The CDC has finally recommended wearing masks indoors when not at home. This advice could have saved thousands of lives if it had been issued while you were being schooled on the glories of Hydroxychloroquin, and being subjected to musings on the benefits of shooting up disinfectant or shoving a UV light up our ass. Why is this painfully obvious lifesaving advisory just coming now? You know exactly why. In some cases, insanity can be fatal, even if you’re not the one who’s insane.

+ Biden Asks Fauci To Join His Team, Will Urge 100 Days Of Mask-Wearing. (I wish we could backdate the mask wearing part.)

+ “I’m just astounded by the dysfunction, the willingness to just stay the course as hundreds of thousands of people die, and the unwillingness to innovate in literally any way. I’ve realized that when we need to rise up as a country, we have truly no moral capacity to do it. It’s just the most mind-bending, complete Twilight Zone experience that makes you ask why the hell we even bother.” Think you’re bummed about America’s reaction to the pandemic? Infectious disease experts face disillusionment as COVID-19 pandemic worsens.

+ “Vehicle travel in early November was as much as 20% lower than a year earlier, but it surged around the holiday and peaked on Thanksgiving Day at only about 5% less than the pandemic-free period in 2019.”

+ “Most said that even with vaccines, it would probably take a year or more for many activities to safely restart, and that some parts of their lives may never return to the way they were.” NYY Upshot: How 700 Epidemiologists Are Living Now, and What They Think Is Next.

+ Zeynep Tufekci with a very interesting look at a South Korean study on how the virus travels indoors (or, why you should get all restaurant orders to go…).

+ Italy bans travel between towns over Christmas. (Since the beginning of the pandemic I’ve wondered why there weren’t at least some similar suggestions made in America. Wouldn’t limiting ourselves to our own towns have limited spread? Maybe I just hate traveling.)