Pandemic, Week 40 (It's a Pandemic!)

On Monday, the Electoral College elected Joe Biden President of the United States. Shortly after, Bill Barr announced he was stepping down as Attorney General effective December 23rd. Joe Biden nominated his former opponent and mayor of South Bend, IN, Pete Buttigieg, for Secretary of Transportation and picked Allen's former boss, Gina McCarthy, for domestic climate czar. Congress is still working to finalize a $900 billion, second COVID stimulus package tied to a funding bill ahead of a government shutdown, with democrats objecting to a republican provision that Federal Reserve emergency lending facilities be terminated by December 31, 2020, and republicans voicing concerns about the debt. The government recently discovered that at least six agencies were breached by Russian hackers back in March, including the Homeland Security, Energy and Treasury Departments. The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed arguing that Dr. Jill Biden, Ed.D, should not be able to use her title because she hasn't delivered a baby. DC had its first winter snow (though it didn't stick).

In this 40th week of the pandemic (the equivalent of a human gestational period), the world hit 76.6 million COVID cases and 1.7 million deaths while the U.S. reached 18.1 million cases and 323,000 deaths. The FDA authorized use of the Moderna vaccine in addition to the Pfizer one. Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and Surgeon General Jerome Adams all received their first dose of the vaccination. Emails surfaced from this summer with a top Trump's science advisor advocating a policy to encourage kids and young people to acquire the infection in order to reach herd immunity. The Trump administration has denied that such a policy was under consideration.

This week was all over the place for us. It was 60 degrees on Sunday, so we had the Telfair-Chas over for a socially-distant brunch. Later, Nora performed in a remote viola recital and then we had a cookie decorating contest (thanks to Jimmy and Merrily!). Grandpa lost (with Allen as a close second). Nora won.

Nora took her cookie-decorating title to Mom Moms for a marathon baking session (and a sleepover). When she got back, there was some work on Nora's science fair project, followed by a whole lot of work on the house as we had the siding and the back door replaced (soon to be followed by the decks next week). Nora's project was a lot quieter.

Which is why it's great that we're headed to the beach...

(To see all of this week's pictures, click here.)