Coronavirus daily update: Thursday, April 30

It’s still April

Yep, still April — the first full month of the coronavirus era in the United States. We’ve got six weeks behind us, and just another eight days before Gov. Cooper’s executive order times out. He said today that he’s “hopeful” that we can ease restrictions enough by next week to move into Phase 1 of the master plan.

That means: No more than 10 people, yes to face-coverings, parks can open and some businesses — “people can leave home for commercial activity.” Still no restaurants, bars or churches. Phase 2 is marked for 2-3 weeks later.

So yeah, maybe four more weeks before any major changes? No big deal!

Some news

• There will be a Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on Memorial Day weekend. But you can’t go — no fans. It’s a cruel joke to inveterate, non-NASCAR sports fans and gamblers everywhere that car races are the only sporting events on the books.
• Also in Raleigh, the House passed a $1.7 billion funding bill — the Pandemic Response Act, an omnibus that addresses healthcare, taxes, the election, finance, education and a lot kore in the face of the pandemic. It’s 98 pages — I will read it later.
• The UNC System has a plan to reopen all 17 campuses in the fall.
• North Carolina gets an F in its social-distancing efforts, according to our cell phone data. Both Guilford and Forsyth: F. The only state worse than NC was South Carolina.
  • C’mon.

The numbers

• Another jump in Forsyth County cases — 32 more — leads off the numbers. Forsyth now has 242 total diagnoses, 5 deaths and 95 recoveries.
• Guilford County registers 372 today. That’s 14 more.
  • Guilford has added more data! We now know that there are 99 current hospitalizations, and 156 recoveries! Still 28 deaths, that’s four more.
• We’ve got 19 new COVID-19 deaths in total in NC today. No new recoveries, 8,456 active cases.
• The death toll nationwide, so far, is 63,548 since the first US case was reported on Jan. 20. That was 108 days ago.

A diversion

“The Flintstones” was the first primetime cartoon, an unabashed ripoff of “The Honeymooners” set in the stone age. Like another primetime cartoon, “The Simpsons,” the ‘Stones executed a lot of social commentary, though it’s pretty tame in comparison. Parody was the whole conceit on this show, so it made sense to apply the characters to the spy-movie genre in 1966, the last year of the TV series. “The Man Called Flintstone” was one of the first season finales in TV history, airing Aug. 3, 1966, five months or so after the show’s last episode.

Program notes

• Tonight’s featured image is “The Prophet Elijah and the Widow of Zaraphath” by Cornelius van Poelenburch, 1630. Thanks to the National Gallery of Art‘s public-domain collection.
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