Coronavirus daily update: Tuesday, Sept. 29

Debate this

Tonight we’ve got the very first presidential debate of 2020, folks — and no, it will not be moderated by Joe Rogan. Trump has been throwing elbows all day; he keeps saying Biden is taking performance enhancing drugs, and that Joe planning on using a hidden earpiece. Biden, for his part, just released 20 years of his tax returns. He paid about $300K last year.

In the NC Senate race, Cal Cunningham made a fool of himself on Twitter by displaying a complete ignorance of the word “barbecue” as it’s used in North Carolina.

And an App State student has died from COVID-19. Chad Dorrill, a sophomore, was from Thomasville. This is just so sad and, for me, hits very close to home. I’ve been monitoring the numbers there, and right now they’re the worst they’ve been all semester.

And a reminder: Oct. 2 is an important milestone in North Carolina’s recovery. The governor should announce this week if we enter into the next phase. The numbers should give us some insight as to which way the decision will go.

The numbers

• Note: WRAL has got a great, free coronavirus dashboard that may be easier to understand than state and county resources. I’ll be sticking with official numbers for this section, though.
• In North Carolina, 889 new cases is good news. Our new total of molecular positive cases is 204,331. 18 new deaths makes 3,470.
  • Some interesting demographic information. White people have carried 58 percent of cases in the state, and 41 percent of cases are between 25-49 years old.
  • Positive test rate jumps to 6.0 percent.
• Guilford County claims 8,649 total cases today, which is 17 fewer than yesterday, which seems odd. There have been 5,111 recoveries (+59, 59.10 percent) and 171 deaths (+0, 1.98 percent).
  • Of the 3,367 current cases, 675 (20.05 percent) are hospitalized.
• Forsyth County adds 26, for 7,067 total. 6,492 have recovered (+43, 91.86 percent) and 103 have died (+2, 1.46 percent).
  • Of the remaining 472 cases, 17 are hospitalized (3.60 percent)

A diversion

Feel like skipping the debate tonight? Here’s 45 minutes of vintage Popeye cartoons from the 1930s.

Program notes

• For tonight’s featured image, we’ve got “An Eruption of Vesuvius,” by Johan Christian Dahl, 1824. Taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection. And hey: The Met is now open on Fifth Avenue in NYC, if you’re in town.
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