Daily corona round-up

The long, hard winter

Today was the day that it set in: the cold weather, the surging coronavirus numbers, the absurdity of yet another Trump election lawsuit, the stretch of bleakness that will last the next few months, with a sad little Christmas tucked in.

Hospitals are reaching the tipping point. Rural areas are testing off the charts. We had 220,000 new cases today in the US, almost the population of Winston-Salem. More than 2,500 died, which is the entire student body of Guilford College plus UNCSA. We do not have a handle on this. We are failing.

Be safe, folks. Please. No one can get us through this long, hard winter but ourselves.

Some news

  • New issue out tomorrow, with a shot at Cherie Berry.
  • A former A&T journalism professor makes an animated short, with a soundtrack by Vanessa Ferguson.
  • Our reporter got barred from the courtroom, but he still got the story in Alamance.
  • Siblings attacked for BLM sign.
  • Elsewhere, the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in 48 states sued Facebook for antitrust violations.
  • The USA Diving event scheduled for next weekend in Greensboro has been postponed indefinitely. You know why.
  • Another record-setting day in North Carolina, which we’ll discuss in the numbers.

The numbers

  • The Thanksgiving spike is here: 6,495 new cases in NC. It’s a record, 383,408 total. There have been 5,661 deaths.
    • A new high in hospitalizations: 2,440, about double what it was a month ago.
    • 11.7 positive test rate. Big jump.
  • 275 new cases in Guilford County, 16,679 confirmed.
    • 259 deaths (+0, 1.55 percent), 14,763 recoveries (88.51 percent)
    • 1,655 current cases (9.92 percent of total), 193 hospitalized (11.66 percent of current cases).
  • Forsyth County adds 346, 15,480 total, with three new deaths (176, 1.14 percent), 12,660 recoveries (81.78 percent)
    • 2,644 active cases

A diversion

You think it’s cold in North Carolina? Here’s a 9-hour train journey to the Arctic Circle through Norway.

Program notes

  • “Interior with a Young Couple” captures the a young, wealthy Dutch couple in the late afternoon. By Pieter de Hooch, 1662-65. Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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