Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and today looks lovely. Expect highs in the mid 80s, sunshine, and, if it weren’t for the gusty winds, I’d say it’s a perfect day to take off from work early and ride your bike into the sunset. The beautiful weather continues for the next day or two and then big heat moves in this weekend—looks like we can expect highs in the 90s! In May!
Water cooler
It’s Tuesday, and your COVID-19 Community Level for Richmond remains at low (kind of), while Henrico and Chesterfield have both increased to medium. The 7-day case rates per 100,000 people in each locality, respectively, are: 221, 299, and 219. Remember: The CDC only updates this metric once a week on Thursday nights, but to flip a locality from low to medium, those case rates need to cross the 200 threshold. To flip from medium to high, however, you’ve got to look at two different, hospital-related numbers: 7-day new COVID-19 admission per 100,000 and 7-day percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients. If either of those two numbers are greater than 10 while case rates are greater than 200, your localities is experiencing a high COVID-19 Community Level. At the moment, the admissions per 100,000 people for all three localities is: 8.7. That’s creepingly close to high, and you should keep an eye on it as we approach that Thursday night update. The big change in CDC guidance when we do switch from medium to high is that folks should: “Wear a well-fitting mask indoors in public, regardless of vaccination status (including in K-12 schools and other indoor community settings).” CDC calls this an “individual- and household-level prevention behavior,” which gets at the reality that we’ll probably never again see mask or other mitigation mandates from our local, state, or federal governments. Anyway, the current coronacontext means we need to prepare to ride whatever coronawave gets put in front of us, and right now that sure looks like another approaching peak.
One way you can prepare to ride those coronawaves, and keep other people around you safe, is to make sure you’re stocked up on COVID-19 tests. Luckily, and as of yesterday, you can order another round of free Joe Biden tests from USPS—this time you get eight instead of four. The form, which I just filled out while writing the previous sentence, takes less than a minute to complete, and you should do it before reading the next paragraph!
