The language of coronavirus
We’re deep into this thing now — almost nine weeks since the St. Patrick’s Day Meltdown — and just as the numbers have been piling up, so have the things we’ve learned about the disease. So it’s a good time to reiterate some style points.
When we report state and county numbers, we are referring to the number of cases of COVID-19 that have been discovered through verified testing. COVID-19 is the disease caused by coronavirus infection, kind of like HIV/AIDS. Testing positive for coronavirus is not the same thing as testing positive for COVID-19, though many news outlets seem to be using these terms interchangeably.
A person can test positive for the presence of coronavirus without having COVID-19, and they might never exhibit symptoms. They’re carriers, like people with brown eyes who make blue-eyed babies.
And the numbers we report are running totals. Subtract the number of dead, which is widely reported, and the number of recoveries, which is not, and you approximate the number of active cases that we know about through testing and reporting. People who have not been tested do not get counted.
This is my understanding of it so far, but reporting standards across the state are changing. Look for some reporting on that soon. Meanwhile…
Some news
- A Congolese immigrant living in High Point and working at the Tyson chicken plant in Wilkesboro — a 90-minute commute — has died from COVID-19.
- Some armed cosplayers took a field trip to the state capitol. You can tell they were tourists because they ate at Subway.
The numbers
- North Carolina saw a sharp decline in discovered cases today — just 281, according to the N&O‘s accelerated count.
- But these guys have us at 329 today, still on a downward trend.
- They also note 10 new deaths, for a total of 574 in our state.
- Some perspective:
- There are more than 4.24 million discovered cases worldwide.
- The US has the most discovered cases by far with 1.38 million, including 13,462 new ones today. Next closest is Spain with 268,143.
- Of those 1.38 million, more than 1 million are considered “active.”
- 81,538 Americans have died of COVID-19 so far, including 751 new ones so far today. Next closest is the United Kingdom, with 32,065 deaths.
- 260,161 Americans have recovered from COVID-19.
- NC is 20th on the list of states ranked by discovered cases, largely because we didn’t get serious about testing until this month. We’re tucked in between Tennessee (15,544) and Iowa (12,373). New York is still the hottest state, with 345,987 discovered cases (more than Spain) and 26,874 deceased.
- Guilford County starts the week with 601 total cases discovered, 125 hospitalizations, 276 recoveries and 37 deaths.
- Forsyth County adds 9 for 375 total, 95 recoveries, five deaths.
A diversion
The legendary comic actor Jerry Stiller passed this week. Best known as George Costanza’a farther from “Seinfeld” — inventor of Festivus — or perhaps Ben Stiller’s father in real life, Stiller and wide Anne Meara were a pioneering comedy team in the early days of television, with hundreds of TV and film credit between them and among them. Here’s a early clip of Still & Meara on the game show “He Said, She Said,” a precursor to “The Newlywed Game,” which no one under 50 has ever heard of. I have not watched it yet, but I’m betting it does not age well.
Program notes
- I’m getting my public-domain images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City these days. We just call it “the Met.” Tonight we’ve got “The Judgement of Paris,” by Marcantonio Raimondi, 1510 or so.
- If you’d like to help Triad City Beat, please consider becoming a supporter. You could also give us a like on Facebook and share our stories on Twitter.
Join the First Amendment Society, a membership that goes directly to funding TCB‘s newsroom.
We believe that reporting can save the world.
The TCB First Amendment Society recognizes the vital role of a free, unfettered press with a bundling of local experiences designed to build community, and unique engagements with our newsroom that will help you understand, and shape, local journalism’s critical role in uplifting the people in our cities.
All revenue goes directly into the newsroom as reporters’ salaries and freelance commissions.
The global spread of coronavirus disease, which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has been scaling up concerns among governments across many countries as they continue to struggle to flatten the exponential growth curve despite imposing lockdowns and enforcing stringent social distancing regulations.