Coronavirus daily update: Tuesday, Feb. 23

The shortest month, my ass

If February is really the shortest month, like everybody keeps saying, then why is it still February? Seriously man, this whole month has been like an interminable trip to the dentist. But the weather does seem to be turning, and the idea of leaving my house has more appeal each day.

This week marks seven years of Triad City Beat, something of which I’m enormously proud. I always say that we didn’t know we were going to make it this long. This is the year I stop saying that.

In North Carolina, the numbers continue to move in the right direction.

The numbers

• 1,514 new cases in North Carolina today. What? Yes! This number has not been this low since October 2020.
  • 10,965 deaths (+31).
  • 6.2 percent positive test rate, holding steady.
  • 704,490 vaccinated, 6.7 percent of the state.
• Guilford County still troubling with 118 new cases, seven new deaths (513). Still have 2,222 active cases.
• Forsyth picks up 49 new ones. Not bad! And no new deaths (338).

A diversion

I was combing YouTube looking for an example of “race films,” which is what they called any work by Black filmmakers during the Silent Era that began in 1910. But most all of this work is lost to the ages, so even though hundreds of Black folks worked in the early days of movies, history remembers very few of them.

Anyway, I found a documentary from the 1990s about it: Midnight Ramble: The Story of Race Movies. Best I can do today.

Program notes

• You like Degas? How about his portrait of fellow painter, “James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot,” from 1867 or so? Not everyone knows this, but the subject was the inspiration for John Jingle Haemer-Heimer Schmidt. That is not true. Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
• 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.