Coronavirus daily update: Monday, Jan. 4

Here we go

The new year has begun, and already our president has attempted election fraud, coronavirus numbers are skyrocketing and the efficient distribution of the vaccine has yet to set in.

I’ll stay away from the Trump stuff for now, but you really need to listen to the call he made on Saturday to the Georgia secretary of state. It’s unbelievably messed up.

That state’s Senate election is tomorrow, and Trump’s got a thing planned for tonight, which promises to be a real shitshow. And then on Wednesday, as the electoral votes are counted, armed assholes have pledged to take over the streets of Washington DC for… what? They fixing to shoot somebody? Maybe the hope is that Trump can declare martial law and make himself president indefinitely. That’s what Dick Cheney — Dick Cheney! — and every other former secretary of defense warned about in an op-ed this week.

It’s jacked. And I haven’t even gotten to the numbers yet.

The numbers

• North Carolina is seeing the Christmas bounce — more than 9,000 cases per day on Jan. 1 and 2, then 6,487 and then, today, 5,187, which seems like a lot less but is still terrifying. Total cases are 570,111, with 6,941 deaths (1.22 percent).
  • New recovery numbers: 487,090, making 76,080 current cases in the state, give or take.
  • Record-high hospitalizations for the last three days, 3,635 right now, which is about 4.77 percent of the current cases.
  • positive test rate 16.5 percent, the highest it has ever been.
• Guilford reports 293 new ones today, 22,472 total. Of those, 312 have died (1.39 percent).
  • 4,402 current cases, 244 hospitalized.
• Forsyth is slow in reporting today. So far I have 160 new cases today, for 21,527 total. 231 deaths. No further data today.

A diversion

I can’t even right now, with Trump and Georgia and Pence and all these other hollow men engaged in stealing our election. So here’s a little gem from 1932, “Betty Boop for President,” which is short and saccharine and just enough to take my mind off the Big Bullshit.

Program notes

• “Finish—First International Race for America’s Cup, August 8, 1870,” is one of those works that doesn’t need much introduction. It was by Samuel Colman, that same year. Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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