Coronavirus daily update: Monday, Dec. 28

The nothing week

It’s the nothing week, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and the only people doing stuff are those who put off their tasks all year long, and also us news folk, who are waiting and watching for the end-of-the-year news dump, which the dumpers themselves are hoping we are not doing. But of course we are.

Still, I’m probably skipping updates on Thursday and Friday because of the new year, unless I just can’t help myself.

The only news I’m looking at today is this bullshit lawsuit between Rep. Louie Gohmert and VP Mike Pence, filed today. Gohmert asserts that Pence, who in a ceremonial role counts the electoral votes on Jan. 6, can count whatever votes he wants to, and could hand the election to Trump if he so chooses.

It is the most desperate of hail Mary plays, and I feel relatively certain that Pence does not have a taste for insurrection against the United States of America. He calls his wife “Mother,” for crying out loud.

I’ve also been looking at the weather, which is fabulous this week. And all of it has just been a way to avoid looking at the numbers, which I haven’t seen since Wednesday and I’m pulling up right now.

The numbers

• On Christmas Eve, North Carolina added 7,703 new cases — a lot! — and another 18,500 or so since. And because we are all morons, expect a post-Christmas surge, followed by a post-New Year’s Eve surge. We passes the half-million mark since the last dispatch: 520,716 total in NC, 42,002 of then antigen-positive.
  • New recovery numbers won’t come until next week, but we’re at 6,561 deaths (1.26 percent), 375 of them from antigen-positive cases.
  • 3,192 hospitalized across the state.
  • 14.7 percent positive test rate. This is alarming.
• Guilford County adds 488 today; 20,983 total, 16,922 recoveries (80.65 percent) and 290 deaths (1.38 percent).
  • 3,769 active cases, 205 hospitalized (5.44 percent).
• Forsyth County is at 19,947 total cases and 221 deaths. No Facebook postings this week.

A diversion

I watched Soul with my wife last night — we liked it better than Wonder Woman 1894, but not as much as Hamilton — and so I thought I’d drop another animated feature here. But then I stumbled on this little gem from 1977: “Hanna Barbera’s All-Star Comedy Ice Review,” which looks like a made-for-TV special based on Hanna Barbera cartoons, and the whole thing is on ice!

Program notes

• “Imaginary Landscape with the Palatine Hill from Campo Vaccino,” from Francois Boucher, 1734. Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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