Coronavirus daily update: Monday, Dec. 21

The solstice

It’s the shortest day of the year — the sun outside has practically set, though it’s barely 5 p.m. — and after the lights go down, we should be able to see a cosmic alignment between Saturn and Jupiter in the sky, the closest they’ve been in 400 years.

In North Carolina, Gov. Cooper issued an executive order allowing bars and restaurants to sell cocktails to go. Before you go thinking about Bourbon Street, understand that this doesn’t mean you can get a beer to go and drink it on the street. It means you can bring it home, or get it delivered. It’s a great upsell for places already doing delivery; I don’t think it will save the industry, but it will keep some people from going out, which is good.

Right now in North Carolina, smart money stays home.

The numbers

• Better? Just 4,479 in North Carolina today, down from a 7-day average of about 6,500. Today it’s 483,647 total, 36,852 of them antigen-positive.
  • 403,488 presumed recovered in NC (83.43 percent), with 6,240 deaths (1.3 percent) 300 of them (4.8 percent) antigen-positive.
  • I’ve got 37,607 current cases in NC, 2,817 (7.5 percent) hospitalized.
• Guilford adds 387, for 19,970, with 278 deaths (1.4 percent), 16,425 recoveries (82.24 percent).
  • 3,265 active cases, 205 hospitalized (6.28 percent)
• In Forsyth, 184 new cases makes 18,525, with 206 deaths (1.11 percent), five of those today.
  • 3,186 active cases.

A diversion

• In honor of the cosmic conjunction, here’s Georges Melies 1902 sci-fi film “A Trip to the Moon.”

Program notes

• It took Camille Corot five years to paint “The Banks of the Seine at Conflans,” 1865-70, a study in juxtaposition. Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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