Pandemic, Week 46 (The Razor's Edge)

This week the Senate resolved its power-sharing agreement when two Democrats reiterated their refusal to end the filibuster.  Mitch McConnell and 44 other republicans voted to scrap Trump's impeachment trial, claiming it was unconstitutional to impeach a former president, despite having delayed the trial until his term ended. Meanwhile, five of Trump's defense lawyers quit a little over a week before the trial is set to begin. Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen was confirmed as the first female Treasury Secretary. President Biden reversed the ban of transgender people serving in the armed forces. Senate Democrats reintroduced a bill for DC Statehood. After an online Reddit forum flagged that GameStop stock was being shorted by a hedge fund, share prices increased by more than 400 percent, bankrupting the hedge fund and resulting in online trading platforms restricting trading of GameStop shares and calls for the SEC to address market manipulation. Protests erupted in Russia after the arrest of opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. Cloris Leachman and Cicely Tyson both died.

The world reached 103.1 million COVID cases and 2.2 million deaths this week of which the U.S. accounted for 26.7 million of the cases and 450,000 of the deaths. Johnson & Johnson announced their single-shot vaccine was 66 percent effective in preventing moderate to severe COVID-19. DC started vaccinating teachers as it begins reopening for in-person learning next week (our kids are staying virtual). Budweiser announced that in lieu of advertisements, it would use airtime during the Superbowl to broadcast a 90-second spot on COVID vaccine awareness. California has reversed its stay-at-home order. Meanwhile, rioting broke out in the Netherlands after the government imposed a national curfew.

We got back to work (though we can't physically get to work with all of the added security measures). Allen was appointed to the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases. He cut hair. He did taxes. I reposted all the research that the last administration removed from the agency's website. The kids finished their first full semester of social distancing. Nora crafted key chains for her BFFs. Owen started back with the Earth Treks climbing team. 

It felt good to occupy ourselves in a productive way, even though the city is still occupied by National Guardsman and arrests continue to be made of insurrectionist, including one 71-year old found by the Rayburn House Office Building with 20-rounds of ammunition. Someday, maybe we'll get to venture out again too.  

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