Wednesday, October 07, 2020

Day 250: The Day the Movies Died

Wisconsin surged past Massachusetts yesterday, pushing us down to the #20 slot in case count. Though Maryland is at #21, Indiana is moving faster and may catch up soon.

Technically speaking, the movies will die tomorrow, when Regal closes all theaters in the US and UK. Parent company Cineworld is also closing all theaters, though this only affects the UK. They blame the lack of content coming out of studios, who have been holding back their big titles in hopes of better revenues post-pandemic. (PlagueBlog warns that there may never be a time after the pandemic.) Regal is the second-largest US movie theater chain. The largest chain, AMC, has kissed and made up with Universal Studios and plans to remain open.

The New York Post reprinted the Great Barrington declaration last night, and it's now surpassed 100,000 signatures.

On the irony watch, Father John Jenkins, President of Notre Dame and target of his own home-grown Stasi after he failed to wear a mask to the Rose Garden super-spreading ceremony, has added injury to insult by testing positive for COVID. A faculty no-confidence vote against him has been postponed for the moment, and students are circulating petitions for his removal.

Massachusetts' case numbers are delayed today, as is the weekly towns and cities data. In other local news, the mayor of Boston announced a delay in the phased reopening of Boston's public schools for off-line education, over a minor increase in the positivity rate here. Some have attributed our rising positivity to a drop in testing the well for COVID, rather than to any meaningful change in the local coronavirus situation.

P.S. Massachusetts' cases were up two-fifth of a percentage point today.

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