Coronavirus daily update: Friday, Aug. 28

At my own pace

I just took a short run around the neighborhood — it’s been awhile so I’m easing back into it, and there are so many damn hills. If I can keep it going I’ll be back up to around five miles in another week or so, but even then I won’t be running very fast. I’m pretty sure I run slow enough that when teenagers in cars pass me, they make jokes.

Similarly, I took yesterday off from the Update — we went up to Boone to see the kids at App State. Everyone was wearing masks and the rules, the kids told me, are being strictly enforced. Right now they have 38 cases among the student body and three among staff, and 150 total cases since March.

Because I missed yesterday I didn’t get to write about Killer Kyle in Kenosha, and I guess I don’t plan to just yet. The whole thing makes me so sad. And, quite frankly, fearful for our future. And I didn’t tackle the Republican National Convention because it was obscene and absurd, and I have nothing to add that has not already been said.

But hey — it’s Friday night, the weather’s fine. And these numbers aren’t going to compile themselves.

The numbers

• Turns out yesterday sucked — 2,091 new cases, which makes today’s 1,415 look almost reasonable. But we’ve got 162,491 so far in North Carolina. New recovery numbers coming Monday.
  • Hospitalizations are down statewide, just 970 right now.
  • Our positive test rate has dropped to 6.9 percent. Good news!
• Guilford County adds 97 over the last two days for 6,527. But we’ve got 3,833 recoveries (58.72 percent) along with 159 deaths (2.43 percent), leaving 2,535 current cases, of which 592 (23.35 percent) are hospitalized.
• Forsyth County adds 62 over the last two days, making 6,014. Of that total, 5,312 (88.33 percent) have recovered and 71 (1.18 percent) have died. That leaves 631 current cases.

A diversion

In honor of the beautiful little town of Boone, here’s Daniel Boone, Trailblazer from 1956, from Westerns on the Web. Full, and in color!

Program notes

• For tonight’s featured image, we have “The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain,” by Jerome B. Thompson, 1858, from the Hudson River School. Taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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