Paxlovid, expensive
Pfizer more than doubled the price last year.
O, negative!
Paxlovid does its thing.
Karikó and Weissman
Nobel Prize winners.
Lisa Desjardins, Geoff Bennett, and Paul Offitt on RFK Jr.
Disease, death, and RFK Jr. Against disinformation.
Unhelpful reporting
The New York Times reports that the COVID-19 pandemic may have originated with raccoon dogs for sale at a market in Wuhan, China. But the article never explains why raccoon dogs were being sold there.
Free COVID tests (again)
Again.
Winter ahead
From The Atlantic: “If we treat this winter as normal, it will be anything but.”
Advice from one who’s been
You do not want to get the bivalent COVID booster and this year’s flu vaccine at the same time. You just don’t.
How Dr. Fauci caught COVID
Don’t let your guard down.
No, years
No, NYT, parents have been waiting for years.
Masking, still masking
We live in a county in which only 45.2% of the population is vaxxed. And only half of those people are boosted. And I should care that someone thinks it’s strange to be wearing a mask?
Free COVID-19 tests, round three
Third shipments of free at-home COVID-19 tests are now available to U.S. households.
Slipshod logic
Zeynep Tufekci writes about the slipshod logic behind delays in authorizing vaccines for children.
Birx’s merch
Dr. Deborah Birx has a makeover and a book. As she makes the rounds of ��the shows,” her praise of the defeated former president in 2020 renders irrelevant whatever she says now.
Masks
From The New York Times: “Does My Mask Protect Me if Nobody Else Is Wearing One?” The short answer: Yes, but make it a KF94, KN95, or N95.
Gratitude
An event was held at 6:00 a.m. to honor New York City EMTs, who attended on their own time. Mayor Eric Adams gave each EMT attending a cup of coffee and a donut, “as a measure of the city’s gratitude.”
Automat redux?
The Washington Post wonders if COVID might revive Automat-style dining.
Walking every street
From The New York Times, “One Cure for Pandemic Doldrums: Walking Every Street in Your City.”
Vaccination and persuasion
From The New York Times : Onesimus, Cotton Mather, Benjamin and Deborah Franklin, vaccination, and persuasion.
Recently updated
The professor who called his students “vectors of disease” is threatening to sue his school.
Getting free COVID tests via USPS
WNYC reports that people who live at an address not registered with the USPS as a multi-unit dwelling have been unable to order free COVID tests if someone from the same address has already ordered them. Here’s what to do.
Good going, Carhartt
I hope that those who are planning to boycott Carhartt because of the company’s stand on vaccination will soon need to boycott all consumer goods.
Laughter
A church that was (and is) gathering in person, with a congregation that laughs at the implication that their pastor contracted COVID-19.
Professor gone wild
Inside Higher Ed reports on a seventy-four-year-old history professor’s first-week video for his students. The performance/protest about teaching in a pandemic is at YouTube.
A shopping tip
When you check out, keep your cart behind you at the start of the checkout lane and unload your groceries from the front of the cart. Your cart thus keeps the unmasked asshat behind you at a greater distance.
Bounce, no bounce
We better leave before I bounce him like a rock,” the man said, loud enough for me to hear. But I didn’t hear a thing.
From the department of irony
I walked into CVS this afternoon. Two employees were standing at the register, each with a mask hanging from one ear. I asked if the store had COVID rapid-test kits available.
The Greek alphabet and us
A Washington Post article about the Greek alphabet in our time.
Pronouncing omicron
From The Wall Street Journal : “However You Pronounce ‘Omicron,’ You’re Probably Saying It Wrong.”
How to pronounce omicron
Several ways.