Should You Go Home For The Holidays?
October 27, 2020
The Good News
- Moon water! NASA’s SOFIA Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon (NASA)
- Joy to the Polls: the group performing for Americans as they line up to vote (Guardian). Rock the election box.
“There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.” — Nadine Gordimer
“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.” ― Thomas Merton
Should You Go Home For The Holidays?
The intersection of holiday plans and rising COVID-19 cases is rapidly approaching. What to do?
“COVID doesn’t care that it’s a holiday, and unfortunately COVID is on the rise across the nation,” says Barbara Alexander, a physician, and president-elect of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “Now is not the time to let our guard down and say it’s the holiday and let’s be merry. I think we need to maintain our vigilance here.” Alexander knows the risks, so she’s decided to forego her traditional holiday trek to southeastern North Carolina for the usual celebration with numerous family members. This year she’ll stay home in Durham with her husband, teenage son, and 96-year-old mother.
Other families will choose not to stay home, or alter their holiday traditions of getting together with family and friends. Thanksgiving is perhaps the busiest travel period in America, and it is this anticipated surge in interstate travel, family gatherings, and indoor socializing that epidemiologists expect will facilitate the spread of COVID-19, perhaps to places where it has been sparse, or absent.
Scientists aren’t telling people outright to cancel their holiday plans, but they are urging people to think of alternative ways to celebrate. “This is not the cold. This is not the flu. This is much worse. People are dying. Our well-being as a country depends on us getting this thing under control,” Alexander warns.
Scientific uncertainties, mixed messaging, and a lack of national leadership means people are left to do their own assessment of their vulnerabilities and that of friends and relatives, taking into account age, underlying health conditions, occupational exposures, access to health care, and the level of COVID-19 transmission in their community and in the places where their holiday guests are coming from.
Bottom line: People have to make their own holiday calculations, even as the scientists and doctors have adjusted their own ideas and guidance. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases notes: “This is not a one-size-fits-all issue. It depends on what risk you want to take.” Then he sums up the fundamental quandary: “It is difficult if not impossible to quantify what that risk is.”
The Grueling The Waiting Game
(Spencer Platt via Getty Images)
- One of the ways President Trump has put America First is to limit the number of non-American people hoping to obtain asylum in the US. Trump’s limits on asylum are so severe, in fact, they’re unprecedented. Historically, foreigners seeking refuge were allowed to enter the country and then pursue their asylum claims from inside the US.
- Trump’s policy, most notably at America’s southern border, calls for asylum seekers to stay in Mexico and wait while their legal cases wind through the system, a process that can take years. The policy has caused a number of refugee camps to spring up along the border. For example, at Matamoros — just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas — about 600 people remain stranded in a dangerously crowded and unsanitary tent city, many for over a year.
- The Trump administration has said the “remain in Mexico” policy was critical to end the exploitation of American immigration laws and to alleviate overcrowding at Border Patrol facilities after almost two million migrants crossed into the US between 2017 and 2019. Mexican authorities, while blaming the US for the situation, have nevertheless declined to designate the outdoor areas as official refugee camps in collaboration with the United Nations, which could then have provided the infrastructure for housing and sanitation.
- After a successful legal challenge at the federal appellate level, the Supreme Court agreed this week to review the policy. However, the case will not be resolved until after the election, meaning those living in the camp face many more months of waiting. (NYT)
Immune Response? Let’s Take A Jab At It
- An experimental COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford has produced an immune response in both young and old adults. It’s also proved to trigger lower adverse responses among the elderly, raising hopes that a way out of the pandemic might not be far off. Details of the finding are expected to be published soon in a clinical journal.
- The news that older people get an immune response from the vaccine jab is positive because the immune system weakens with age and older people are those most at risk of dying from the virus. British drugmaker AstraZeneca is helping to manufacture the vaccine. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be one of the first from big pharma to secure regulatory approval, along with Pfizer and BioNTech’s candidate. Britain’s health secretary said while a vaccine was not currently ready, one could possibly roll out in the first half of 2021. (Reuters)
Additional World News
- A US-Taiwan relationship doesn’t fly with Beijing: China to sanction Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon over Taiwan arms sales (Axios)
- China Is Far Behind on U.S. Purchases Under Trade Deal (WSJ, $)
- My Oh Ma: Jack Ma’s Ant set for world’s biggest share offering at £26bn (Guardian)
- Japan vows to become carbon-neutral by 2050, with zero emissions (WaPo, $)
- Moms Say Philippines ‘No Home Birth’ Policy Adds Burdens During Pandemic (NPR)
- Russian Airstrikes Kill Dozens of Turkish-Backed Rebels in Syria (NYT, $)
- Putin on the hits: Putin rejects Trump’s criticism of Hunter Biden’s business (NBC)
- Calls to boycott French products grow in Muslim world after Macron backs Mohammed cartoons (CNN)
- Nigeria’s #EndSARS is about the future of the country (Vox)
- Why Mexico’s President might want Trump re-elected (CNN). This seems borderline backward.
COVID-19
- ‘Generation COVID’ hit hard by the pandemic, research reveals (BBC)
- Huge COVID study finds remdesivir doesn’t work—FDA grants approval anyway (Ars Technica)
- Covid-19 Deaths: The Price for Not Wearing Masks is Perhaps 130000 Lives (NYT)
- U.S. hits highest daily number of coronavirus cases since pandemic began (WaPo)
- Cozy season is finally back, and there’s no better way to enjoy it than with a pair of comfortable Bombas on your feet.
- Bombas socks are specially designed for comfort with built-in arch support and a cushioned footbed. They’re also made with the best materials, like the magically soft merino wool, which will keep you warm and toasty all throughout the season.
- Each pair of Bombas that you buy will also help someone in need stay warm. For every pair purchased, Bombas will donate a pair to someone experiencing homelessness. Each donation gives someone the dignity of wearing clean clothes, and with your help, Bombas has already donated 40 million pairs.
- Shop new fall styles now! Use code PNUT for 20% off your first purchase.
The Grid At Their Fingertips
- A Russian state group, known to researchers as “Dragonfly” or “Energetic Bear” for its hackings of the energy sector, was not involved in the 2016 election hacking, but it’s been very busy ever since. In the past few years, the group has breached power grids, water treatment facilities, and even nuclear power plants, including one in Kansas.
- It’s also hacked into Wi-Fi systems at San Francisco International Airport and at least two other West Coast airports in March. Cybersecurity officials became particularly alarmed in September when they discovered the hackers prowling around dozens of American state and local government computer systems just two months before the presidential election.
- September’s intrusions were the first time that researchers had caught the group — a unit of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB — targeting states and counties. American officials described the hackings in an advisory last week as “opportunistic” rather than a clear attack on the election infrastructure. But the officials conceded that the group had targeted dozens of state and local systems and stolen data from at least two targets’ servers.
- “They’re broadly looking to scan for vulnerabilities,” said one official. The head of threat intelligence at CrowdStrike, a security firm that has monitored the group agreed, saying “This appears to be preparatory, to ensure access when they decide they need it.” Energetic Bear typically casts a wide net, then zeros in on a few high-value targets. (NYT)
Additional USA News
- She’s in: Senate confirms Amy Coney Barrett, heralding new conservative era for Supreme Court (NBC)
- White House holds swearing-in ceremony for Amy Coney Barrett (CNN)
- How Police Can Crack Locked Phones—and Extract Information (Wired). Police don’t need passcodes.
- How Police, National Guard And Military Are Preparing For Election Day Tensions (NPR)
- Armed, but not willing to endanger us. They’re Afraid. They’re Buying Guns. But They’re Not Voting for Trump. (Politico)
- In the Streets with Antifa (New Yorker)
- An all-Black group is arming itself and demanding change. They are the NFAC (CNN)
- Black Americans are fired up and flocking to the polls (CNN)
- Celebrities are telling you how to vote in 2020 with thirst traps (Vox). It’s the Insta-election season.
- Coronavirus cases are surging again. These states have refused to loosen rules on who can vote by mail. (WaPo, $)
- What’s to gain from abstaining? They Did Not Vote in 2016. Why They Plan on Skipping the Election Again. (NYT, $)
- The State Department’s Politicization Is Almost Complete (Atlantic, $)
One Prehistoric Step For Man…
- Archaeologists believe the earliest human footprints found so far in North America (in 2014) were those traversing the shoreline of Calvert Island, British Columbia some 13,000 years ago. It would have been during what scientists call the Late Pleistocene age, estimated to span the time between c.129,000 and c.11,700 years ago. The footprints show that humans inhabited the region at the end of the last ice age.
- Now, 427 human tracks found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico in 2017 show that humans were in the interior of North America as well at the end of the ice age, and they shared the terrain with some very large animals. These latest tracks record more than a mile of an out-and-return journey by a prehistoric young adult and a toddler, making it the longest Late Pleistocene-age double human trackway in the world. The adolescent or young adult female made two perilous trips, separated by at least several hours, carrying a young child in at least one direction. A giant ground sloth and Columbian Mammoth transected them between the outbound and return journeys.
- It is one of the most extensive Pleistocene-age trackways found to date, and studying it highlights how ancient sets of fossilized footprints can reveal more than even fossilized bones. It’s rare for bones to reveal behaviors, but tracks can shed a lot of light on animal interactions. One archaeologist hopes to better understand the people who inhabited the region. “We’re trying to assemble these little snapshots of what life was like in the past,” she said. (NYT)
Additional Reads
- A catalog of catastrophe: Lest We Forget the Horrors: A Catalog of Trump’s Worst Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes: The Complete Listing (So Far): Atrocities 1- 944 (McSweeney’s)
- Election stress disorder: Why American mental health is swayed by politics (Inverse)
- Borat Is the Perfect Avatar for 2020 (Atlantic, $). Sacha Baron Cohen bares all, of himself and America.
- Journalist Matthew Knott: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life (The Sydney Morning Herald)
- Chilling find shows how Henry VIII planned every detail of Boleyn beheading (Guardian)
- The Case for Reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps (Wired)
- Don’t Watch Porn at Work and Other Tips & Tweak Your Work-From-Home Life for Better Health (NYT, Lifehacker)
- Killer High: Exploring the Phenomenon of Acid-Fuelled Murder (Vice)
- Think it into existence: What is manifesting and does it actually work? (Vox)