Daily corona round-up

Meatloaf Edition

I made a meatloaf today, in between copyediting, Zoom meetings and writing. Nothing fancy — some ground chuck with an egg, breadcrumbs, diced onion and a jalapeño I found in the fridge. It came together easily, with things I had on hand, and because we almost never have meatloaf, it will be well received by the meat-eaters in the house (though the leftovers will not).

There’s nothing wrong with meatloaf. People love it. Elvis once at meatloaf for dinner every night for six months, if you believe the Graceland headphone tour. And I do.

Meatloaf is fine. Meatloaf is basic. It might not be what you want, not exactly, but it will do just fine.

And in the coronavirus era, I’m counting the meatloaf as a win.

Triad City Beat reports

  • We’ve got some breaking news on the website today, including this piece about a Greensboro man who says he was shot by police — police say he shot himself. The document trail is just beginning to unravel. Dude is Black, by the way.
  • We’ve got a take on the Republican National Convention, now playing in Charlotte and on screens everywhere.
  • And hey, how about this? Jacob Blake, the Black guy shot seven times in the back by a Wisconsin police officer, grew up in Winston-Salem! Not really sure what to do with that yet.

The numbers

  • How are we doing in North Carolina? Peaks and valleys, man. We’ve got 1,345 new cases today, a slight uptick from yesterday, and 157,741 total. And 37 new deaths makes 2,597.
    • Positive-test rate clicks up a tenth of a point to 7.4 percent.
    • Our seven-day average is still reeling from last week, but a few good days could drop it significantly.
  • Guilford County adds just 14 new cases for 6,392. Pretty great. With 42 new recoveries (3,735) and 156 deaths, we have 2,501 existing cases, 582 of which (23.27 percent) are in the hospital.
  • Forsyth County adds 39 for 5,915. With 31 new recoveries (5,186) and three new deaths (69), that leaves 660 existing cases; 18 (2.7 percent) are hospitalized.

A diversion

To keep in line with my theme, I was actually looking for a movie with Meat Loaf, the guy — he was in Rocky Horror and a bunch of other things. But while I was in the rabbithole I found this gem: The Comeback Kid, a made-for-TV movie starring John Ritter, who was a huge star at the time because of “Three’s Company,” which had been running for three years. It’s about a down-and-out baseball player who starts coaching kids, learns a lot, finds love, etc, etc. It also stars Susan Dey, in her first big role since Laurie Partridge.

Program notes

  • For tonight’s featured image, we have “A Limier Briquet Hound,” by French artist Rosa Bonheuer in 1856. The dog belonged to the Vicomte d’Armaille. Taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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