Well, rewatching Lord of the Rings this year was... different.
Consider BILBO: just wants to finish his damn book; “butter spread over too much bread”; ages dramatically
GANDALF: would rather be doing pretty fireworks; instead has to ride around shouting policy advice at inexplicably reluctant leaders; can’t get a day off even when dead
THEODEN: “What can men do against such reckless hate? A THREAD 1/“
MERRY: normally happy guy who fully loses his shit over the incredibly powerful beings who take months to agree on the most basic stuff
DENETHOR: wields power over an entire city and *could* save everyone but instead decides to set himself and his loved ones on fire; also eating indoors, come on man.
BALROG: angry; on fire; probably doing yet another podcast interview; cooped up too long and skin is in an absolute state
FRODO & SAM: tired; can’t remember taste of strawberries; just going to have a little nap; everything around them is on fire; this is fine.
SAURON: does not sleep; ever watchful; Doomscrolling
LEGOLAS: why is everyone so down?; using this time to learn new hobbies; birdwatching, surfing, riding, kayaking; keen on scoring points
GALADRIEL: chilling out in fancy country house; sending you thoughts and prayers; gift-giving is her love language
WORMTONGUE: this &£@?ing guy; witless yet somehow in a position of political power; gives terrible advice; sliding into your DMs
SARUMAN: once wise but increasingly deranged with every zoom call; bad at gardening; good at quarantine puppies
ARAGORN: reluctantly getting involved because everyone else is rubbish; co-founder of Orc Tracking Project; grungy but it works for him; prefers athleisure to office clothes
GOLLUM: too used to quarantine; can’t be bothered to get dressed; social skills have deteriorated; needs to hydrate; ill-advisedly going out in public despite terrible cough
NEW ZEALAND: the real hero of the story; doing very well for itself; you want to be there
BEACON-OPERATORS OF MINAS TIRITH: sitting on top of a cold, lonely mountain for years, waiting to sound the alarm when a long-predicted calamity occurs and hoping that everyone reacts appropriat... wait they did WHAT?
BOROMIR: armchair human who has read three scrolls about Mordor but thinks he understands it better than the 6000-year-old elf general who actually fought there
ENTS: nature is healing
(People have requested EOWYN but I can’t top this one:
At the Atlantic, the peerless @sarahzhang has been leading our coverage of COVID-19 vaccines. Here's a thread of her amazing work.
1) A great big-picture look at the Moderna & Pfizer vaccines, which also explains mRNA vaccines are. theatlantic.com/health/archive…
2) Here, Sarah looks at the results from the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine trial and why they're a little weirder and more confusing than those from the other two. theatlantic.com/health/archive…
3) Here, Sarah looks at the challenges posed by the transition between two administrations, and the problems that Biden may face as a result.
It has been too long since I’ve done this, but here are some great pandemic-related pieces from the last month or so, from people whose work I respect.
If you’ve liked my work, perhaps you’ll also like the work that I like.
.@rkhamsi, who's consistently been one of the best pandemic reporters, wrote about the absurd policies that are doing the rounds: wired.com/story/a-lack-o…
.@CarolineYLChen wrote this searing piece about how frustrated health-care workers are. They "don’t need patronizing praise. They need resources, federal support, and for us to stay healthy and out of their hospitals."
🚨I wrote about UNMC--the hospital that, perhaps more than any other in the US, had prepared for a pandemic. It has amazing facilities. Its staff anticipated, planned, drilled.
And now?
“I don’t see how we avoid becoming overwhelmed,” one doc said. 1/
Here’s what the current surge is doing to the best-prepared hospital:
➡️One building is now a COVID tower.
➡️10 COVID units; 1 solely for patients to die.
➡️Some days, they’re short 45-60 nurses.
➡️“We’re watching a system breaking in front of us." 2/
Hospital staff are *exhausted*. A nurse who normally works in oncology told me she can barely comprehend the amount of death she has seen in recent weeks.
Work "follows me everywhere I go. It’s all I see when I come home, when I look at my kids.” 3/
Here are Iowa's cases. The 12-day lag between cases & hospitalizations means people in the blue portion will be trying to enter those full ICUs over the next 2 weeks.
HOW?
I say Iowa, but you could do this same analysis for any number of states, especially in the Midwest. The near-term future is already baked in, which is why you have to act *ahead* of the virus. (See Problem #8 in this story about 9 intuitive fallacies.)
You’ve seen the huge numbers. Here’s what they can mean.
➡️36-hour shifts
➡️Docs on standby in case a colleague and their substitute AND their substitute’s substitute get sick
➡️“We’re all running on fear”
➡️“There’s only so many bags you can zip” 2/