Coronavirus daily update: Wednesday, April 1

Like a waterfall

There’s nothing to joke about on this April Fool’s Day in North Carolina. While we are in a better position than many states in terms of preparedness, population density and sheer volume of cases, things are starting to escalate in our state.

There are cases in 74 of our 100 counties. Deaths are in the double-digits. There are cases in Butner Federal Prison, in the state Treasury Department, among Durham’s bus drivers and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department.

For some discussion on how exponential sums work, let’s do a special edition of the numbers.

The numbers

• In our first daily roundup on March 19 — exactly two weeks ago — we noted that Guilford had gotten its third case of COVID-19 and that Forsyth had two cases. Today, 14 days later, Guilford County has recorded 64 cases. That’s a jump of 14 from yesterday, when we added just six cases. Forsyth has announced 57 cases as of today, an increase of 15 cases; yesterday’s increase was just two cases.
• This is going to be a rough stretch.
• The state claims 1,701 cases today. Yesterday we had 1,522. There are 204 people hospitalized across the state. Ten people have died.
• But there’s some good news! It looks like we’ve already bent the curve in NC — according to healthdata.org we’ve shaved 600 or so coronavirus deaths from our total, and pushed our time to peak COVID from April 22 to April 27. Honestly I don’t know if that’s good or bad anymore, but it does signify the beginning of the end.
• Either way, looks like we’ll be holed up until May or June.

A diversion

Snood was one of the earliest internet time-wasters, a simple online game that became an obsession for many dial-up users back in the late 1990s. I started playing in 1998, way before I moved to Greensboro, where Dave Dobson, the game’s creator still lives.

Seriously: If you want to forget your troubles, dive into some Snood and I’ll see you in a couple days.

Program notes

• Tonight’s featured image is a photograph by George Barker of Niagara Falls, taken in 1890. It comes courtesy of the National Gallery of Art’s public-domain collection.
• If you’d like to help Triad City Beat, please consider joining our mailing list, or making a donation. Good things can multiple exponentially as well.