Happy Monday. Happy Monday. Lay’s 80-proof potato vodka is now a thing, and it sold out in less than three hours. Oreo wine, french fry vodka, now potato chip vodka, I’m not sure I want to know what’s next. Pork beer? Kale champagne?
credit: lays
In Case You Missed It.
💊 The U.S. FDA will allow abortion pills to be delivered through the mail, permanently lifting a rule that required patients to pick up the medication in-person.
🇪🇹 The UN Human Rights Council voted Friday to investigate severe human rights violations in Ethiopia.
🇨🇿 The new Czech government was sworn in Friday, formally taking office ten weeks after the election.
🦘 The UK signed a free trade agreement with Australia in its first fully post-Brexit deal.
🇬🇧 UK Brexit minister David Frost resigned his post this weekend, dealing yet another blow to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Coronavirus Update: 😷 Total confirmed global cases as of 7 p.m. ET on Sunday: 274,679, 460 — Total deaths: 5,353,969 — Total vaccine doses administered: 8,680,458,580
- The U.S. Sixth Circuit lifted the ban on President Biden’s vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers Friday. To help scrambling employers, the Department of Labor pushed back its deadline for compliance to Feb. 9.
- And the U.S. Fifth Circuit lifted its nationwide ban on Biden’s vaccine mandate for health care workers, but it is still in effect for about half the country.
- And in other great news for Boris Johnson, Britain has been recording daily records for Covid infections. Germany and France have imposed restrictions on UK travelers, and more countries are likely to follow.
- The Netherlands has gone back into full mandatory lockdown.
- Harvard University is going back into lockdown, transitioning most students back to remote learning for three weeks in January.
- The U.S. CDC is recommending Moderna and Pfizer vaccines over Johnson & Johnson when possible, due to the rare, potentially life-threatening risk of blood clots from J&J.
- The CDC also signed off on U.S. schools using “test-to-stay” programs for Covid-exposed children to avoid quarantine.
- A Danish study found that the Moderna vaccine is up to four times more likely to cause heart inflammation than Pfizer. 1 in 23,800 Moderna-vaccinated participants experienced myocarditis vs. 1 in 71,400 people who received the Pfizer vaccine. Most of the cases were mild.
- New research shows that fully vaccinated people who have breakthrough infections could have “super immunity.” I now have an answer for what superpower I want to have.
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