series of necessary advisory committee meetings will begin on February 15th—just two weeks from now! Should that first group feel OK with the less-effective, two-dose regimen, the subsequent approval dominos usually fall fairly quickly afterwards. Yesterday, I said the science nerds would have lots of questions about Pfizer’s decision to move forward with a less-effective, two-dose vaccine (while still studying a three-dose version), and, today, Katelyn Jetelina works through some of those questions.
 

Tonight at 5:30 PM, the Richmond Land Bank (which is part of the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust) will hold a meeting of their Citizens Advisory Panel that’s open to the public. They’ll discuss a really interesting proposal from the JXN Project to purchase 10 properties in Jackson Ward owned by the Land Bank and bring the Skipwith Roper Cottage back to the neighborhood. This should sound familiar! Abraham Skipwith was “the first known free Black person to reside in what would become Jackson Ward,” and his home, built originally at 400 W. Duval Street, now sits on a farm in Goochland. Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams wrote a great history of Skipwith in the Richmond Times-Dispatch last April that you should definitely read (or reread). It’s really fascinating stuff, and if you’d like to comment in support of this particular project (or any of the work the Land Bank has going on) you can do so tonight!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 26 °F, and highs today will hit the upper 40s. We’ve got warmer temperatures on the extended forecast from here until Friday. Get out there and enjoy it!
 

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It definitely looks like the country as a whole has passed its Omicron peak, both in cases and hospitalizations—we’re still, unfortunately, waiting for deaths to catch up. The CDC says the nationwide 7-day average of new cases has dropped 19.9% since the previous seven days, and the 7-day average of hospitalizations has dropped 8.8% over that same time. Deaths, however, are still rising, and have increased 25.1% over the past week and have now passed this fall’s Delta peak. I think we can see the light at the end of this wave, though. In Virginia, we’re experiencing the same trends, if a little delayed from our northern neighbors, with the number of hospitalizations and deaths dropping—or at least seriously plateauing. Despite decreasing numbers, there’s still a lot of disease floating around in our communities! If you haven’t yet gotten vaccinated or boosted, just look at these graphs of hospitalizations by vaccination status and go get your shot today!
 

In more uplifting coronanews, the New York Times reports that Pfizer could ask the FDA to authorize a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine for kids under five…as soon as today?? Remember, though, that there are a series of meetings and hoops a potential vaccine must jump through before you can stroll on down to CVS and get one, but it sounds like we’re looking at end of February, early March? Those very science-y, very nerdy hoops and meetings should be interesting to watch as Pfizer hasn’t changed anything about the vaccine since last we spoke of it when “among children ages 2 to 4, the [immune] response was less robust.” What has changed, though, is: “The setback prompted the companies to test a third low dose of the shot in young children. Rather than wait for those results, federal regulators took the unusual approach of encouraging Pfizer to apply for authorization for a two-dose regimen to begin protecting children from the Omicron variant and other possible subsequent mutations…” I think the scientists will have thoughts on this strategy! There’s a real complicated tension between demonstrably less protection in kids aged 2–4 and more delays before any vaccine is available for them at all.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 20 °F, and I continue to be disappointed with our snow situation. What even was that! Bleh. Today, though, you can expect temperatures in the mid 40s, and, later this week, even warmer temperatures through at least Thursday.
 

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Genevieve Siegel-Hawley had a must-read column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch over the weekend: “Lawmakers should hold the line on privatizing public education.” Siegel-Hawley is real smart and this is the column I’ve been looking for on Virginia’s return to segregation academies via Governor Youngkin’s push to expand charter schools. Here’s a quote from the piece: “Effectively recreating dual systems of schooling — a hallmark of the pre-Brown era — by increasing neovouchers and charter schools in Virginia is problematic for all of us. Siphoning substantial funding away from our woefully underresourced, overstretched regular public schools doubles down on separate and unequal schooling for the students left behind. And white, segregated charter and private schools will receive government support to ill-educate future citizens for a multiracial society.”
 

This is the second, must-read piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Chris Suarez reports on the new attempt to bring a casino to Richmond’s Southside and the extremely stressful plan to pair it with a reduction in the real estate tax rate. Suarez does a great job of laying out how the mayor’s proposed tax reduction would mostly benefit affluent home owners, who mostly voted against the casino. Here it is, plainly put: “Homeowners in precincts that supported the casino on Election Day would save about $40, while those in precincts that opposed it would save about $90.” For context, the tax reduction would cost the city $5.7 million in annual revenue, and, once the rate goes down, it’s nearly impossible to raise again (especially if the Republicans in the General Assembly get their way). That’s a lot of money to hope the casino covers for literally forever. Suarez also talks to local political analyst, Richard Meagher, who points out that throughout his two terms, Mayor Stoney has advocated, multiple times, for tax increases. I can see how the mayor, searching for revenue but stymied by Council, would want to switch his tactics from directly raising it through taxes to enticing huge, taxable developments to the City—see Navy Hill, Casino One, and now Casino Two. I think this is, at least, a consistent and good-faith strategy. It’s not one I agree with, of course, and I’d prefer we replicate what the City’s doing with the Diamond District 100 times, everywhere we can. Where you really lose me, though, is proposing to strip the City from almost $6 million annually—that’s the entire budget of the Richmond Public Library! If folks want to take another swing at a casino, fine, but let’s do that without putting the future work of reinvesting in Richmond at risk. P.S. I think this is one of the best things I’ve read in the paper in a good, long while. Great work (and thank you) to everyone involved!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and we’re under a Winter Weather Advisory until 10:00 AM tomorrow. You can expect whatever snow that’s headed our way to start later this evening and continue on through early Saturday morning. NBC12’s Megan Wise has downgraded our accumulation totals to 1–2 inches. Boooo!
 

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Ian M. Stewart at VPM talked to a couple of Chesterfield County Public School parents about how they’ve prepared their children to deal with a school enviornment where masks are no longer required. Obviously, I disagree pretty strongly with parents who think their own individual choices outweigh what’s best for the public health—thus, I am a Democrat. That said, though, I found it pretty interesting to hear parents talk through concerns on either side of the issue. I’m still thinking about that final line in the piece from Slate I shared earlier this week: After the governor issued his anti-mask Executive Order #2, “teaching just became significantly harder in Virginia.”
 

The Commonwealth Institute, one of our local policy think tanks, put out this depressing report about the wages of Richmond City employees: “One in 8 general Richmond city workers who work full-time and year-round do not make enough to support themselves, and 4 out of 5 do not make enough to support a family.” TCI also says the problem is widespread, not confined to any one department, and has exacerbated an increasingly high turnover rate. They also point to unionizing as one of the ways out of this situation, which is timely as Council will consider two collective bargaining ordinances next week! ORD. 2021–346 would authorize a handful of City departments to unionize, while ORD. 2021–345 would authorize everyone (cops included) to unionize. From TCI’s report, “Overall, public-sector collective bargaining tends to boost pay by 5% to 8%.” Council’s Organizational Development committee could/should take up both of these papers on February 7th (assuming they don’t get continued).
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and colder temperatures have returned. Expect highs(ish) in the mid 30s for the next little while. Make sure to keep an eye on Friday night or Saturday morning as that’s our next best chance for snow to move into the region.
 

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I’ve still got a lot of thoughts about Council and the Mayor’s plan to pair a second casino referendum with a two-cent reduction in the City’s real estate tax—most of them, at the moment, aren’t very constructive. But, basically, I’ve got two main issues with this plan: 1) I’d rather the City build thriving neighborhoods than big, shiny projects, 2) Given the decades of racist disinvestment, the City needs MORE revenue, not less. Following the whole Navy Hill situation, Richmond has done pretty well with that first point. We’ve got a new City Center plan, which was just adopted this past Monday by Council, and the Diamond District development process is humming along. Both should—fingers crossed—build new neighborhoods that create stable and long term tax revenue for the City. However, neither of those two neighborhoods are on the Southside and the casino is. That said, a casino is not the only way to bring investment, and nothing prevents us from building thriving neighborhoods on the Southside, too. In fact, take a look at this draft Southside Economic Plan introduced at last week’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meeting. While a lot of this document is plans within plans, it lays out the path towards serious, solid, urbanist investment across the Southside! I mean, check out some of the highlights: BRT plans along Hull and Midlothian, rezonings, plans to update infrastructure like sidewalks and bike lanes, adding a bunch of properties to the land bank, and redeveloping big sites like Southside Plaza and Oak Grove Elementary School. The City could turn its focus from a bright-and-shiny, high-risk, morally-questionable casino and go all-in on something like this plan to build thriving, sustainable Southside neighborhoods. It’s harder work, for sure, and will take a long time, but it’d certainly be worth it. A short postscript: I think the casino is pretty much a done deal (although I thought that last time!), and, should it pass, the City should take the huge up-front check and pour it straight into kicking off pieces of something like the Southside Economic Plan.
 

Earlier this week, Richmond Public Schools launched a Test to Stay program as part of their COVID-19 protocols, and you can read through the four-page FAQ here. Test to Stay, or TTS, uses the magic of rapid tests to allow folks identified as close contacts to return to school—as long as they repeatedly test negative. From the FAQ: “TTS provides testing on the school nights of the first five days of an individual’s assigned quarantine period and allows participants to attend school and/or work throughout the full 10-day quarantine period, assuming negative test results.” This is incredibly helpful for minimizing quarantine disruptions—both for staff and students. Participants in the TTS program must wear a mask when back at school, which makes some students who cannot wear a mask ineligible, and adds an interesting wrinkle to the ongoing conversations about the Governor’s anti-mask Executive Order #2. Can you even safely implement a TTS program if a school district has given up on masks?
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and colder temperatures have returned. Expect highs(ish) in the mid 30s for the next little while. Make sure to keep an eye on Friday night or Saturday morning as that’s our next best chance for snow to move into the region.
 

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I’ve still got a lot of thoughts about Council and the Mayor’s plan to pair a second casino referendum with a two-cent reduction in the City’s real estate tax—most of them, at the moment, aren’t very constructive. But, basically, I’ve got two main issues with this plan: 1) I’d rather the City build thriving neighborhoods than big, shiny projects, 2) Given the decades of racist disinvestment, the City needs MORE revenue, not less. Following the whole Navy Hill situation, Richmond has done pretty well with that first point. We’ve got a new City Center plan, which was just adopted this past Monday by Council, and the Diamond District development process is humming along. Both should—fingers crossed—build new neighborhoods that create stable and long term tax revenue for the City. However, neither of those two neighborhoods are on the Southside and the casino is. That said, a casino is not the only way to bring investment, and nothing prevents us from building thriving neighborhoods on the Southside, too. In fact, take a look at this draft Southside Economic Plan introduced at last week’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meeting. While a lot of this document is plans within plans, it lays out the path towards serious, solid, urbanist investment across the Southside! I mean, check out some of the highlights: BRT plans along Hull and Midlothian, rezonings, plans to update infrastructure like sidewalks and bike lanes, adding a bunch of properties to the land bank, and redeveloping big sites like Southside Plaza and Oak Grove Elementary School. The City could turn its focus from a bright-and-shiny, high-risk, morally-questionable casino and go all-in on something like this plan to build thriving, sustainable Southside neighborhoods. It’s harder work, for sure, and will take a long time, but it’d certainly be worth it. A short postscript: I think the casino is pretty much a done deal (although I thought that last time!), and, should it pass, the City should take the huge up-front check and pour it straight into kicking off pieces of something like the Southside Economic Plan.
 

Earlier this week, Richmond Public Schools launched a Test to Stay program as part of their COVID-19 protocols, and you can read through the four-page FAQ here. Test to Stay, or TTS, uses the magic of rapid tests to allow folks identified as close contacts to return to school—as long as they repeatedly test negative. From the FAQ: “TTS provides testing on the school nights of the first five days of an individual’s assigned quarantine period and allows participants to attend school and/or work throughout the full 10-day quarantine period, assuming negative test results.” This is incredibly helpful for minimizing quarantine disruptions—both for staff and students. Participants in the TTS program must wear a mask when back at school, which makes some students who cannot wear a mask ineligible, and adds an interesting wrinkle to the ongoing conversations about the Governor’s anti-mask Executive Order #2. Can you even safely implement a TTS program if a school district has given up on masks?
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and today’s highs will hit 50 °F for the last time in the foreseeable future. What a difference a day makes, because this morning Nick Russo and Megan Wise at NBC12 are tracking another chance for snow on Friday night. I hope this one pans out—I’m tired of these unfulfilling dustings!
 

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It’s still early, but I’m optimistic about the graphs of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19 in Virginia. Both have at least plateaued or even started to decline. This matches what we’re seeing across the country, especially in northeastern states that got Omicron’d before we did. Still though, the absolute number of people hospitalized is very high, and if, for some reason, you needed additional convincing to get vaccinated, check out these graphs from the CDC comparing hospitalization rates of unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people. To quote from the words bit, “in December…monthly rates of COVID-19 associated hospitalizations were 16x higher in unvaccinated adults.” That’s a lot of Xs. Finally, I’ve seen a couple Concerned Tweets about a new sub variant of Omicron, termed BA. 2. Yesterday, Katelyn Jetelina, my favorite yet not-exceedingly-optimistic epidemiologist newsletter person, had this to say on the topic: “We know this virus will mutate. And BA.2 is an example that it’s doing what we expect. We should keep an eye on this, but I’m not too concerned right now. I’m more concerned about another variant popping out of nowhere like Omicron did.” She’s got some data and studies to back that position up, and I encourage you to tap through and read.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and today’s highs will hit 50 °F for the last time in the foreseeable future. What a difference a day makes, because this morning Nick Russo and Megan Wise at NBC12 are tracking another chance for snow on Friday night. I hope this one pans out—I’m tired of these unfulfilling dustings!
 

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It’s still early, but I’m optimistic about the graphs of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19 in Virginia. Both have at least plateaued or even started to decline. This matches what we’re seeing across the country, especially in northeastern states that got Omicron’d before we did. Still though, the absolute number of people hospitalized is very high, and if, for some reason, you needed additional convincing to get vaccinated, check out these graphs from the CDC comparing hospitalization rates of unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people. To quote from the words bit, “in December…monthly rates of COVID-19 associated hospitalizations were 16x higher in unvaccinated adults.” That’s a lot of Xs. Finally, I’ve seen a couple Concerned Tweets about a new sub variant of Omicron, termed BA. 2. Yesterday, Katelyn Jetelina, my favorite yet not-exceedingly-optimistic epidemiologist newsletter person, had this to say on the topic: “We know this virus will mutate. And BA.2 is an example that it’s doing what we expect. We should keep an eye on this, but I’m not too concerned right now. I’m more concerned about another variant popping out of nowhere like Omicron did.” She’s got some data and studies to back that position up, and I encourage you to tap through and read.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 25 °F, and we’ve survived the cold, cold weekend and have emerged to a decent Monday. Expect highs in the mid 40s and even warmer temperatures tomorrow. As of this moment, the extended forecast is clear of any snow!
 

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I’ve got lots of updates on mask-wearing in schools, starting with: Today, the Governor’s Executive Order #2, the one banning mask mandates in PreK–12 schools, takes effect. For now, though, Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield schools have all decided to carry their mask mandates forward. Depending on how you frame it, this is either the local school districts adhering to the state law that requires them to follow CDC guidance to the maximum extent practicable or it is them defying the Governor to protect the safety of students and staff. Either way, I’m here for it. Additionally, RPS has (maybe) gone a step further and, according to Kenya Hunter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “voted Sunday to take legal action to preserve its authority to oversee city schools and enforce COVID-19 protocols in an apparent effort to block the governor’s executive order on masks.” Due to lawyery stuff, we don’t know for sure what the Board voted on yesterday afternoon, so stay tuned on that front. Also over the weekend, the Virginia Department of Health and the Virginia Department of Education put out this Interim Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention in Virginia PreK–12 Schools. If you want to get into the details of how the State’s public health agency is dealing with an anti-public health executive, scroll down to page 10 and read the section on masking. Finally, if you’re a family hopelessly confused about when to send your kid to school if they’ve been exposed to or caught COVID, VDH put out this flowchart illustrating the (very complicated) isolation/quarantine guidance for kids trying to go to school. This particular document, although overwhelming to look at, is much less wishy-washy on mask-wearing, and, as far as I can tell, matches the current CDC guidance.
 

The Governor also dropped this 14-page PDF of his legislative and budget amendment priorities for this General Assembly session. Two important things: First, I don’t know how many of these bills sound innocuous in the descriptions but do some secret, terrible thing to roll back decades of progress; and second, I don’t have any sense at all which of these bills are dead on arrival and which have a chance at convincing one or two Democratic senators. You’ll see a ton of big-ticket items, like charter school bills, which feel like the Governor’s biggest priority this session. You’ll also see some smaller-but-terrible bills like HB 1010 / SB 620, which would require localities to hold a referendum to increase the real estate tax rate. Not that we have the political gumption to raise the real estate tax in Richmond right now, but if the City was required to hold a referendum to do so it would literally never, ever happen. Unfortunately, because of a lot of racism, raising the real estate tax is one of the very, very few ways Richmond can afford to undo the decades and decades of disinvestment in our housing, schools, and infrastructure.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 24 °F, and today’s high is freezing! Expect cold, cold, cold temperatures in the 20s for the entire day and maybe some snow this evening, but probably nothing to get too excited about. Temperatures warm up (relatively) over the weekend. Stay bundled!
 

Oh, also! Tons of things are opening late this morning—including school districts—so check a website or two before you head out to whatever thing you need to do this morning.
 

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The Governor has released his COVID-19 Action Plan, a short, 3-page document that you can read through in just a couple of minutes. I think he mostly plans on continuing the work that’s been in motion for the last year or so, although the “prioritized testing guidelines” section at the bottom does mention that the Governor will discourage asymptomatic individuals from testing and that the State Health Commissioner will issue “new guidelines that prioritize the use of rapid tests.” These new guidelines will address the current testing shortage (that we’re maybe already coming out of), but I wonder how they will apply when tests are, once again, plentiful and easy to find? Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury has more details, including a look at what local health districts are doing to increase the supply of tests.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F, but rain and colder temperatures move in this later this morning. At some point this afternoon expect the rain to switch over to snow while temperatures continue to drop and kids look expectantly for a school-cancellation email. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says we should expect 1–2 inches of snow to stick around this evening. Be careful if you’ve got to move around the region tonight!
 

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We know that both Richmond and Henrico County Public Schools have decided to keep their mask mandates, despite whatever the Governor’s Executive Order #2 says. But what about Chesterfield County Public Schools? Their school board will meet tonight to decide exactly that, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a good piece by Jessica Nocera pointing out some of the challenges the County’s teachers are facing as Omicrons tears through the district. Also in the RTD, Holly Prestidge reports that the Hanover County School Board will hold a similar meeting on Monday, which is the day the EO takes effect but a previously scheduled flex, at-home day for students. These will both be epic meetings, I’m sure, but I’m most interested in where Chesterfield ends up, especially since the County split pretty evenly between Youngkin and McAuliffe in the gubernatorial election (51.8% to 47.4%). And a final reminder that I feel compelled to keep saying out loud: Despite the previous sentence, the science supporting masks-wearing is not political. Masks are cool and good and are an easy way to keep people safe in school buildings.
 

Bills come and go quickly during this early stage of the General Assembly, so it’s important to have realistic expectations and not to fall in love with anything too fast. But, sometimes you can’t help yourself. SB 472, introduced by Senator McClellan, would authorize Richmond to levy a 1% sales tax to pay for school construction. If Richmond is anything, it’s a locality with big school construction needs that lacks the debt capacity to pay for those needs, and this bill would certainly help address that. Michael Martz at the RTD has some more details that you should casually note while not getting your hopes too high.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 29 °F, and those not-so-cold temperatures continue today and into tonight. Expect some rain this evening followed by three days of potential winter weather. Will it be rain, sleet, snow, or just a big huge bust? We’ll find out soon, so get your milk and bread while. you. still. can.
 

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Folks, including the Governor’s own team, continue to react to the masked-related Executive Order #2 he signed on Saturday. First, and I don’t know how I missed it, but Lt. Governor Earle-Sears showed up on FOXNews over the weekend threatening to pull funding from schools that do not follow the EO. I think this was mostly a troll, and Youngkin’s spokesperson has chosen to continue the troll by neither confirming nor denying the possibility that the Governor who ran on “excellence in education” was already considering stripping funding from schools on day one of his term. Locally, the mayor had Superintendent Kamras join him on his regularly scheduled press conference yesterday, and both of them had some strong things to say about the EO, which you can read in this piece by Jessica Nocera, Mel Leonor, and Patrick Wilson over in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Then, last night, Richmond’s School Board passed a resolution affirming their mask mandate (8–1, with 4th District’s Jonathan Young the lone vote against). Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury says the Governor’s administration “won’t say how his school masking opt-out order will be enforced” and a group of parents from Chesapeake are suing the Governor in an effort to scrap the Executive Order. And it’s only Wednesday! Now that the lawyers have gotten involved, though, I do think we’ll have some sort of progress in one direction or another before the Order takes effect on Monday. Which direction? I have absolutely no idea. Finally, I think it’s important to say out loud that masks in schools are great, prevent transmission of disease, and are supported by science. The Governor’s EO is anti-science and should be rescinded. These are not two equal sides of the same coin that we should sit down and have a rational debate about. Don’t let the media coverage (mine included) of the process to sort all this out obfuscate the fact that this particular Executive Order is not supported by facts and science!
 

Also in the RTD, Eric Kolenich reports that VCU, JMU, Virginia Tech, and William and Mary have all removed their employee vaccine mandate as a result of the Governor’s Executive Directive #2. Again, while not great, this is mostly a nothingburger as these universities have required employees to be vaccinated for months and, presumably, have very high vaccination rates (in an email to staff, VCU said “97 percent of faculty and staff were vaccinated” at the end of last semester).
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and temperate weather continues! Today you should expect highs in the 40s and plenty of sunshine—brisk but doable. That vibe should continue into tomorrow, and then, watch out, because real cold weather moves in on Thursday!
 

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After his inauguration, at which he yelled “THE SOUND OF FREEDOM” to overhead fighter jets reminding me very much of a bizarro Howard Dean, Governor Youngkin signed nine Executive Orders and two Executive Directives. Most, but not all, of these EOs are sort of like City Council resolutions—non-binding or unenforceable or sternly asking some other group to do a thing because you cannot. They let the Governor take a victory lap for “fulfilling” his day-one promises while not actually doing the hard work of changing laws or policies. Some of the EOs, though, will have an impact, but it’s hard to say exactly what. For example, Executive Order #2, “Reaffirming the Rights of Parents in The Upbringing, Education, and Care of Their Children,” has the potential to create a lot of chaos in local school districts across the Commonwealth this morning, as it upends the current mandate for masks within K–12 public schools. To quote from the EO: “The parents of any child enrolled in a elementary or secondary school or a school based early childcare and educational program may elect for their children not to be subject to any mask mandate in effect at the child’s school or educational program.” Locally, both Richmond Public School and Henrico County Public Schools have said, despite the EO, that they will continue with their mask mandate, following state-level legislation and CDC guidance. Executive Order #1, “Ending the Use of Inherently Divisive Concepts, Including Critical Race Theory, and Restoring Excellence in K-12 Public Education in the Commonwealth,” is mostly a nothingburger, but will, I’m sure, have an intentional chilling effect in classrooms across the Commonwealth. To quote from Superintendent Kamras’s email: “As for the far more nebulous prohibition against teaching divisive concepts, all I can say is this: At RPS, we will continue to honestly study the fact that the Commonwealth of Virginia was literally created on the backs of enslaved Africans, and we will continue to help our students understand the connection between that history and the injustices that still grip our community today – in education, housing, healthcare, the legal system, and more.” Before you scoff too loudly at the failure of these flimsy Executive Orders to make a practical impact on the lives of Virginians, remember that the guiding principle for Republicans is not passing legislation but making liberals mad. These EOs did exactly that and, by that account, were a huge success.
 

The James River Parks System has a new Superintendent: Giles Garrison! JRPS is one of our best things, and, after reading Garrison’s love letter to the James, I feel like JRPS is in good hands. Check out her video, too, to learn more about what exactly a park superintendent is and does.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 37 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday. Tomorrow, though, cold weather moves in, dropping temperatures down into the icy teens—I just set a reminder to leave the faucet running in the one freezing-cold bathroom. On Sunday you should expect some sort of winter weather that will likely lead to some sort of accumulation. Megan Wise at NBC12 says we could be looking at a snow-to-sleet-to-rain situation Sunday that leaves us with 2–5 inches on the ground.
 

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I think Governor-elect Youngkin has made the last of his appointments, choosing his Superintendent of Public Instruction and then a boatload of appointments across a ton of agencies. Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury has a profile of the superintendent, Jillian Balow, which you could probably write yourself—she wants to stop teaching kids about racism and inequity, she’s big flustered by The 1619 Project, and she’s excited to ban books that make her feel uncomfortable. Youngkin’s pick for Assistant Secretary, Elizabeth Schultz, hails from Fairfax, where she led a movement to keep Black and Hispanic students out of their governor’s school. Here’s Youngkin’s quote on the appointments, “Jillian and Elizabeth are going to be crucial in helping Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera restore excellence in education.” It should be super clear to everyone that “restore excellence in education”—like “Make America Great Again”—is coded language for repealing and reverting progress made in making our schools more equitable for Virginia’s kids.
 

The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Mel Leonor has great background on the early legislative progress to bring to life Governor-elect Youngkin’s promise of charter schools everywhere. Despite Republicans' insistence that smaller, local government is better, the current proposal (which is still in the early goings) would create “regional bodies [that] would have the power to approve new charter schools…Under that system, localities would always have minority power and would be unable to reject charter school applicants — outnumbered by board members appointed by a charter-friendly state government.” Expect more on charter schools throughout the winter, as this looks like one of the General Assembly’s most high-profile legislative priorities.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and highs today should hit 50 °F—NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says today’s the warmest day of the week. Enjoy today and tomorrow and then bundle up for big temperature drops come Saturday!
 

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It’s General Assembly season during a gubernatorial transition, so state-level politics will dominate this newsletter for a bit, despite my deep preference for all things local. Before we sink too far into this Republican-led mire, like Artax in the Swamp of Sadness, I wanted to do a quick level-setting. Nationally, and more and more at the state level, Republicans' guiding principles are whatever makes Democrats the most mad. The live and love to troll, and that trolling will dominate headlines for the next four years. It will make us very mad. Some people are bad at it, like new Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert, who tweeted last night, “Ralph Northam is leaving office as his own lost cause, condescendingly lecturing us all from some assumed moral high ground because he read the book ‘Roots’ and then went on a non-stop reconciliation tour. Saturday can’t come fast enough.” Gilbert lacks subtlety and skill, but, nonetheless generated a bunch of angry responses from liberals—which was the goal. On the other hand, some people are masterful trolls, like Sen. Tommy Norment, who introduced SB 116 which would “Imposes a $500 fine on the operator of a bicycle who fails to stop at a stop sign. The bill also provides that the bicycle shall be impounded for a period of six months.” It’s an infuriating piece of legislation that won’t make it out of committee as written and wastes everyone’s time—and may still generate an angry response from this particular liberal. It’s an A+ troll, though, gotta give him that. I bring up these two specific examples, because I think we should—and will try to do so from here on out in this newsletter—entirely ignore these attempts to raise our hackles and distract us from actual, serious, and important legislation. Because while Republicans live to troll, they also love to pass terrible bills, destroy the government institutions they’ve been charged to lead, and enrich the wealthy whenever possible. That stuff won’t dominate the headlines like a bad tweet, but it’s what we should focus on if we want to protect the better, safer, and more progressive Commonwealth we’ve built over the last four years.
 

“General Assembly Republicans go maskless as omicron surges,” reports Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury. Dumb and mostly a troll (see above), but one with consequences! With our local hospitals at capacity and hovering on the brink, every Republican legislator that spreads COVID-19 to a coworker, staff member, lobbyist, or member of the public has increased the load on our healthcare system—not the healthcare system from wherever they may hail. Masks are an easy and efficient way to help get us through the current surging demand on hospital beds and to not wear them for the lolz is childish.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 26 °F, but temperatures should head back up near 50 °F today. Soak it up and take a lunch-break stroll, because cold weather arrives on Friday and with it the potential for a winter storm—including snow!—on Sunday.
 

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The Chesterfield Education Association, as close to a teachers union as they’ve got, issued this release last night, raising concern about the County’s “ability to conduct effective in-person learning under the current conditions.” Richmond’s version of the same group raised the same flag last week. There are a lot of simultaneously true things happening right now, and it’s hard—at least for me—to make sense of them all. 1) You can’t have school without teachers, 2) In-person learning is waaaay better for kids than virtual learning, 3) Omicron is incredibly transmissible, 4) Omicron is maybe way more mild?, 5) Regardless of how mild it is, isolation and quarantine guidance will keep a lot of kids and teachers out of school, 6) More people are in the hospital now than ever before. I don’t know how you take that (surely incomplete) list, fit all the piece together, and come up with something to keep everyone safe, healthy, and moving forward. Rather than schools hurtling forward toward some inevitable decision, it feels more like they’re stuck, getting pulled in 100 different directions, tearing at the seams.
 

Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury reports on Governor-elect Youngkin’s newest COVID-19 adviser, Dr. Marty Makary. Here’s a fun quote from the piece, “in February of 2021…Makary predicted that COVID-19 would be ‘mostly gone’ by that April. The reason, he wrote, would be natural immunity combined with vaccines, which would protect enough Americans to nearly halt transmission of the virus.” Or how about this one: “In an August column for the Wall Street journal, Makary argued against mask requirements in schools, claiming that face coverings could be ‘vectors for pathogens.’” I dunno, if it were me, I’d want the person leading my COVID-19 team to at least have avoided making incredibly inaccurate COVID-19 predictions in international newspapers.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 36 °F, and, as I look out across the extended forecast, there’s not a hint of snow (at least through Friday). Today you can expect temperatures in the 40s and just enough sunshine to get you through the day. Enjoy, and welcome to second week of January!
 

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I had time over the weekend to read the City’s Path to Equity: Policy Guide for Richmond Connects and, let me tell you, it is a heckuva thing! I think this might be the single most progressive PDF to come out of City Hall, and I can’t recommend it enough—especially if you’re looking for a primer on systemic racism and how the history of Richmond’s built enviornment has contributed to deep, long-lasting racial inequity. I mean, we know these things—that the City tore down Black neighborhoods, built highways, and displaced long-time residents—but to see the City’s role in these things written down in the City’s own document feels different. It makes me optimistic about the full rewrite of Richmond’s citywide transportation plan that kicks off this spring. Fingers fully crossed! Anyway, Path to Equity is 63 pages long, but filled with maps and sidebars, so it’s not a chore to read at all. It’s totally worth your time. However, if reading’s not your thing, you can tune in to a webinar today at 1:00 PM to hear more about the document, the process, and how to leave feedback (which you can do until January 31st).
 

Speaking of wonderful documents, RVA Rapid Transit, Richmond’s transit-dedicated local nonprofit, released their 2021 State of Transit report and it is lovely. You’ll definitely want to check out pages 8–11 which map out our existing regional transit system, its current frequencies, and what segments are just plain missing. Then they overlay that map on population, income, and job access. It’s good stuff, and, while we’ve got a long way to go before we have a truly regional transit system, we really have made a ton of progress over the last five or six years.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, and that snow event sure was a bust, wasn’t it? This morning, despite the mostly-OK conditions outside, you’ll still encounter a lot of delays and closures so check websites and social media accounts if you’ve got somewhere to be. Temperatures will stay right around freezing the entire day, so make a hot beverage of your choice, put on your favorite wool socks, and take the opportunity to sit quietly and prepare yourself for the last bit of week before the weekend hits.
 

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With COVID-19 tests in short supply, yesterday, the Governor announced new funding for a handful of state-run testing sites across the Commonwealth. The “Community Testing Centers,” or CTCs, are built on the successful Community Vaccination Center model, one of which has offered vaccinations locally at the Arthur Ashe Athletic Center for the last forever. Richmond will kick off this new state pilot with a CTC at the Richmond Raceway this coming Saturday from 9:00 AM–6:00 PM—stay tuned for more information about how to sign up for an appointment. Additionally, the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts host COVID-19 testing events on the regular, including one today at Diversity Thrift from 1:00–3:00 PM. Find their full list of testing events here, and check back frequently as they add more events (and at-home test pick-up locations!) for the coming weeks. Finally, the Richmond Public Library just got a new stock of at-home tests for folks. Please call ahead before you rush on over, though, as those things never stick around for long.
 

Something to definitely keep an eye on: Kenya Hunter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that “the Richmond teachers union said Thursday that it’s ‘deeply concerned about our ability to conduct in-person classes’ after a return to school in which 160 teachers and multiple bus drivers were expected to be absent because of COVID-19.” We’re seeing similar conversations play out nationally, too. In Chicago, where labor law is an entirely different universe, the school district has had to cancel the last three days of school due to teachers union concerns about in-person COVID-19 safety measures. That could never happen here, of course, since the General Assembly passed an eye-rolly law requiring schools to meet in person, but it does make me wonder about where things are headed for in-person learning if Omicron continues to burn.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 35 °F, the streets are dry, the forecast is clear, the temperatures are headed into the 50s, and the kids are back in school. Life in snow-adverse Richmond resumes!…a day before the forecast calls for another round of snow overnight. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says we can expect one to three inches to fall tomorrow before the sun comes up, and, as long as the entire region doesn’t shut down again, I’m all for it.
 

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Yesterday, a CDC advisory committee met and recommended those three changes to Pfizer booster eligibility I wrote about earlier this week: Kids 12-and-up can now get a Pfizer booster; anyone who got Pfizer originally should get a booster five months after their second shot; and children 5–11 who are immunocompromised can get a third Pfizer dose 28 days after their second (which is not a booster). The Virginia Department of Health adopted those recommendations last night, which means, as of this morning, middle schoolers can get out there and get boosted. Here’s the list of Richmond and Henrico’s walk-up vaccination events, but I’m sure you’ll be able to make appointments on local pharmacy websites, too. Boosters do good work against Omicron, and, if you’re eligible, you should go get one!
 

Speaking of middle schoolers, mine is back in school today for the first time since December 17th. I’m thankful for that, even though it sounds like we should expect 2022’s first day back to be a little rocky. In last night’s newsletter, RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras said “as a result of Omicron, we anticipate about 160 teacher vacancies.” Additionally, they expect a bunch of bus operator vacancies and note that “families should expect delays on many routes.” The decision to open up schools and return to in-person learning in the face of skyrocketing COVID cases and increasingly-stressed hospitals is a freaking tough one that I would not want to make. Kamras lays out the case well, though: “Even with Omicron, we are in a very different place than last year. Vaccines are widely available for all staff and nearly all students – and have been for quite some time. We have very robust mitigation strategies in place, and the data shows that they’re working. And while Omicron is more transmissible than previous variants, it’s leading to milder cases of COVID-19. When you balance the risk of serious disease from in-school transmission (very low) against the risk of further academic and social/emotional harm (very high), I believe our charge is clear: keep our doors open.” Tangentially related side note: Should it snow tomorrow and close schools, Friday will be a virtual learning day for students. This is consistent with the District’s COVID goal of minimizing lost instructional time, although, I’m sure it’s a huge bummer to kids everywhere.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, and we are, technically, under a winter weather advisory until 9:00 AM for light freezing rain with “total ice accumulations of a light glaze.” Seems pretty dry in my neck of the city at the moment, but there’s still plenty of time to glaze things over, I guess. If you need to move about the region this morning, take it slow!
 

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Yesterday, despite the river of good jokes on social media, the CDC did not tweak their newish guidance on when folks can end isolation if they test positive for COVID-19. As of right now, at least, if you test positive you need to isolate for five days and if you are fever-free for 24 hours (without any fever-reducing medication!), you can go about your business in the wide, wide world as long as you wear a well-fitting mask for five more days. Here’s the bit they did add: “If an individual has access to a test and wants to test, the best approach is to use an antigen test towards the end of the 5-day isolation period…If your test result is positive, you should continue to isolate until day 10. If your test result is negative, you can end isolation, but continue to wear a well-fitting mask around others at home and in public until day 10.” If I were to guess, I’d say the national scarcity of tests (which feels like it’s getting a bit better) made the CDC real hesitant to require testing as part of the process to end isolation. Maybe this changes if President Biden’s proposal to ship free tests to everyone gets off the ground?
 

And, because it’s not all cynicism and anxiety, my favorite newsletter epidemiologist, Katelyn Jetelina, has a special good-news post today that you should read if your insides feel like a gray, featureless expanse stretching endlessly forever in every direction. The miraculous vaccines we have work really well! Omicron could have gone a way different direction! Etc!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 17 °F, and that’s too cold for me. f you’ve got to leave the house this morning, please be careful as I’m sure everything out there is coated in a thin layer of ice just waiting for you to slip-and-fall. Take it slow! Don’t become a hilarious .gif! Temperatures should get back above freezing around lunchtime, which should help melt everything back a bit. P.S. Don’t forget to shovel your section of the sidewalk if you’ve got one!
 

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It’s been a while, so here are this week’s graphs of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19. If you must, here’s the graph of COVID-19 cases, but I’m not really sure what it even means at the moment. Yes, there are a zillion cases—like more than ever before—but it’s still not super clear to me how I should use that information to change my behavior. More interesting to me is that the hospitalizations remain at about half their Fall 2021 Delta Wave peak, which seems promising. But! That does not mean hospitals and healthcare workers are doing just fine. Andrew Cain and John Ramsey at the Richmond Times-Dispatch report that VCU Health has postponed “non-urgent surgeries and procedures requiring a hospital bed or donated blood products, due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.” Please do not casually stroll over to the emergency room if you’re looking for a COVID-19 test. While tests are scarce at the moment, there are other, better options if you are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.
 

Looking forward a bit, Katelyn Jetelina (of the Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter) has a state-of-affairs post from yesterday that dives into the “decoupling” of the number of cases vs. the number of hospitalizations we’re seeing. Definitely worth a read! It’s old advice at this point, but, like a weathered and worn jeans jacket, it only improves with age: Get vaccinated, get your booster, wear a mask, stay home if you’re sick, and test if you can.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 17 °F, and that’s too cold for me. f you’ve got to leave the house this morning, please be careful as I’m sure everything out there is coated in a thin layer of ice just waiting for you to slip-and-fall. Take it slow! Don’t become a hilarious .gif! Temperatures should get back above freezing around lunchtime, which should help melt everything back a bit. P.S. Don’t forget to shovel your section of the sidewalk if you’ve got one!
 

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It’s been a while, so here are this week’s graphs of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19. If you must, here’s the graph of COVID-19 cases, but I’m not really sure what it even means at the moment. Yes, there are a zillion cases—like more than ever before—but it’s still not super clear to me how I should use that information to change my behavior. More interesting to me is that the hospitalizations remain at about half their Fall 2021 Delta Wave peak, which seems promising. But! That does not mean hospitals and healthcare workers are doing just fine. Andrew Cain and John Ramsey at the Richmond Times-Dispatch report that VCU Health has postponed “non-urgent surgeries and procedures requiring a hospital bed or donated blood products, due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.” Please do not casually stroll over to the emergency room if you’re looking for a COVID-19 test. While tests are scarce at the moment, there are other, better options if you are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.
 

Looking forward a bit, Katelyn Jetelina (of the Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter) has a state-of-affairs post from yesterday that dives into the “decoupling” of the number of cases vs. the number of hospitalizations we’re seeing. Definitely worth a read! It’s old advice at this point, but, like a weathered and worn jeans jacket, it only improves with age: Get vaccinated, get your booster, wear a mask, stay home if you’re sick, and test if you can.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 37 °F, and today is full of weather! You can expect dropping temperatures and lots of rain, sleet, and snow in that order. How much of each? Who knows, but it’ll be enough to make moving around the region gross and dangerous. The grab bag of winter weather should taper off sometime after lunch, but if you’re looking to do things this morning, check for cancellations first!
 

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School children across the region rejoice! Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield public schools are all closed today due to the inclement weather (which has just switched over to sleet as I write this parenthetical). However, assuming the rain/sleet/snow passes and schools wrap up their weather-related closing by tomorrow, they still will need to navigate preventing COVID-related closings as we move into 2022. Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras put out his five-point plan to keep schools open and in-person this past Thursday, and it’s worth reading through (even if you don’t have school-aged kids running around). Here’s the five points: 1) The district gave out over 8,000 at-home tests to staff and students yesterday, 2) RPS will pilot a test-to-stay program starting as soon as next week, 3) all unvaccinated staff will be tested weekly, 4) “we have purchased a quarter million KN95 masks for staff, high school, and middle school students,” and 5) they’ll continue to host vaccination events—with 15 planned over the next couple of months. These are all good, concrete, and proactive moves to keep our kids in school! I’m most interested in the second thing and am looking forward to if/how the test-to-stay pilot and the CDC’s new, shortened isolation and quarantine guidance work together. Part of my brain, the part that had to be really convinced that it was OK to walk to the grocery story to pick up some cornbread mix last night, is terrified at any return to anything. But the the other, less reptilian part, knows that test-to-stay and shortened quarantines are both signs of us moving past pandemic and into endemic. Transition times like this are stressful, and for the next several months I fully expect to feel plenty of stress while making skeptical/constipated faces about many of these moves!
 

Last week, the City posted the Diamond District Request for Interest PDF, which you can download and store away in your own PDF library. The RFI itself is a breezy 24 pages, followed by 139 pages of appendixes that include a market analysis of both the neighborhood and of building a new ball park. While this is, ostensibly, a document for developers, I think reading through it is a nice and easy way (if you skip the appendix) to see what the City envisions for the mostly-wasteland currently surrounding the Diamond. I recommend it! Developers have until February 15th to submit their proposals. They’re required to keep the proposals under 30 pages, which means they should be pretty readable for normal people like us.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 37 °F, and today looks chilly and full of sunshine. Expect highs near 50 °F while we wait for warmer weather to arrive (like Santa) over the next couple of days. If you’re celebrating this weekend, we’ve got forecasted temperatures in the mid-60—a perfect reason to move your get-together outside!
 

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Today, from 9:00–11:00 AM, the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host a free community COVID-19 testing event at the Eastern Henrico Rec. Center (1440 N. Laburnum Avenue). As holiday travel approaches, testing is big in demand at the moment, and you can’t beat an opportunity to get a free, no-appointment-required PCR test—they’ll even text you the results in 2–3 days! At-home tests are also available at the event, while supplies last, and, given the demand, I’d expect those supplies not to last very long at all. Also from RHHD, this handy step-by-step guide for what to do if you find a rapid test and end up testing positive. I know that lots of folks—because they’ve been so very careful and so very vaccinated—may not have given a lot of thought for the next steps after testing positive. Now you know (just in case)!
 

Bryan McKenzie at the Daily Progress reports that “the University of Virginia will require all students, faculty and staff to get COVID-19 vaccine booster shots in order to study, live, or work on Grounds in the coming spring semester.” This is fascinating as it marks a sort of shifting of the definition of fully-vaccinated. Early on in the pandemic, UVA led the Commonwealth in early mitigation and vaccination measures, so this makes me wonder if we’ll see similar moves from other higher-ed institutions. Any Wahoos home for holiday break that need their booster shot should check out this list of walk-up events which includes a bunch of dates at the Arthur Ashe Athletic Center. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had at least a half-dozen folks tell me, unprompted, about their positive vaccination experience at Arthur Ashe.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday with a few more clouds thrown in for wintery measure. Expect highs in the mid 40s and a strong desire to share a hot beverage with a good friend.
 

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Before we get into it, here are this week’s graphs of Virginia’s cases, hospitalizations, and deaths caused by COVID-19. While the Virginia Department of Health dashboard says it was updated yesterday with new data, the graphs' latest bars comes from the week of December 4th—which might as well be years ago in Omicron time. I’m not sure what to make of that. Regardless of data freshness, you can still see the spike in new cases and slow rise in hospitalizations. As this new wave unfolds, you can also keep an eye on those hospitalizations over on the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Associations dashboard (if that’s how you’d like to spend the last two weeks of the year).
 

Anyway, it really seems like coronavibes have, once again, shifted overnight. Weirdly (or predictably?), sports seems to be a leading indicator for how things will play out in America, and last night the NHL extended their pre-scheduled holiday break, cancelling 31 games, and paused their season. There’s going to be a lot of pressure on other leagues to do the same over the next couple of days—college football, I’m looking at you. It’s a little too Idiocracy-adjacent that we use sports as a wayfinder out of disaster, but, better than being completely lost, I guess!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and winter weather is back. Today you can expect highs in the mid 40s—about 25 degrees colder than the end of this past week. Temperatures could warm up a bit this weekend, but, for now, expect cool, clear skies and lots of boots and flannels.
 

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On Friday, Pfizer announced that, in ongoing trials, their two-dose formulation of the COVID-19 vaccine for the youngest kids “did not produce a robust immune response in kids 2 to 5 years old.” They’ll now expand those clinical trials to evaluate a three-dose situation, with data expected…”the first half of 2022.” Ugh. This is absolutely crushing news for parents of young kids who’d expected to open up 2022 by vaccinating the rest of the family but are now staring down another six months of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty. I mean, we’re all feeling those things, of course, but having an unvaccinated tiny human running around in the world spreads another thick, sticky layer of feelings right on top. For some reassuring words, which I know feel hollow and repetitive at this point, read this first paragraph from Emily Oster’s newest email: “I know there are some parents who are devastated by this delay, and I hear you. But I also want to reassure you that children in this age range are at extremely low risk for serious illness, substantially lower than with your own vaccine. I know I’ve said that before, and I know it is not enough, but it is still important to remember.” For parents of older kids that may still have concerns about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, keep reading Oster’s newsletter for a look into vaccine safety data. Finally, Katelyn Jetelina sent out another Omicron update a couple days go that’s worth reading. Some good news: “We are seeing hospitalizations and deaths increase in South Africa, but they are at lower rates than before. In Gauteng— South Africa’s epicenter— hospitalizations are about 45% than what they were for Delta.” We still don’t know what kind of hospitalization rates we’ll see in the United States (where boosters are a bit more common), but, as before, it looks we’re about to find out using New York City as the test case.
 

Also COVID-related, VCU has had to cancel its last two men’s basketball games due to COVID-19 protocols. We’re headed into a kind of dead zone for college basketball, when the consequences of cancelling games is far less than they would be during the conference schedules (which begin in a couple of weeks). I’m interested in if we start seeing college football cancellations, too. Bowl Season has just kicked off, and the incentives to play those games—no matter what—will be real, real high.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and winter weather is back. Today you can expect highs in the mid 40s—about 25 degrees colder than the end of this past week. Temperatures could warm up a bit this weekend, but, for now, expect cool, clear skies and lots of boots and flannels.
 

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On Friday, Pfizer announced that, in ongoing trials, their two-dose formulation of the COVID-19 vaccine for the youngest kids “did not produce a robust immune response in kids 2 to 5 years old.” They’ll now expand those clinical trials to evaluate a three-dose situation, with data expected…”the first half of 2022.” Ugh. This is absolutely crushing news for parents of young kids who’d expected to open up 2022 by vaccinating the rest of the family but are now staring down another six months of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty. I mean, we’re all feeling those things, of course, but having an unvaccinated tiny human running around in the world spreads another thick, sticky layer of feelings right on top. For some reassuring words, which I know feel hollow and repetitive at this point, read this first paragraph from Emily Oster’s newest email: “I know there are some parents who are devastated by this delay, and I hear you. But I also want to reassure you that children in this age range are at extremely low risk for serious illness, substantially lower than with your own vaccine. I know I’ve said that before, and I know it is not enough, but it is still important to remember.” For parents of older kids that may still have concerns about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, keep reading Oster’s newsletter for a look into vaccine safety data. Finally, Katelyn Jetelina sent out another Omicron update a couple days go that’s worth reading. Some good news: “We are seeing hospitalizations and deaths increase in South Africa, but they are at lower rates than before. In Gauteng— South Africa’s epicenter— hospitalizations are about 45% than what they were for Delta.” We still don’t know what kind of hospitalization rates we’ll see in the United States (where boosters are a bit more common), but, as before, it looks we’re about to find out using New York City as the test case.
 

Also COVID-related, VCU has had to cancel its last two men’s basketball games due to COVID-19 protocols. We’re headed into a kind of dead zone for college basketball, when the consequences of cancelling games is far less than they would be during the conference schedules (which begin in a couple of weeks). I’m interested in if we start seeing college football cancellations, too. Bowl Season has just kicked off, and the incentives to play those games—no matter what—will be real, real high.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and highs today will heat back up right near 70 °F. Expect similar weather tomorrow and every excuse to spend a good chunk of time outside. Colder, more Decemberish temperatures show up on Sunday—you’ve been warned!
 

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Well, the popular perception and general public vibes around Omicron really took a turn yesterday, didn’t they? Since the news about Cornell shutting down their campus broke, I’ve seen 100 articles like this one from the New York Times, “Offices Shut and Holiday Parties Dim as a Familiar Feeling Sinks In,” or this one in the Washington Post, “Omicron induces whiplash for many Americans.” More ominously, I can now hear the clacking of a 1,000 keyboards as the epidemiologically-adjacent reporters have started publishing pieces like this one in The Atlantic by Ed Yong, “America Is Not Ready for Omicron.” I’m not sure what pushed our collective consciousness over another coronaledge, but, here we are. However, despite shifting headlines, what we know for sure about this new variant has remained mostly unchanged: Omicron is very, very transmissible, vaccines are great, and you should definitely go get your booster if you have not already. Also, you should always pair those terrifying, exponentially-increasing case count graphs with the associated graphs of hospitalizations and deaths. Compare these cases and deaths graphs from UK, where they’re in the early stages of an Omicron wave. They show more cases than ever before—like, ever!—but far, far fewer deaths than either last winter or spring. That, of course, could change as we learn more, but I do think it speaks to the fact (hope?) that we are not just in for a repeat of April 2020.
 

Ali Rockett and Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch report that “the local police organization that represents about half of the city’s sworn officers is asking for the resignation of Police Chief Gerald Smith.” I don’t know what to make of that! The Mayor says its part of a push to get the Richmond Police Department unionized—well, specifically he said it’s a “cockamamie tactic to unionize Richmond police.” How are these two things, the Police Chief and a push for a union, related? Both the Mayor and Councilmember Trammell have pending legislation that would authorize collective bargaining for City employees. Trammell’s ordinance (ORD. 2021–345) would open that up for a broad range of City employees, while the Mayor’s (ORD. 2021–346) is focused just on employees in the Department of Public Utilities and the Department of Public Works. I…still think I’m missing several key details to really understand what’s happening here. Unrelated, if Trammell’s ordinance passes, I do think it’d be one of her most significant pieces of legislation (at least that I’m aware of).
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and today you can expect highs nearly in the 70s. Do get out and enjoy the next three days of great weather, because a cold front comes to town on Sunday bringing us back to classically December temperatures.
 

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By now you’ve probably heard about how Cornell University decided to shut down their Ithaca campus due to a massive increase of COVID-19 cases following Thanksgiving break. Even with a 97% vaccination rate among students, the university reported over 900 positive cases—some caused by the Omicron variant—during the second week of December. Scary, but here’s some super important context that you really have to seek out in most of the reporting I’ve seen: As of yesterday, they had not seen severe illness in any of the infected students. That’s great news! While the virus spread very quickly, it looks like the vaccines are doing their job. So why shut down the entire campus? I saw a good thread on Twitter, which I’ve now lost, that suggested moving back to virtual learning during exams is pretty easy and low-risk for a university at this point—in fact, a lot of students have already left campus. The same thread suggested that if a similar outbreak happened during the meat of the semester, colleges will be much less willing to shutter campuses and would prioritize in-person learning. This makes a lot of sense to me, and, at least at this point, I don’t think we’ll see a mass reversion to virtual higher ed. However and annoyingly! We’re still in a “learning more every day” phase of this pandemic (again).
 

Connor Scribner at VPM reports on the Richmond region’s urban sprawl problem and how that it breaks our environment in all sorts of ways. Bad air quality, loss of biodiversity, more heat-related illnesses, stormwater runoff—sprawl exacerbates all of these things. Tap through for the climate-related reporting, but read until the end for an unexpected discussion on how a Land Value Tax could help encourage sprawl-reducing, in-fill development.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and highs todays are back up in the 60s. Nice, but I’ve still got my eye on Saturday, which NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says could top the all-time record of 75 °F. Are these summery temperatures normal, and, year after year, I just forget that December in Richmond means T-shirts and slip-ons? To answer that question, I’ve been looking around for a good average historical temperature website and stumbled across this brightly-colored PDF from the National Weather Service. Turns out we should not expect great bike-riding weather in December, but, generally, highs in the 50s and maybe even a snowy day.
 

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The Governor Northam farewell tour announcements continue, and yesterday’s included…spoiling Governor-elect Youngkin’s tax proposals, specifically eliminating the grocery tax? Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has more details, including the key difference between the Governor and Governor-elect’s proposals: Northam only wants to eliminate the state’s portion of the grocery tax. Northam is quick to point out that the gap this creates in education funding—$262 million per year—will be filled with other revenue. The portion of the grocery tax that funds transportation, though? Big shrug emoji from the governor on that one, “The Northam administration says the transportation funding will be covered by new federal infrastructure investments in the package President Joe Biden signed in November.“ OK, I sure hope so. I also hope we don’t run out of all this budget surplus in a few years and then regret these funding cuts. Honestly, is Northam trolling Youngkin? Is he trolling us? I’m really feeling my lack of experience with statewide politics this morning. When did this become a state government email? What happened to rezoning and sewers??
 

Continuing on this dark, new path of state government news, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a good column by Narissa Turner from the Virginia Conservation Network about Youngkin’s plans to pull Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Turner puts it like this, “Here’s the good news: It appears Youngkin’s pledge is illegal. Pulling out of RGGI by executive action is an unprecedented overstep of power by the governor-elect.“ Again, I sure hope so.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, but, fear not, today’s highs will make their way back into the upper 50s. And then, starting on Thursday, you can expect temperatures in the 60s—maybe even 70s on Saturday.
 

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Take a minute and look at this week’s graphs of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to COVID-19 taken from the Virginia Department of Health’s data dashboard. Last week saw a huge jump in cases, which I’m assuming was due to Thanksgiving gatherings and travel. That’s sixish weeks of increasing case counts, and we’re starting to see that reflected in the hospitalization numbers, which saw a significant bump over the last two weeks (remember, they tend to lag three or four weeks behind cases). Over on the vaccine side of things, 66.4% of all Virginians are fully vaccinated, but just 18.7% have a booster or a third dose. Keep that in mind as you read yesterday’s Omicron Update from Katelyn Jetelina. Here’s a key takeaway for me (and for those of you who have not yet been boosted): “Vaccine effectiveness against Omicron infection was 30–40% after two shots of Pfizer. After a booster, effectiveness increased to 70–80%. This is nothing short of phenomenal. This also probably means that boosters continue to reduce viral transmission.” Sounds mostly good, especially given the wide availability of boosters in our area. Also, please keep in mind that infection does NOT mean the same thing as severe disease or ending up dead! One of the things to keep an eye on in South Africa, the heart of Omicron, will be how many people end up hospitalized due to the new variant. Here’s Jetelina again with a hopeful but realistic take: “The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in South Africa is remaining low. But we’re coming up on the 3–4 week lag we typically see with hospitalizations, so coming to a conclusion is haphazard.” Hmm less good. Unfortunately, we’re still in the “we need to learn more” phase, which seems like the phase we’ve been in for the entirety of the last two years. We will definitely learn more soon, but, until we do, there is absolutely no reason not to go out and get your booster today if you have not already.
 

As foretold, City Council delayed transferring funds to Richmond Public Schools to pay for designing a replacement for George Wythe High School. Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the details. The five-member voting bloc who have pushed the School Board into this mess are certainly a stubborn lot—but so are City Council!—and, in this situation, City Council holds the the power and the purse strings. I have no idea how this will ultimately shake out, but my bet’s on Council wringing a compromise out of the School Board. If it didn’t involve our kids and a crumbling school building, it’d almost be fun to watch.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 29 °F, and we’ve got a pretty nice-looking week ahead of us. Today, you can expect highs near 60 °F, with similar fall-like temperatures straight on through until Sunday. It sure doesn’t seem like December weather, but I’ll take it.
 

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Richmond’s City Council meets today at 6:00 PM with a packed 54-item agenda. Before that, though, they’ll have their regularly-scheduled informal meeting that includes this thrilling-to-me presentation on “Congressional Appropriations and Infrastructure Overview.” Most interesting is the section on “congressionally directed spending,” a form of federal funding that I know almost nothing about, but this PDF tells me that “FY 2022 represents the first year back from a decade-long moratorium on such congressionally directed spending.” Assuming this federal funding makes its way through Congress and actually ends up in the City of Richmond’s bank account, we can expect $1 million for Southside parks, $5 million toward the replacement of the Mayo bridge, and about $4 million for upgrades at the airport. I’m particularly excited about getting some money from the feds to kick off the replacement of the old, scary, and dangerous Mayo bridge—with any luck, we’ll see that finished at some point in my bicycling lifetime. After their informal meeting, Council will embark upon that hefty agenda that, honestly, has too many items on it for anyone to really grok. Two that stick out to me, though: RES. 2021-R026, the laundry list of conflicting and unnecessary changes to Richmond 300, is on the regular agenda; and ORD. 2021–315 would authorize the City to take down a few more Confederate monuments that are still hanging around on City-owned property.
 

Not so fast! There’s one more interesting thing on tonight’s City Council agenda, and that’s the legislation required to kick off the decennial redistricting process. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been jealously waiting for Richmond to even start their redistricting while all the other adjacent localities are wrapping their processes up. Turns out, that’s because Richmond will miss a state-mandated December 31st deadline to daw their new council maps. Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has more details on that whole situation. If you’re interested, you can read through the draft redistricting criteria that Council will consider here and their proposed redistricting schedule here. The former are all pretty straightforward, and I don’t think any of the criteria would result in major changes to Richmond’s Council Districts. However, if, as reported by Suarez, the Richmond Democratic Committee gets their way and has district compactness included as a priority, I can think of at least one long, skinny district that might could use some reshaping.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, and today’s a bit warmer than the past couple of days. You can expect highs in the mid 50s with a chance of rain this evening. Temperatures go way up tomorrow—like, in the 70s—but so does the possibility for a winter thunderstorm. Looks like Saturday afternoon might be a great time catch up on your ever-growing queue of horror films (or is that just me?).
 

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As foretold, Omicron has reached Virginia. The Virginia Department of Health announced last night that “the first confirmed case of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) has been identified in a sample from an adult resident of the Northwest Region of Virginia who had no history of international travel, but did have a history of domestic travel, during the exposure period.” We still don’t know a lot about Omicron, although that it is more transmissible than Delta seems pretty clear, but that doesn’t change the current best practices to keep our friends and families safe and healthy: Get vaccinated, get boosted, get tested if you feel sick or have been exposed to COVID-19, and wear a mask indoors. Over the next couple of weeks a lot could change, but those four things will still be true and, honestly, pretty easy to do. In fact, if you’re not yet boosted, why don’t you make an appointment today at your local pharmacy or plan to walk up to one of the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts' vaccination events?
 

Speaking of boosters, yesterday the FDA and the CDC expanded booster eligibility to everyone aged 16 and older. That means 16- and 17-year-olds who are at least six months out from their second Pfizer dose and now get a Pfizer booster dose. Remember: Because only the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is authorized for children, that’s the only booster children can get. No mixing-and-matching for the youth! Also, if you’re making teen booster plans this morning, make sure you have some patience with the pharmacy, health district, or nurses you interact with. The booster guidance just changed last night, and I’m sure there’s still some operational pieces for folks to put in place.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and that’s cold! Expect a chilly morning and highs around 50 °F later in the day. Warmer weather returns tomorrow, and we could see temperatures in the 70s on Saturday—classic middle-of-December stuff.
 

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Earlier this week, I didn’t link to Sarah Vogelsong’s reporting in the Virginia Mercury on the Commonwealth’s first year in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative because, well, to be honest, sometimes it’s hard to get excited about carbon markets. That said, the State “took in $227.6 million for flood protection and low-income energy efficiency programs during its first year of participation,” and “results from RGGI’s last quarterly auction of 2021…show the largest chunk of carbon change yet for the commonwealth: $85.6 million.” In just one quarter! That’s a lot of cash to use specifically on programs to help mitigate the effects climate change will have on communities that see the largest impact—because of racism, that’s mostly Virginia’s Black and Brown communities. Then, this morning, Vogelsong reports: “Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin is pledging to use executive action to pull Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.” It’s unclear whether the Governor-elect even has the authority to do such a thing, but this is the type of action we should expect from the incoming administration. RGGI brings in hundreds of millions of dollars to the State to both encourage Dominion Energy to move towards a carbon-free future and to equitably invest in infrastructure that will help our communities survive the impacts of climate change. It’s unsurprising that the incoming Republican administration wants to do neither. Get used to it: If there are opportunities to enrich the wealthy at the expensive of the poor, they’ll do it. We’ll have to wait on the lawyers to weigh in on if our climate-change-denying Governor-elect can pull Virginia from RGGI on his own, but, in the meantime, our federal legislators have already started to weigh in with Rep. McEachin saying, “I oppose the Governor-elect’s decision and will not stand idly by while he threatens the hard work of Virginia Democrats before even entering his office.”
 

You’ve probably figured it out by now, but Governor Northam is taking this week to travel around the state announcing pieces of his final budget as part of a “Thank You, Virginia” tour. Yesterday’s announcement took place at Brown’s Island and featured “nearly $245 million for outdoor recreation and Virginia’s world-renowned natural lands.” Lucky for folks living in the Richmond region, a huge chunk of this funding will go towards the Fall Line trail, which will connect Ashland to Petersburg in a safe and car-free way. I haven’t seen final funding numbers on the Fall Line yet, but it feels like with the CVTA investment last week and now with this potential state investment…maybe it’s fully funded? Or at least close? As with the previous two announcements, Governor-elect Youngkin and the new General Assembly can do whatever they want with this proposed budget, so I’m keeping my hopes at realistic levels at the moment.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 35 °F, and we’re back to winter weather. Today you can expect highs in the mid 40s with lows tonight dipping below freezing. And to think, I spent most of yesterday afternoon in a hammock!
 

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As we nervously watch Omicron continue to spread around the country and while we wait to learn more about the variant, here’s a look at Virginia’s cases, hospitalizations, and deaths caused by COVID-19. That downward trend from this past fall has slowed to a plateau and maybe even started to tick upwards. Remember though: Regardless of any new, more transmissible variant, a cold-weather increase in the spread of the coronavirus was always in the cards (just look at the case rates from all of these chilly northern states). We still haven’t had a report of Omicron in the Commonwealth just yet, but that’s sure to happen any day now, and we don’t yet know just how the new variant will impact folks—especially fully vaccinated people, and double especially boosted people. I think the appropriate attitude to take at the moment is Cautious Wait and See. The New York Times has a nice Omicron map that you can use while Wait and Seeing to track which states have detected Omicron (like our northern neighbors in Maryland).
 

Last night, the RPS school board voted to approve collective bargaining, Virginia’s first locality to do so. Here’s Richmond Times-Dispatch education reporter Kenya Hunter on Twitter (tap through for a fun video): “Richmond Public Schools became the first school district in the state to pass collective bargaining, ending a decades long restriction on the Richmond Education Association’s ability to have a meaningful say in employee work conditions.” RPS Superintendent Kamras had his own congratulatory tweet, saying, “Looking forward to partnering with future bargaining units to #LeadWithLove together. Onward and upward!”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 45 °F, and today looks unseasonably warm. Expect highs back up in the 70s but accompanied by tons of wind—like, 30mph+ gusts after lunch. Batten the hatches and take down your umbrellas!
 

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Yesterday, the Governor announced that the State will “remove the pedestal that formerly displayed the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, as part of a plan reached with the City of Richmond to convey the state-owned land to the City.” The Commonwealth will begin that work today and will hope to finish up by December 31st. Importantly, “the Commonwealth will safely disassemble and store the pedestal until next steps have been determined.” Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a few more details. My initial reaction was to be angry with the City and State for collaborating behind closed doors, with absolutely zero community engagement, about an enormous piece of the “reimagining Monument Avenue” process. But, after sleeping on it, I think this is the right decision. Even if the State conveyed the land and the monument to the City, giving us complete control of the space, I can’t stop thinking about how terrible it’d feel to have some racists morons erase the existing graffiti in the middle of the night. I just don’t know how, given the present moment, the City would keep the pedestal and its nationally-recognized protest art safe, so disassembling and storing—for possible future reassembling!—seems like the best decision right now. I also wonder if the actual Reimagining Monument Avenue group, which is still nothing as far as I know, will have a harder time moving forward with the new Governor and legislature. Best to let the City handle its own reimagining, I think.
 

Secretary Mayor Pete was in Jackson Ward on Friday to explicitly promote the grants made available in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that will help reconnect communities riven by highways. This is very exciting because, as you know, Richmond 300 calls for just such a project: capping I-95 between St. James and 1st Streets. What a rare opportunity to bring the actual Secretary of Transportation to Richmond and show him an actual project that could be funded by his actual new grants! Wyatt Gordon at the Virginia Mercury has some more details.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 45 °F, and today looks unseasonably warm. Expect highs back up in the 70s but accompanied by tons of wind—like, 30mph+ gusts after lunch. Batten the hatches and take down your umbrellas!
 

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Yesterday, the Governor announced that the State will “remove the pedestal that formerly displayed the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, as part of a plan reached with the City of Richmond to convey the state-owned land to the City.” The Commonwealth will begin that work today and will hope to finish up by December 31st. Importantly, “the Commonwealth will safely disassemble and store the pedestal until next steps have been determined.” Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a few more details. My initial reaction was to be angry with the City and State for collaborating behind closed doors, with absolutely zero community engagement, about an enormous piece of the “reimagining Monument Avenue” process. But, after sleeping on it, I think this is the right decision. Even if the State conveyed the land and the monument to the City, giving us complete control of the space, I can’t stop thinking about how terrible it’d feel to have some racists morons erase the existing graffiti in the middle of the night. I just don’t know how, given the present moment, the City would keep the pedestal and its nationally-recognized protest art safe, so disassembling and storing—for possible future reassembling!—seems like the best decision right now. I also wonder if the actual Reimagining Monument Avenue group, which is still nothing as far as I know, will have a harder time moving forward with the new Governor and legislature. Best to let the City handle its own reimagining, I think.
 

Secretary Mayor Pete was in Jackson Ward on Friday to explicitly promote the grants made available in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that will help reconnect communities riven by highways. This is very exciting because, as you know, Richmond 300 calls for just such a project: capping I-95 between St. James and 1st Streets. What a rare opportunity to bring the actual Secretary of Transportation to Richmond and show him an actual project that could be funded by his actual new grants! Wyatt Gordon at the Virginia Mercury has some more details.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 44 °F, and we’ve got another unexpectedly warm day ahead of us. Today and tomorrow enjoy highs in the mid 60s and a bit of clouds. Then, on Sunday, expect a little cooler temperatures, but nothing winterlike. Have a great weekend, and I hope you get to spend some time outside recharging your batteries.
 

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You can read President Biden’s plan to prepare for the Omicron invasion over on the White House website. Other than the regular stuff like encouraging booster shots and standing up even more vaccination clinics, the President announced that private insurance will now cover the cost of at-home COVID-19 tests. For uninsured folks, it sounds like the federal government will “double the commitment from September to distribute 25 million free tests to community sites to 50 million tests.” Related, and super cool, the Richmond Public Library will participate in a program to distribute free COVID-19 tests kits to folks, too. If you have symptoms or have been exposed to COVID-19 please go get tested! The rest of us can’t get sick! We’re too busy / have important plans to lay quietly on the couch watching horror films!
 

In surveys-to-fill-out news, GRTC has launched a “Richmond Region Micro-Transit Study” which includes this (unfortunately) MetroQuest survey. Why is GRTC asking me about microtransit, I can hear you say (and had a friend literally say to me)? Remember that the new regional transportation authority, the CVTA, is truly regional—including far flung counties like “New Kent” and “Goochland.” Those are places where, at least in America, fixed-route transportation (like the frequent bus lines in the city and Henrico County) has a hard time functioning. I can easily imagine that those localities on our region’s edge would still like to take advantage of all of this new transportation-related money and use it to provide some kind of rural-friendly public transit service—aka an on-demand, microtransit sort of deal. Folks out that way still need ways to get around if they can’t or don’t want to drive! A red flag for me, though: The CVTA earmarks 15% of its funds for GRTC, and I’m concerned that the money to pay for whatever eventual microtransit service would come out of GRTC’s already tiny bucket of cash. That 15% needs to be protected to pay for high-quality, frequent service on the region’s major corridors. If the region thinks a regional microtransit program important, the region can pay for it with the stack of cash specifically dedicated to regional projects.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 44 °F, and today looks amazing. Expect highs near 70 °F and every reason in the world to spend some time outside. The unseasonably warm weather continues through Saturday. Enjoy!
 

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It was only a matter of time, but the United States reported its first case of Omicron yesterday (in California). We still don’t know much about the transmissibility, severity of illness, or a million other things about this new variant—and you should be skeptical of anyone who says otherwise (at least as of this morning). The New York Times reports that President Biden will announce some new measures today to help the Country prepare for Omicron, including having (making?) insurance companies reimburse folks for the cost of at-home tests and extending the mask mandate on planes, trains, and buses. I love, love, love the idea of getting as many free at-home tests into the hands of as many people as possible, so I’m excited to see if/how this federal program rolls out. Until then, though, if you’re feeling sick you should go get tested and avoid slathering your germs all over friends, family, and coworkers! The Richmond and Henrico Health Districts have a couple free testing events each week, and you can always hit up your local pharmacy for PCR or at-home tests as they’re available. Do the rest of us a favor and get tested!
 

Exciting PDF news: Richmond’s Department of Planning and Development Review will present the final City Center Innovation District Small Area Plan to the Planning Commission this coming Monday. So much planning and plans in that previous sentence! You can download the PDF yourself and flip through it here. It’s filled with a ton of lovely and interesting maps, like Year of Construction for Existing Buildings (p. 15), Current Land Use & Zoning (p. 24), Ownership and Taxable Status (p. 25), Site Plan with Potential Development Clusters (p. 35), and, of course, Proposed Connections & Enhancements (p. 51). One thing you’ll note missing in all of the future-looking maps: The Richmond Coliseum! In fact, one of the plan’s goals is to “Demolish the Coliseum, re-establishing the street network and city blocks that existed prior to the 1970s. Private developments on the Coliseum site expand the Innovation District offerings and include significant open space.” Also, check out this transit-related goal that would embed transit in the area while not taking up an entire city block to store idling buses: “Explore developing a transit mall along N . 8th Street, N . 9th Street, and/or E . Marshall Street to include dedicated bus bays and improved transit stop amenities such as shelters, benches, trash cans, and bike parking.” And, whoa, this is a clever idea: “Demolish the Coliseum and use the Coliseum pit as subterranean parking that is accessed from E . Leigh Street.” Overall, this seems like a good and fun plan, and I think it should pass through both the Planning Commission and City Council to end up as an official part of our Master Plan. After that, they key will be moving implementation forward without a big, heavy driver like Navy Hill. It’s certainly possible (see: the City’s work in the Diamond District), but it’ll take some effort, for sure.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 34 °F, but despite the chilly start, highs today—the first day of December—will hit 60 °F. You can expect even warmer weather tomorrow and Friday, so start planning ways to get outside and enjoy it before the sun sets at 4:30 PM or whatever.
 

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Michael Martz and Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch report that Richmond’s Marcus Alert program starts today. Richmond is one of five localities to pilot a Marcus Alert, while the rest of the commonwealth has until July 1st, 2026 to get their programs off the ground. News to me: “The system also will rely initially on existing emergency hotlines, including diverted 911 calls, until a new 988 call line is created next July for a wide range of behavioral health emergencies, including suicide prevention.” Having a separate, non-911 number for the general public to call seems like a huge, practical step in the right direction. However, the state legislation creating and requiring localities to set up a Marcus Alert is not without its shortcomings, and you should tap through to read Princess Blanding’s thoughts. However, Senator McClellan, ever the statesperson, has this to say, “I carried the legislation that would have implemented the system the way she envisioned it and I would have preferred that, but I think any progress is a good first step.” I also enjoyed this quote from Delegate Bourne, “We’ve got to see how this works in practice, and whether we struck the right balance. What we have is hours of talks and compromise.” That’s the reality of how the legislative process works, and I’m glad we we able to take any first step—especially since the next several years do not look especially bright for any progressive legislation like this.
 

If you can stomach it, the RTD’s Mark Bowes reports on the five pedestrians hit and killed by drivers in Chesterfield County this year. Police, of course, are quick to blame pedestrians for wearing dark clothing or crossing the street while drunk—even though “drivers were charged in two of this year’s crashes; one of them was allegedly driving while intoxicated.” Also of note, four of the five vehicles in these incidents were trucks, SUVs, or big crossovers: a Kia Sorento, Toyota Tundra, Ford Explorer, and a Chevy Tahoe. Unfortunately, our transportation system is currently designed so that there are almost always literal life-or-death consequences for making a mistake while trying to get around our region. This is so broken. If we wanted to, we could design our infrastructure, streets, and vehicles so that people who need to get around at night, or had too much to drink, or are using a wheelchair, don’t end up dead when things don’t go as planned. For whatever horrible reason we’ve accepted these deaths as inevitable. Instead of working to fix the issue—limiting vehicle speed and building safe, separated spaces for people not enclosed in tons of hurtling metal—we tell people to wear a reflective vest and move on.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 32 °F, and, no joke, my weather app displays a snow icon at this very minute. That won’t last long, because highs today will reach the mid 50s as we head into an even warmer back half of the week.
 

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I continue to read and enjoy—as much as one can enjoy reading about viruses and vaccines two years into all of this—Katelyn Jetelina’s near-daily Omicron newsletters. Here’s yesterday’s update, which I’d summarize as “we still don’t know very much.” One change to definitely note, though: the CDC altered their booster recommendations (again). Now all adults should (instead of may) get boosted. If you still lack a boost, you can find the full list of walk-up vaccination events hosted by the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts here, and you can always pull up your local pharmacy’s website and make a booster appointment there. No excuses, just go get it done! Additionally, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has/had high hopes for 2021’s end-of-year holidays that now feel on the verge of collapse. But! About parties and travel plans, Jetelina has this good advice: “Let’s get through this next week. Once we have the data, we will know how to approach holidays smartly.” Stay tuned, and get boosted.
 

Yesterday, the City’s Education Compact—the regularly-scheduled meeting of City Council and School Board—got together, and Emma North at WRIC has the recap. It didn’t occur to me yesterday, but, duh, City Council and School Board have a ton of awkward conversations queued up given the evolving disaster of building a replacement for George Wythe High School. As I’ve said many times, the Mayor and City Council ultimately hold all the money and, thus, the leverage in this situation. Councilmember Jones couldn’t put it more clearly: “As chair of the finance committee, I guarantee you, I am willing to hold funding until we get a plan, until we know where we’re going.”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and, with highs around 50 °F, today looks like the coldest day of the week. Should the five-day forecast hold, Friday’s got temperatures in this 70s! Stoked for that.
 

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This past week’s coronanews was all about Omicron, a worrying new SARS-CoV-2 variant—B.1.1.529, to be specific. The World Health Organization Technical Advisory Group designated the mutated virus a “variant of concern” on the 26th, and since then Omicron has dominated headlines (at least the headlines various algorithms chose to show me). Interestingly, and not related to any anxiety you’re feeling right now, WHO decided to skip “nu” and “xi”—the former because saying “the new nu variant” feels dumb and the latter because “xi” is a common surname. If you would like to start stirring up your coronanxiety, the best thing I read over the long weekend is this piece from Katelyn Jetelina, aka Your Local Epidemiologist. You’ll definitely want to scroll to the colored mutation list to see just how many mutations Omicron contains and how many of those are bad, probably bad, or totally unknown. The takeaway, and a takeaway reflected in this NYT piece by Zeynep Tufecki, is that we don’t know enough about Omicron yet to justify full freakouts or total chill vibes. It’s not all bad news, though: Omicron can be detected by our current PCR tests and “we’re seeing a lot of cases but not a lot of severe disease” (yet). But, again, we’re still learning, and I imagine we’ll have new news every day this week. In the meantime, if it were me, I’d take this opportunity to get vaccinated. For those of you already fully vaccinated, make your booster appointments today (or walk up to any of the Richmond and Henrico Health District vaccination clinics this week—no appointments required).
 

John Reid Blackwell at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on an interesting back-to-work survey conducted by the University of Richmond and the Virginia Council of CEOs. When asking CEOs of 53 companies about their return-to-work plans, “only 24% of CEOs said they definitely are going to require a return to the office. About 45% said they are not going to require it. However, almost one-third — about 31% — said it remains ‘unclear at this time’ whether they will require employees to return or adopt some hybrid model.” Like Anne Helen Petersen says, now is the absolute best time to reevaluate what Work looks like and to implement bold, striking changes to make workplaces more humane.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 25 °F, but expect temperatures to double after lunch. Tomorrow looks even warmer and like a great day to throw the football around in your nearest green space—be it backyard or local park. Temperatures drop a bit on Friday and over the weekend but nothing we can’t handle.
 

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City Council’s Governmental Operations committee meeting will not meet today, but take a look at RES. 2021-R082, the one thing on their agenda. Patroned by Councilmember Addison, this resolution would ask the CAO to develop a process “for the designation of development project areas…to be funded through tax increment financing.” TIFs! Remember TIFs?? To recap, in case you’ve blocked the entire Navy Hill saga out of your mind, a TIF draws a box around an area of town and then captures future revenue from inside that box to pay whatever thing you want in the present. TIFs are a little bit of a four-letter word around Richmond lately, but, like semicolons, TIFs are not inherently positive or negative and can be used for either good or evil. Unlike Navy Hill’s TIF, the TIFs recommended in RES. 2021-R082 (the Diamond District, City Center, the port, and Southside Plaza), are all fairly confined areas. Also unlike Navy Hill, the goals of these TIFs are not massive arenas, but neighborhood-scale issues like: affordable housing, infrastructure, and transportation. I think, pending more details, I’m into it! There are, of course, about a million and one steps between this ordinance and the City actually drawing up some new TIFs, but I’m interested to follow along.
 

Something to keep an eye on: The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Ali Rockett reports that RPD’s former interim Chief of Police, Jody Blackwell, is suing the City of Richmond for wrongful termination and breach of contract. It’s been at least 10 years since the summer of 2020, when Blackwell resigned as Chief after just a handful of days, so it’s hard for me to remember everything that was going on back then, but Rockett’s recap has some new-to-me details. Apparently, according to Blackwell, the Mayor asked him to resign after he wouldn’t get the RPD involved in taking down the Confederate monuments: “Stoney requested that RPD officers stand watch while private contractors removed various monuments. Blackwell told Mayor Stoney that he refused to allow RPD officers to stand watch as such action would violate Virginia law and could expose his officers to criminal liability.” Fascinating. That’s definitely just one side of the story, so, like I said, something to keep an eye on.