Don’t miss these 2022 predictions for Rhode Island – The Boston Globe

Fully vaccinated: 824,068 (of about 1.1 million residents)

New cases: 2,697

Test-positive rate: 12.6 percent

Currently hospitalized: 317

Total deaths: 3,062

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Leading off

Programming note: There will be no Rhode Map tomorrow, but I’ll be back in your inbox first thing Monday morning. Happy New Year!

Welcome to the final Rhode Map of 2021. Thank you to our tens of thousands of readers who receive this newsletter every morning. Please know that it’s your subscription to the Globe that makes it possible for our team to cover Rhode Island’s most important issues. You can sign up here.

Now, let’s get to some predictions. I asked a bunch of well-known Rhode Islanders from various sectors to offer some thoughts about what to expect in 2022. Here’s what they had to say.

Dr. Megan Ranney

Emergency room physician

The optimist in me thinks 2022 will be a year of coming back together, both physically and emotionally, as we finally make it to the other side of the pandemic. The pessimist in me worries that the health care system has already been broken, and that in 2022 we will just begin to comprehend the implications for our community’s health.

Nina Pande

Skills for Rhode Island’s Future

2022 will continue to provide great opportunities for work place norms to evolve as industries continue to see significant turnover of employees. Employers will need to adopt creative strategies to attract talent, offer more competitive salary packages, provide remote working options and an attractive work-life balance. This will also provide the moment to have meaningful conversations on how to promote more inclusive hiring practices.

Neil Steinberg

Rhode Island Foundation

Rhode Island leaders will formalize an equitable, sustainable, transformative implementation plan to allocate the state’s ARPA funding over the next few years, including a high level of oversight.

Karen Santilli

Crossroads Rhode Island

In 2022 we will see the conversation around homelessness move beyond the need for more shelters to actual solutions, like using federal recovery funds to build more housing that is desperately needed, thus moving RI towards becoming the first state to end homelessness.

David Hardy

Orsted Offshore North America 

Rhode Islande