Coronavirus daily update: Thursday, Oct. 29

A new record

North Carolina hit a new high in daily coronavirus diagnoses — more on that in the numbers — so let’s see what that looks like on the ground.

Miss Ora’s Fried Chicken in Winton-Salem has closed due to the pandemic. The Forsyth County Courthouse has shut down for a few days due to an outbreak. Our hospitals are starting to become stressed. And Thanksgiving and Christmas plans are getting pulled from the table as risks and rewards are calculated.

Nationally, we’re right back to where we were in July in terms of daily new cases, with new hotspots emerging in the West and Midwest. More then 8.9 million Americans have contracted COVID-19 since March, and 227,697 have died.

Anyone out there still think the media created this thing, and that everyone will stop talking about it after the election?

Just making sure we’re all on the same page before we get to the numbers.

The numbers

• 2,885 new cases today — that’s a record. By a lot. 258,319 so far, with 4,283 deaths (+38) and 1,181 hospitalized.
  • 6.4 percent positive test rate.
• Guilford County adds another 224 today, for 11,405. There have been 6,426 recoveries and 200 deaths (+1). 4,779 active cases
• Forsyth County adds 103, for a total of 8,937. There have been 7,701 recoveries and 120 deaths (+1). 1,116 active cases.

A diversion

• God, I’m not feeling it today. And my cats are circling me because it’s time for them to be fed. In their honor, here is 10 hours of cute cat footage.

Program notes

• For tonight’s featured image, we’ve got “Red Sunset on the Dnieper” by the Russian Realist Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, 1905-08. Taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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