For a short week, it’s certainly felt pretty long, eh? Save this for your weekend reading.
COVID-19
- Reuters: Moderna rally loses steam over COVID-19 vaccine worries – “Shares of biotechs racing to make coronavirus vaccines, including Moderna Inc (MRNA.O), fell about 10% on Wednesday, as investor concerns grew about the prospects of the experimental products that are still in early stages of development.”
- Washington Post: Coronavirus may never go away, even with a vaccine – “It is a daunting proposition — a coronavirus-tinged world without a foreseeable end. But experts in epidemiology, disaster planning and vaccine development say embracing that reality is crucial to the next phase of America’s pandemic response.”
- NPR: Pence Chief Of Staff Owns Stocks That Could Conflict With Coronavirus Response – “Marc Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Pence, owns between $506,043 and $1.64 million worth of individual stocks in companies doing work related to the Trump administration’s pandemic response — holdings that could run afoul of conflict of interest laws.”
- FiveThirtyEight: COVID-19 Is A Respiratory Disease. So Why Is It Affecting Patients’ Hearts And Brains? – “Experts say the novel coronavirus is not some kind of all-powerful superbug; the wide range of symptoms and complications experienced by COVID-19 patients are also found in other kinds of infections.”
- ScienceMag.org: Reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 – “For society to resume, measures designed to reduce aerosol transmission must be implemented, including universal masking and regular, widespread testing to identify and isolate infected asymptomatic individuals.”
- Politico: Bad state data hides coronavirus threat as Trump pushes reopening – “Federal and state officials across the country have altered or hidden public health data crucial to tracking the coronavirus’ spread, hindering the ability to detect a surge of infections as President Donald Trump pushes the nation to reopen rapidly.”
- NPR: Antibody Tests Point To Lower Death Rate For The Coronavirus Than First Thought – “Mounting evidence suggests the coronavirus is more common and less deadly than it first appeared.”
- Vox: A third of Americans report anxiety or depression symptoms during the pandemic – “Nationally, around a third of Americans have reported recent symptoms of anxiety and depression since late April. For comparison, in the first three months of 2019, just 11 percent of Americans reported these symptoms on a similar survey.”
George Floyd & the Minnesota Protests
- The New Yorker: The Death of George Floyd, in Context – “Police responding to a call from a shopkeeper, about someone trying to pass a potentially counterfeit bill, arrested Floyd. Surveillance video shows a compliant man being led away in handcuffs. But cellphone video later shows a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for seven minutes, despite protests from onlookers that his life is in jeopardy.”
- NPR: Minneapolis Police Station Set Ablaze As Protests Spread Over George Floyd’s Death – “Fire ravaged the 3rd Precinct police building in Minneapolis on Thursday night as thousands of people jammed downtown streets on the third night of furious protests over the death of a black man after an encounter with police.”
- AP: Officer Involved In Killing Of George Floyd Has Been Arrested – “The Minneapolis police officer who was seen on video kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died in custody after pleading that he could not breathe, was arrested Friday and charged with murder.”
Trump & His Flunkies
- Axios: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media platforms – “The order comes after the president escalated his attacks against Big Tech in recent days — specifically Twitter, which fact-checked him for the first time this week over an unsubstantiated claim that mail-in voting drives voter fraud.”
- TPM: Trump Announces US Is Cutting Ties With World Health Organization – “After arriving at the podium almost an hour late, President Trump on Friday announced that he was cutting the country’s ties to the World Health Organization, a new step in his ploy to shield himself from criticism of his mishandling of COVID-19 ahead of the November election.”
- TPM: ‘When The Looting Starts, The Shooting Starts’: Trump Quotes ’60s Police Chief’s Bloody Phrase – “Trump’s use of that phrase earned him a warning label of sorts from Twitter: The tweet wasn’t visible until clicking through a disclaimer that the text ‘violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence.'”
Other Stuff You Should Be Paying Attention To
- NBC News: The NSA has a warning: Russia’s most infamous hackers are still active – “The same Russian intelligence unit that leaked Democrats’ files in 2016 is engaged in an ongoing email hacking campaign, the National Security Agency announced Thursday.”
- Lifehacker: How to Vote by Mail – “Here’s what you need to know about voting by mail in a year facing both a contentious presidential election and a global pandemic.”
- Bellingcat: The Boogaloo Movement Is Not What You Think – “These exchanges offer a window into an extremely online update of the militia movement, which is gearing up for the northern summer. The ‘Boogaloo Bois’ expect, even hope, that the warmer weather will bring armed confrontations with law enforcement, and will build momentum towards a new civil war in the United States.”
- Reuters: Britain may offer ‘path to citizenship’ for nearly 3 million in Hong Kong – “Britain is prepared to offer extended visa rights and a pathway to citizenship for almost 3 million Hong Kong residents in response to China’s push to impose national security legislation in the former British colony.”
- Lifehacker: Don’t End Texts With a Period – “Even though many of us use periods all day, every day as we write emails, reports or articles, for some reason, adding that little dot at the end of a text message shifts the meaning from ‘this sentence is over’ to ‘maybe this friendship is over.’ But how could something so simple seem so passive aggressive?”
Okay, kids, it’s Friday. Good luck and stay safe out there.
Notes & Thoughts 