If you hit the bars on Thanksgiving eve, you better plan to go early this year.

Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday announced bars and restaurants must stop alcohol sales at 5 p.m. Wednesday night to curb one of the biggest drinking nights of the year. His rationale: At the current pace, Pennsylvania is projected to report as many as 22,000 new coronavirus cases per day in December.

That's more than three times the daily number right now.

Citing that number and concerns about rising hospitalizations, Wolf and Health Secretary Rachel Levine also announced stricter gathering limits, ramped up enforcement, and a stay-at-home advisory that asks residents to only leave their homes for the essentials. That's an advisory, not an order.

“As our hospitals and health care system are facing greater strain, we need to redouble our efforts to keep people safe,” Wolf said in a statement. “If our health care system is compromised, it isn’t only COVID-19 patients who will suffer."

THE CONTEXT: Pennsylvania is continuing to regularly report upwards of 7,000 new daily cases, and more people are hospitalized now with COVID-19 than during the worst of the spring peak.

To make matters worse, PennLive reports the state's contact tracing efforts are being hampered by delays in testing and chronic understaffing.

School districts will now need to sign a letter stating they are following protocols if they choose not to stop in-person learning despite "substantial" spread in their county. A new study found the virus is uncommon and mostly harmless among children, but risks are higher for communities of color.

"To expect that we would just take a department request and turn it into a 30-year burden on the commonwealth’s finances in a week is just inappropriate."

— Sen. Pat Browne (R., Lehigh) on a PennDOT budget shortage that will soon stop about $600 million of road and bridge projects

YOUNG SCHOLARS: Two students studying at Pennsylvania colleges have been named Rhodes Scholars, meaning they will be able to study for free at England's Oxford University. Meet Victoria Puglia, an international affairs major at Easton's Lafayette College, and Mackenzie Fierceton, a former foster child who now studies at the University of Pennsylvania. 

OK, FINE: Apparently the dreaded spotted lanternfly is good for something after all: helping produce a "darker, smokier" honey by chomping on the ailanthus, or tree of heaven. That's cool, but I still want to destroy every single one of the bugs.

DREAM JOB: A website called Reviews.org wants to pay someone $2,500 to watch 25 holiday movies in 25 days. If selected, you'd get to pick the films to watch. And naturally, you'd put the greatest Pennsylvania-set Christmas movie of all time on the list: "Trading Places." (That's right, I called "Trading Places" a Christmas movie.)

'VISIBILITY TO THE INVISIBLE': NPR describes "The Book of Everything" as the "essence of Mary Ellen Mark's work" in the form of three coffee table books that weigh more than 16 pounds total. Mark was a Pennsylvania native and famed photographer who focused on the fringes of society.

MATCH MADE IN ... SOMEWHERE: If beer and glazed doughnuts sound like a good pairing to you (no judgment!), consider this new collaboration between Sheetz and Wicked Weed Brewing Company. You can find cans at the gas station starting Nov. 27.