Coronavirus daily update: Friday, Oct. 16

The reluctant narrator

I was going to skip the update tonight — it’s been a long week — but there’s enough going on that I know I’ll feel like a fraud all weekend if I don’t file something before I punch out for the day.

So here you go.

Some news

Great piece in Politico this week about Winston-Salem Police Chief Catrina Thompson and her response to BLM in her city.

An entire shitload of people have already voted in North Carolina. More than 330,000 hit the polls on the first day of Early Voting. Including absentee voting, more than 1 million have voted so far. There are 7.24 million registered voters in North Carolina.

If you haven’t voted yet, please use our 2020 Election Guide to research all the candidates in Guilford and Forsyth County.

There was also a death in the Guilford County Jail. We’re looking into it.

NC has been named a Red Zone for its recent spike in coronavirus cases — we set a new record for daily cases again today. Might as well get into it.

The numbers

• 2,684 new cases today. We can do better. 233,732 total.
  • 36 new deaths for 3,910.
  • 6.3 percent positive test rate.
• Guilford County adds 78 cases for 10,064, breaking the five-figure mark today.
  • 5,846 recoveries, 187 deaths, 4,031 active cases.
• Forsyth County adds 81 cases for 7,968 total.
  • 7,048 recoveries, 110 deaths, 810 active cases.

A diversion

I want to play poker tonight. So here’s Kenny Rogers in a made-for-TV movie about a song he wrote: “The Gambler.” It’s a Western!

Program notes

• For tonight’s featured image, we’ve got “Portrait of a Man in a Blue Coat,” provenance unknown. Taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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