Coronavirus daily update: Monday, Aug, 24

Extra-thicc college edition

I feel kind of bad for skipping out on Friday’s CDU — no excuses, just apologies — so I’m going to stuff some extra info in tonight’s update, and I’m going to use some current slang in the headline to appeal to the youth. All the better if I used it wrong.

There’s plenty in the news cycle, including another police shooting in Wisconsin, a shitshow of a convention in Charlotte and even more bubbling in the pipeline, but all that is available at your usual news sources. Tonight instead of linking to other news articles, which we call “curated aggregation,” I’m going to do some original reporting and compiling, which we call “enterprise journalism,” which is much fancier.

I want to take a look at our 11 area colleges and universities in relation to coronavirus, student life and transparency. The public universities are obligated to have report their numebrs — or are they?. The private ones can do what they want.

• NC A&T University has not updated its dashboard in almost a week, but so far they report just five current cases on campus among students and a single case among faculty. They currently have a mix of online and in-person classes, masked, with classrooms held at around 30 percent, and students are living in the dorms. No football until spring.
• UNCG has reported nine new cases among faculty, students and staff in the last seven days, 21 total, plus three contractors. They’re using a mix of online and in-person classes, dorms are full, and though there have been furloughs in the athletics department, it looks like sports are a go.
• Guilford College reports eight cases, all in the last week. Students are living on campus, and attending classes both in-person and online. Their entire division has suspended sports for the rest of the calendar year.
• High Point University reports five active cases. They’re employing numerous safety measures for their on-campus students, and as far as I can tell, they’re holding classes in person.
• Greensboro College has had three cases so far, one recovered. They’re holding classes in person as much as possible.
• UNC School of the Arts has one student, one staffer with COVID-19. Online learning as much as possible, and the performance calendar is shot for the rest of the year.
• Winston-Salem State University reports three on-campus students with COVID-19, and two off-campus students. Classes have mostly moved online, but it looks to me like they’re playing football this year.
• If Salem College is listing coronavirus cases, I can’t find it. Other than that, mostly classroom learning, with masks, social distancing, etc. They have also instilled a new pedestrian traffic flow plan.
• Wake Forest University is not reporting coronavirus cases online. Football is a go (same as the rest of the ACC) and classes are a mix of online and in person. Everyone got tested before they got there, part of the Way Forward.

The numbers

• New cases in the last four days in North Carolina, in descending order: 1,283, 1,472, 1,729, 2,008. We’ve got 156,396 diagnoses so far.
  • Math: New recovery report claims 136,630 have beaten it (87.36 percent) while 2,560 have died (1.64 percent) . That leaves 17,206 existing cases, 948 of which (5.51 percent) are hospitalized.
  • 7.3 percent positive test rate.
• Guilford County has 6,378 total diagnoses, with 3,693 recoveries (57.91 percent) and 156 deaths (2.45 percent).
  • Of the 2,529 existing cases, 578 are hospitalized (22.85 percent), giving Guilford 60.17 percent of all hospitalizations in the state, which doesn’t sound right.
• Forsyth County reports 5,876 total diagnoses, 5,155 recoveries (87.73 percent) and 66 deaths (1.12 percent)
  • 655 existing cases.

A diversion

Really digging these old, public-domain movie-house serials, Here’s one called Terry ands the Pirates, from 18940, based on Milton Caniff’s enormously popular newspaper comic strip. It’s Part I, almost 90 minutes’ worth.

Program notes

• For tonight’s featured image, we have “Tamaris,” by French artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes 1886-87. Taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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