Dear patient readers,

Forgive me again for excuses. I know some of you are dealing with difficulties that make mine look trivial, like wresting with predatory landlords or student loan servicers, or fighting health care bureaucracies to get essential treatments. However, 9 hours and 35 minutes over 7 business days went to phone time with a big famous financial institution you heard of for something that should have been doable on line in 20 minutes. The fuckups were epic and soon will be the subject of a post.

Hopefully you can appreciate that the loss of more than a normal working day, on top of other estate matters, means I am tired (and even more annoyed than usual) and not up to concentrating to deliver a high quality original post.

Arctic hare hops the distance from Washington, DC, to New York City Science (martha r)

Meet Methuselah, likely oldest aquarium fish USA Today (furzy)

Frogs Regrow Missing Limbs in Lab Study, Advancing Key Effort of Regenerative Medicine Wall Street Journal

The trouble with beekeeping Grid News (resilc)

Amazing Hand-Cut Paper Art Mimics the Delicate Effect of Lace MyModernMet (David L)

Mark Cavendish: The Tour de France comeback for ‘cycling’s greatest sprinter’ BBC (J-LS)

New dangers? Computers uncover 100,000 novel viruses in old genetic data Science (martha r)

#COVID-19

Why Great Data Journalism Should Have Destroyed Djokovic’s Story – But Didn’t The Wire. I have to admit to not being terribly interested in this story. But I did not realize there was a dispute over his truthfulness as to when he’d had Covid. And there are far more important stories for data journalists to be tearing apart…

Science/Medicine

Understanding immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infections in children News-medical.net (Kevin W). Published in Immunity.

Unadjuvanted intranasal spike vaccine booster elicits robust protective mucosal immunity against sarbecoviruses BioRxIv (Basil Pesto). Preprint.

New on #LongCovid
An immunologic signature that may help predict its occurrencehttps://t.co/IwaJWQrycb@NatureComms
A mechanism by which #SARSCoV2 infected cells can trigger chronic inflammation via senescencehttps://t.co/yTWhJjYkfc @NatureAging

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 25, 2022

Omicron Deaths in US Exceed Delta’s Peak Wall Street Journal. Also in Water Cooler, but important not to miss.

Herd immunity is a myth

More than two-thirds of omicron cases are reinfections, study suggests

What we don’t know is how many people will have long term health consequences

We need continued mitigation strategies including universal N95 masking https://t.co/EVNr8hOg72

— Denise Dewald, MD ? (@denise_dewald) January 26, 2022

Long-COVID symptoms less likely in vaccinated people, Israeli data say Nature (Dr. Kevin). While possible, this does not seem consistent with extensive reports of asymptomatic cases leading to long Covid, particularly among the young, who are less likely to be vaccinated (and many also occurred before vaccinations were widely available): “In fact, vaccinated people were no more likely to report symptoms than people who’d never caught SARS-CoV-2.” Note self-reported, and you would need to look at the survey instrument very carefully to see if the ordering and Phrasing of the questions created bias.

Long Covid expert says the world is in ‘deep trouble’ and millions may suffer debilitating issues Daily Mail (J-LS)

This #urgencyofnormal toolkit cherry picks data. A classic case of how to lie with data.

There have been 5x more pediatric COVID deaths than flu since 2019. And their references actually suggest #LongCOVID is a problem for kids. pic.twitter.com/PZ5iSUy6Kb

— Emily R Smith, ScD MPH (@DrEmilyRSmith) January 26, 2022

Harvard, Stanford physicians call for universal use of N95s in hospitals Becker’s Hospital Review (martha r)

Covid-19 Vaccine Resource Center New England Journal of Medicine (Kevin C)

A Mini Corsi/Rosenthal Box Air Cleaner Tex-Air Filters (martha r)

Asia

Japan gov’t to allow COVID diagnoses without testing as omicron cases surge The Mainichi (martha r)

UK/Europe

Germany: Lawmakers debate introducing COVID vaccine mandate DW

US

United States got weapons to Ukraine faster than Covid tests to its citizens

— Left Flank Veterans (@LeftFlankVets) January 26, 2022

Hospitals deny transplants for the unvaccinated, with backing from ethicists STAT (Dr. Kevin). IM Doc taught ethics and studied under some who were considered icons in that field. I am sure he will have some choice words about this.

What to Do if You’ve Lost Your Covid-19 Vaccination Card New York Times. Resilc: “Will be like dealing with the DMV on ‘roids.”

The Biden administration paid hospital Covid-19 funds to drugmaker STAT (martha r)

HHS secretary under fire for being ‘invisible’ leader during pandemic The Hill (resilc). This is kind. As California AG, he was called “Basura” which means “garbage.”

Florida Governor DeSantis demands COVID treatments deemed ineffective by FDA Yahoo (J-LS)

The Case Against Masks at School Atlantic (resilc)

Climate

The effects of defaunation on plants’ capacity to track climate change Science

Indonesia is clearing less forest for palm oil, but it’s still not sustainable, activists say Mongobay (J-LS)

India’s official green cover report even counts clumps of trees in cities as forests Scroll (J-LS)

China?

China in the Middle East Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (Chuck L)

British blogger’s prank shows how little West’s ‘China experts’ really know about China Global Times (guurst)

Translation: 14th Five-Year Plan for National Informatization – Dec. 2021 DigiChina (guurst)

This week’s rout in Chinese education stocks shows how quickly investors can turn on an industry if they suspect President Xi Jinping will intensify a crackdown https://t.co/zbOpuVTemD

— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) January 27, 2022

Rising private city operators in contemporary China: A study of the CFLD model ScienceDirect (resilc)

Old Blighty

Among many trivialities, a serious point, It is appalling that Johnson’s friends believe that it is worth undermining the entire rule of law to save him. If a Prime Minister breaks the law, that law can’t have been very good, being their argument . A corruption of politics. https://t.co/TBbVmnF7K0

— David Henig ?? (@DavidHenigUK) January 26, 2022

New Cold War

US urges de-escalation over Ukraine, offers Russia diplomatic path Reuters

The pro-detente position of Willy Brandt’s ‘Ostpolitik’ still is alive and finding its voice in Germany today Gilbert Doctorow (guurst)

Democrats Rushing Through Massive Ukraine Defense Bill Intercept

Democrats’ Russia sanction bill could lead to a diplomatic disaster Responsible Statecraft (Kevin W)

Here’s what sanctions the US could impose on Russia if it invades Ukraine ABC Australia. Kevin W: “They even want to go after Putin’s girlfriend. That should ease tensions.”

Washington tells Russian ambassador he might have to leave RT. Kevin W: “Maybe the Russians can’t see their diplomatic compound in San Francisco because Nancy has turned it into a rental.”

Reassessing LDNR military capabilities The Saker (Chuck L)

Ukraine as Game Board CounterPunch (resilc)

Syraqistan

Qatar’s foreign minister set to visit Iran to meet top officials Aljazeera

Tom Friedman and Israel will save US democracy and blow your mind Al Jazeera (resilc)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Could China Fish a Dead F-35C Stealth Fighter From the South China Sea? 19FortyFive (David L)

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Digital authoritarianism: Kazakhstan is the latest country to use internet shutdown as a weapon Scroll (J-LS)

Trump

Is Trump’s Hold On The GOP Still Strong? FiveThirtyEight. Resilc: “The only protest candidate for the working /middle classes vs the PMC/DNC, IMO”

Virginia’s Republican Governor Youngkin: Trump in Sheepskins CounterPunch. Resilc: “Far worse. Private equity.”

Supremes

Justice Stephen Breyer to retire from Supreme Court, paving way for Biden appointment NBC (J-LS)

How McConnell Could Block Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee Time (resilc)

Biden’s Pledge to Nominate Black Woman to SCOTUS in Spotlight as Breyer Plans Retirement Newsweek

Stephen Breyer’s Legacy of Destruction Matt Stoller

Another Supreme Court Corporatist Would Be A Disaster David Sirota

A Brief History of Stephen Breyer Enabling Corporate Power Balls and Strikes. J-LS: “From October; still germane.”

L’affaire Jeffrey Epstein

Prince Andrew: Lawyers demand US jury trial in Virginia Giuffre case BBC (J-LS)

Woke Watch

New Virginia Hotline Lets Parents Report ‘Divisive Teaching Practices’ Wall Street Journal. Lambert had a similar story in Water Cooler yesterday….

How It Feels to Be an Asian Student in an Elite Public School New York Times (J-LS)

Supply Chain

US warns of fragile chip supply as inventory falls to just five days Financial Times

Tesla warns of supply chain constraints as it reports record profit Financial Times. Your humble blogger leads a sheltered life. Saw my first Tesla on the street yesterday (Model X)

Crapification

Boeing posts massive charge for 787 Dreamliner problems, sending losses soaring CNN. Kevin W: “’…because of quality control issues’ Why am I not surprised?”

Elon Musk SpaceX rocket on collision course with moon BBC (furzy)

Facebook’s Cryptocurrency Venture to Wind Down, Sell Assets Wall Street Journal

Class Warfare

Judge imposes strike ban on 17,000 BNSF railway workers WSWS

Antidote du jour (CV):

I had a normal bonus with a TikTok embed recommended by Bob, but it made the page keep scrolling down, so I had to remove it. Sorry! Why provide embed code and then have it misbehave?

And a bonus (furzy). This is a bit of a departure from our usual Antidote, but we’ve featured Jerusalema before, and this is a particularly good rendition. Plus IMHO cheery material is more needed than evah.

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.