Coronavirus daily update: Saturday, April 11

Feathering our nests

The pandemic is terrifying, sure. It’s shutting down our economy, thinning out the herd, chasing us behind closed doors, forcing us all to learn how to videoconference. We’ve got a lot more questions that we do answers — about our unemployment and stimulus checks, about how long the lockdown will last, about what happens after we bend the curve.

And so we bake bread.

It’s a wonderful time for the domestic arts: cooking, cleaning, pillow-fluffing and general fix-it-uppery. My wife painted one of the bathrooms. My lawn — parts of it, anyway — looks as lush and green as the fourth fairway at a low-end public golf course. And like everyone else who’s been hard-hitting the grocery store’s baking aisle, apparently, I’ve started baking bread.

Seriously, man: Flour and yeast are still tough to come by. But it makes a lot more sense than the toilet-paper thing.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, a big deal for Jesus’ people: It’s the day he rose from the dead. Like Superman. Religion is not for everyone, of course, but even straight-up atheists can appreciate the symbolism of the story. He was righteous. They killed him for it. And he came back to shove it in all their faces — everybody totally freaked out when they found out who his father was.

The egg is a neat piece of symbolism, too: pagan stuff about the potential of life that alludes to the promise of every new spring.

Even the bread I’ve been making does not escape my metaphorical eye: Every loaf represents science, technology, patience… the stuff of civilization.

We’ll take Easter tomorrow at home, without the usual crowd, but we’re doing a lot of cooking and decorating in preparation anyway. We got a bunch of Easter candy for the kids, too, but we’ll probably break into that tonight.

No one here believes in the Easter Bunny anymore.

And with that, some news.

Some news

• Guilford County amended the governor’s State of Emergency order on Friday, and then clarified that amendment to address its special rules for churches holding “drive-in services” (no more than 50 cars, no sitting in truck beds, that sort of thing) and car dealers (closing the lounges, sales by appointment only, etc.)
• Stimulus checks (the $1,200 thing, not to be confused with unemployment or any SBA business) should start hitting Americans’ bank accounts this week.
• The state DES has will start to implement federal stimmy to state unemployment payments (the extra $600 thing) this week as well.
• The NC House COVID-19 Task Force is open for business! See if you can find your favorite legislator in the grid.

The numbers

• Guilford County claims 134 cases as of today, though the N&O has them at 135. It’s an increase of four of five, depending.
• Forsyth remains even at 115.
• NC cases saw a slight trend upwards after three days of decline — we now have 4,359 diagnosed cases. And the state tested about 20,000 people last week.
• We’re leveling off.
• We’re scheduled to hit a peak of sorts on Wednesday — that’s the day our hospitals should be the most taxed.
• We shall see.

A diversion

Everybody knows about the famous string of Rankin/Bass Christmas TV specials: “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and the like — stop-motion masterpieces that are charming in their humor and simplicity. But they may have gone to the well once too often. They made a New Year’s movie, and then an Easter movie. And then they made this one: “The Easter Bunny is Coming to Town.” This one was made in 1977, the same year they released “Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.” And hey: Fred Astaire!

Program notes

• Tonight’s featured image is “Allegory of Music,” by Francois Boucher, a painting from 1764, It’s courtesy of the National Gallery of Art‘s public-domain collection.
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