Coronavirus daily update: Monday, Dec. 14

The Electoral College, a vaccine and more cases

My headline pretty much sums up the news today, highlighted by the convention of the Electoral College in their respective states. The voting is pretty much over by now, and once again, Joe Biden has won the 2020 US Presidential Election. Congrats Joe!

Trump’s next play comes Jan. 6, when Pence needs to tally the votes. There’s an opportunity for House members to dispute these votes, and an even more narrow path for those disputes to mean anything that could change the outcome. And I can;t believe we’re still talking about this bullshit.

Meanwhile, the first doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine landed in North Carolina today. Wake Forest Baptist Health got some. We’ve got 85,800 doses coming in this week. More later, they say.

Can this be the beginning of the end? God, I hope so.

And the numbers are not as bleak as they could be.

The numbers

• North Carolina adds 4,770 new cases today, and we’re celebrating because it’s below 5K, making 441,365 total.
  • 5,855 deaths (1.33 percent). 365,273 recovered (88.79 percent).
  • 70,237 current cases (wow), 2,553 hospitalized (3.63 percent of current cases).
  • 11.6 positive test rate, trending up.
• Guilford County adds 455 new cases, 17,951 total.
  • There have been 268 deaths (1.5 percent) and 15,378 recoveries (85.66 percent).
  • 2,303 current cases, 198 of them hospitalized (8.6 percent).
  • 12.5 percent positive test rate, trending up.
• Forsyth County makes 3,158 with 217 new cases, 16,785 total.
  • Five new deaths today, for 190 (1.13 percent) and 13,437 recoveries (80.05 percent)
  • 3,158 current cases

A diversion

I started off looking for a Woody Allen movie, before remembering that he is gross, so I veered towards Albert Brooks, who is still very funny and has not, to my knowledge, done anything I find repulsive enough to be a dealbreaker. But Brooks’ best work is behind paywalls, though I did learn that his birth name is Albert Einstein, which is funny to me. Don’t even ask me how I landed on the bizarre TV show “What’s My Line?” from the 1950s and ’60s — that’s how the YouTube rabbithole works — but I found one from 1966 with Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow. So there’s your Woody Allen connection.

Program notes

• Tonight we’ve got this “Allegory of Vigilance,” from Jean Honoré Fragonard in 1772, appropriate for this stage in our election, and also any mention of Woody Allen. Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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