Coronavirus daily update: Wednesday, Dec. 30

Kicks in the ass on the way out the door

This is my last update of the year — I’ll be back Monday, in plenty of time to see Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri try to ratfuck the 2020 presidential election one more time on Jan. 6, when the electoral votes are counted.

More bad news: Operation Warp Speed, Trump’s program to develop and distribute the coronavirus vaccine, is not living up to its name. We’re supposed to have more than 20 million vaccines doled out already, and we’re at 2.6 million. In North Carolina, we’ve made some adjustments to the pecking order.

And the Christmas bounce is here! North Carolina set a record for new cases today, which we’ll explore in the numbers.

The numbers

• It’s bad: NC added 8,551 today, most ever. 532,830 total, and we won’t have new recovery information until Monday.
  • We’re still counting deaths, though: 6,729, which is 155 more than yesterday, and 3,339 hospitalizations.
  • 14.8 positive test rate, which is just brutal.
• Guilford County’s role in all this: 410 new ones today, making 21,806. No new deaths (301).
  • 4,067 active cases, 220 hospitalized.
• Forsyth adds 297, for 20,374 total. 221 deaths (+0)
  • 2,800 active cases

A diversion

For the new year, here’s a film from 1937, Wee Willie Winkie, based on a work by Rudyard Kipling. I include it because at some point, YouTube assures me, Shirley Temple sings “Auld Lang Syne,” which has got to be worth the price of admission.

Program notes

• Tonight we have some Impressionism: “Young Woman Knitting” — not a Monet but a Morisot, Berthe Morisot, 1883. Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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