Coronavirus daily update: Wednesday, June 24

Pandemonium

Did anybody really expect Gov. Roy Cooper to re-open the state — or, more accurately, begin Phase 3 — this week? I mean, we have failed just about every test: Cases and deaths are escalating. People are ignoring best practices to reduce transmission. I’d say about a quarter of us are complaining about it like children who resent a punishment.

So, instead of give the all-clear signal, Cooper announced today a statewide, mandatory mask advisory (which is admittedly difficult to enforce) and a three-week window before we can consider Phase 3, which would open most of the businesses that are now closed, bars included.

Meanwhile, the state House was unable to override Cooper’s veto on the bar and gym bill. They’ll have to wait another three weeks.

Understand that things are not good in our state, in terms of the coronavirus. Compare our NY Times chart to those of other states where cases are also accelerating — most of those have had a decline, or at least a plateau. NC’s case chart is a terrifying angle of jagged red, moving ever more upwards.

It’s gotten so bad that New York state, New Jersey and Connecticut have established a travel ban of sorts against NC, along with other hotspots of Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, Washington, Utah and Texas.

We can still go there, but we have to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

The numbers

• We’ve got 1,721 new cases in NC today, the second-highest total yet — we had 1,768 on June 12. That makes 56,174 total.
  • Report says 17,457 tests, so 9.85 percent positive.
  • We’ve got 36,921 recoveries as of Monday, and 1,272 deaths (20 new ones). 1,7981 active cases.
• Forsyth County reports 2,679 lab-confirmed cases, 64 new today. 1,726 have recovered, and 31 have died. 922 current cases.
• Guilford County has not put up numbers on the county site today, but I can find 65 new cases, (2,527) and four new deaths (110).

A diversion

Not unlike today, Black folks were having something of a moment in the 1980s and after. Hip hop was entering the mainstream, while companies like Bennetton began deliberately featuring non-white people int heir ads. I hesitate to mention Bill Cosby, but I will mention “A Different World,” the first primetime show about a HBCU. There was a lot of new, Black stuff in the popular culture. And then there were the Wayans Brothers, who ended up collaborating with other black comedic actors for television’s first Black sketch-comedy show, “In Living Color.” It’s notable for many characters, some of whom do not hold up, and that Jim Carrey was the token white guy. Also: The Fly Girls. Here’s Season 1 Episode 8, which looks like a time capsule now but I remember watching it on TV in 1990.

Program notes

• From the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s public-domain collection, tonight we’ve got “Bullfight in a Divided Ring” by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, aka Goya, from 1816
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