Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Pfizer Covid vaccine blocks 94% of asymptomatic infections and 97% of symptomatic cases in Israeli study

L.A. County to reopen indoor restaurants, gyms Monday after California meets COVID-19 vaccine target

A Stanford scientist’s quest to cure his son could help unravel the mystery of Covid-19 long haulers

No, Trump Doesn’t Deserve Credit For Planning Vaccine Distribution

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, and Debt:

The multi-trillion-dollar plan to capture CO₂

Inflation Is Already Creeping Into Some Corners of the World

Politics:

Revisiting Trump’s Speech from a Year Ago

In the awful hindsight created by the deaths of more than five hundred thousand Americans, it’s a true horror to again hear Trump promising the country that ‘the virus will not have a chance against us,’ and insisting, ‘I will never hesitate to take the necessary steps to protect the lives, health, and safety of the American people.’ Watching this risible B.S. a year later, it seemed to me that even Trump had had a hard time believing his own bluster. When he read off the teleprompter that he was ‘confident’ of victory over the pandemic, he appeared to be gasping for air.
The whole speech, in fact, had the feel of a hostage video. Trump seemed like a politician who knew he was in big, big trouble that he might not get out of… From today’s vantage point, it seems disastrous.

Trump Properties Placed on Debt ‘Watch Lists’

Oath Keepers Top Target In DOJ Investigation Into Capitol Attack

Just when you think American politicians are about as bad as it gets, ”Australia’s Defence Minister Linda Reynolds has paid compensation to a former aide who she called a ‘lying cow’ after she alleged she had been raped by a former colleague.”

History will decide if the change was for the better: How the Pandemic Changed Biden’s Politics

I would even say that the American Rescue Plan compares favorably with the signature legislation of F.D.R.’s first 100 days, in that its $1.9 trillion price tag dwarfs the mere tens of billions (in inflation-adjusted dollars) spent by Congress during the earliest period of the New Deal. The challenge is very different — a Great Depression and its attendant unemployment and immiseration versus a health crisis and its economic impact — but the ambition is of similar scope.
Indeed, the story of this bill may be the story of how Biden has repudiated the austerity politics of much of the last decade, as well as the anti-assistance paradigm he himself helped forge when, as a senator, he warned in 1988 of ‘welfare mothers driving luxury cars’ and voted, in 1996, to make so-called welfare reform a reality.

Serendipity:

Minneapolis to pay $27 million to settle George Floyd's family lawsuit over deadly arrest

The Deadly Pig Virus That’s Proving Difficult to Beat

^{Badge thanks to @arcange}

^{Meme credit: njames4110 (source)}