Pandemic, Week 42 (Good Riddance, 2020)

This week Congress overrode Trump's veto on the Defense Bill.  Treasury Secretary Mnuchin announced that $600 Covid Relief would begin to go out this week, while Senate Democrats attempted to force a vote on a House bill (which had passed with a 2/3 majority) to increase the payments to $2,000 (as requested by Trump). Mitch McConnell blocked all attempts for a vote. A federal judge threw out Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert's lawsuit seeking to allow Mike Pence to interfere with the Electoral College count by excluding certain states (Pence had independently requested the judge to reject the case). Meanwhile, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley has vowed to object to the Electoral Count which will result in each member of Congress having to vote as to whether Joe Biden is the legitimate President. 11 other Senators have vowed to join him and request a 10-day audit.

The world reached 85.0 million Covid cases this week and 1.8 million deaths as the U.S. hit 20.9 million cases and 359,000 deaths. A pharmacist from the Milwaukee area was arrested after intentionally leaving out the equivalent of over 500 doses of the Moderna vaccine in order to render them ineffective. Newly elected Rep. Luke Letlow from Louisiana died of COVID. He was 41 years old.

We spent the week recovering from our Christmas celebrations (while opening a few more presents) and saying farewell to the year that must not be named. We reconvened our bubble (plus Lee) at Katherine and Lees to celebrate the official passing of time. Per usual, there were a lot of games (Owen won the point total but we decided the prize was better suited to Lee), crowdsourcing of a gingerbread house competition, a socially distant visit from Billy (which turned into a PSA for pitbull adoption), food, and adult beverages. But in the waning minutes of 2020, Katherine asked us all to reflect on the year. We talked about all that had passed – illness, death, police brutality, systemic racism, the rejection of science, and the politicizing of seemingly everything. But we also talked about what we hoped to strive for going forward. Katherine asked for everyone to share one word they wanted to focus on in the next year and then commemorated the words on bracelets. We collectively came up with hugs, peace, love, forgive, health, Afrocentric, reach, imagine, better, slow and open.

And then we welcomed 2021 (and bludgeoned our metaphorical 2020 stand-in).

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