Favorites December 18th 2021

Catherine Rampell @crampell

Appeals court reinstates Biden’s vaccine policy for businesses, setting up a likely showdown at Supreme Court

washingtonpost.comAppeals court reinstates Biden’s vaccine policy for businesses, setting up a likely showdown at Supreme CourtUnder the policy, private employers with more than 100 workers must require staff to get vaccinated or face weekly testing and mandatory masking.

Mandates are how we're going to get the vaccination rate up. The details of the ruling are pretty funny.

Randall Munroe @xkcd

Turing Complete xkcd.com/2556

One of the more topical XKCDs I've seen in a long time. The incident in question was detailed by Project Zero a few days ago, it's a bit technical, but absolutely wild.

Michael Mina @michaelmina_lab

IMPORTANT: RAPID TESTS DO WORK WITH OMICRON "But why are some people staying negative in the first days they have symptoms??" This is expected. Symptoms don't = contagious virus This is literally a reflection of the fact that vaccines are doing their job! PLEASE READ

The element about vaccinated people having symptoms earlier, even significantly before tests show positive. More details if you're interested.

Elon Musk @elonmusk

Starship Super Heavy engine steering test

Wow, it looks so syncronized it seems like computer graphics.

Peter Sterne @petersterne

One reason it’s currently so tough to find an at-home covid tests might be because in June, Abbott Labs shut down the factories that manufactured them, laid off all the workers, and even destroyed testing equipment. nytimes.com/2021/08/20/us/… h/t @NYMag

nytimes.comMaker of Popular Covid Test Told Factory to Destroy InventoryOne of the leading producers of rapid tests purged supplies and laid off workers as sales dwindled. Weeks later, the U.S. is facing a surge in infections with diminished capacity.

They destroyed like 8 million tests, citing expiration dates, although photos of the tests to be destroyed show that some were far from expiration.

August 2016, Vienna