Coronavirus daily update: Wednesday, Nov. 4

The day after

I had to tear myself away from Twitter to drop this update — it’s wild over there. Just like the coronavirus, this election is playing out in excruciating slow-motion and a lot of us can barely stand it. Some of us are even cracking under the pressure.

We’re expecting Arizona to drop final numbers by 9 p.m. tonight, though Fox News has already called it for Biden. And Trump has “claimed” Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan via tweet, though Michigan has already been called for Biden. It’s one of two Trump posts today Twitter has flagged as inaccurate.

But let’s deviate from the election for a moment to talk about these troubling numbers.

The numbers

• The US hit a terrible milestone: more than 100,000 new cases for the first time — 101,775 to be exact. North Carolina did its part.
• 2,425 new cases today, which along with 2,349 yesterday makes 270,675 total. we should pass 300,000 in no time.
  • 4,507 deaths, 117 in the last two days
  • 7.4 percent positive test rate
• Guilford County adds 158 todat for 12,113. 206 deaths (1 today) and 8,958 recoveries (a lot!) brings Guilford’s current case count — 2,949 — more in line with Forsyth.
• In Forsyth, we’ve got 9,436 cases — 100 new ones today — and four new deaths for 125. 1,240 current cases.

A diversion

We all need to CTFO. So here’s Chelsea Girls, a film by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey in 1966. It was their first mainstream film, set in the Chelsea Hotel in NYC. And let me tell you: It’s fuckin’ weird. Just the thing to take our minds off election returns. And don’t get thrown off by the narrow screen. It’s supposed to look like that.

Program notes

• For tonight’s featured image, we’ve got “The Lamentation” by Scipione Polzone (Il Gaetano), 1593. Taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s public-domain collection.
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