Coronavirus daily update: Thursday, Jan. 28

Strange bedfellows

Spent the day driving to Boone and back to drop a kid off at college, and I’m doing the same exact thing tomorrow. So thew only thing I’ve plucked out of the news cycle is this tweet:

Yeah, man. Shit is off the rails. Meanwhile I picked up some memestock myself today, because why the hell not?

New issue of TCB out today with this cool piece about ghost kitchens and MrBeast Burger. TL;DR — it’s a no.

The numbers

• Another upwards tick in North Carolina: 6,490 today, 739,500 total, with 131 new deaths (9,046).
  • If they’re only going to update the county alert system once a month, what’s the point?
  • Best news of the year so far: a positive test rate of 7.9. Big drop.
• 624 new cases in Guilford County. What the hell, man? 32,242 total.
  • 19 deaths today. Also, what the hell, man? 374 total.
  • 5,174 active cases
• 258 new ones in Forsyth (27,250). 276 deaths (+0).
  • Latest recovery numbers are five days old. I won’t insult you by reprinting them here.

A diversion

MrBeast probably should have studied this 1986 classic, Hamburger: The Motion Picture, before hanging out his digital shingle. I forgot all about this movie until today. Very typical ’80s fare: stupid jokes, contrived plot, gratuitous nudity. What’s not to love?

Program notes

• Tonight we’ve got “The Weeders,” from the Frenchman Jules Breton in 1868. It’s a scene of peasants at twilight, “their faces haloed by the pink transparency of their violet hoods, as if to venerate a fecundating star,” in the artist’s words. Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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