The state could be facing a once-unthinkable scenario of nearly 100,000 hospitalizations within a month.” California records half a million Covid cases in two weeks. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, the country has imposed new regulations after its first Covid case since April.

+ “The contrast between demonstrations like this and the scenes inside intensive-care units couldn’t be starker. As the protest unfolded, area hospitals careened toward disaster. By the end of the next day, I.C.U. capacity in San Joaquin County hit zero per cent—meaning that the demand for beds at the county’s seven hospitals exceeded availability.” The New Yorker: In the San Joaquin Valley, medical professionals fear that many in the public still fail to grasp the dangers of COVID-19. (People have been dying for ten months.)

+ Dr Deborah Birx: White House virus expert will quit over holiday travel. (Her travel was actually pretty safe and probably extremely safe if you consider her access to tests. When you yell at everyone for everything, then none of it means anything.)

+ AP: US holiday travel surges despite outbreak. “‘My mom’s worth it. She needs my help,’ said 34-year-old Jennifer Brownlee, a fisherman from Bayou La Batre, Alabama, who was waiting at the Tampa airport to fly to Oregon to see her mother, who just lost a leg. ‘I know that God’s got me. He’s not going to let me get sick.'” (Maybe, with 323,000 deaths, God is trying to send you a sign?)