Don't throw your mask away yet

If the news about the COVID-19 pandemic reminds you a bit of a roller coaster lately, you're not alone. The optimistic news about vaccine distribution and efficacy is being tempered significantly by warnings from public health officials that if we don't remain vigilant, we could well be in for a fourth surge of the virus in the U.S....just when we were planning our emergence from our pandemic cocoons.

• — "Impending doom." Those were the exact words Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used to express her concerns. During a virtual White House briefing yesterday, she said, "We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope. But right now, I'm scared."
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• — "This is deadly serious." President Biden echoed Walensky's concerns as he announced steps to expand vaccinations—with all adults to become eligible over the next 5 weeks—as well as the number of retail pharmacies that are administering vaccines. He also strongly urged governors to reinstate mask mandates and other restrictions that some states have been easing.
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• — "Fight to the finish." Cases of the virus are up about 10% over the past week from the previous week, to about 60,000 cases per day, with both hospitalizations and deaths ticking up as well, Walensky said. She warned that without immediate action, the U.S. could follow European countries into another spike in cases and suffer more needless deaths. —Associated Press

Reiss: Keep public health data free from politics

"This week, former CDC Director Robert Redfield confirmed to CNN something reported last September: that even the CDC's scientific Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report was subject to political pressure and that he was asked to change the report ‘on more than one occasion.' ... It's appropriate for elected or politically appointed officials to want to have a say in matters that involve values and allocation of scarce resources. But if politics skew the data, the decisions cannot be well founded. Political intervention in the evidentiary basis for decisions—essentially, rewriting the data to fit the politics—only harms." —Dorit Reiss on CNN

Dorit Reiss is the James Edgar Hervey Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

MORE: Biden task force to probe science manipulation under Trump —NBC News

NYC on cusp of policing reform

The city of New York has moved to end qualified immunity, making it the first city in the U.S. to do so. Qualified immunity is the practice of not being able to file a civil lawsuit against a government official performing their official duties unless they violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." The City Council voted to end the practice for the New York Police Department, which is the largest police force in the U.S., with some 36,000 officers. Police union officials are speaking out against the law, which New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio has signaled he intends to sign. —ABC News

MORE: Derek Chauvin trial: On day 2, young woman who filmed George Floyd's death testifies —The New York Times

Here come the judges

President Biden announced his first judicial nominations today, a diverse slate that includes 10 nominees to serve as federal circuit and district court judges, and one individual to serve as a superior court judge for the District of Columbia. Among the nominees is Ketanji Brown Jackson, who, if confirmed, would fill the U.S. Court of Appeals seat vacated by Merrick Garland. She has served as a federal trial judge for eight years and is considered a potential Supreme Court contender. As a presidential candidate, Biden pledged to select a Black woman for the high court should a vacancy occur. —NPR

MORE: Supreme Court rebuffs bid for Hillary Clinton deposition about emails —The Hill

Gates: The US must fix the hole in its cyberdefense

"SolarWinds and the attack on Microsoft make clear that prompt action [on cybersecurity] is necessary. The approach we devised in 2010 would not require new legislation and could be implemented quickly. We are under attack. There might be a more elegant solution to our vulnerability, but a better means of defense is available now." —Robert Gates in The Washington Post

Robert Gates served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1991 to 1993 and as secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011.

MORE: SolarWinds hack got emails of top DHS officials —Associated Press

Focus on domestic extremism

The Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol is forcing lawmakers to pivot to finding out about future threats before extremists try to mount new attacks. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served in Iraq and now serves as chair of a House Homeland Security subcommittee, recently hosted a hearing with state attorneys general on the issue. She is also coordinating with the White House on potential executive orders to address the threat, as well as the possible creation of a domestic terrorism czar.

• — Slotkin and other lawmakers are crafting policy to better equip government agencies to focus on homegrown extremists. Some key Republicans, including Sen. Rob Portman, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, agree with the need for action. “I think that's one [area] where there's a lot of bipartisan consensus," Portman says. —WBUR
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• — Time is of the essence. A new report by Rutgers' Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience and the Network Contagion Research Institute chronicles the growth in real time of a conspiracy theory that sprang from the Jan. 6 insurrection. Proponents, who warn of a coming "New World Order" through a totalitarian world government, are using social media to attach this belief system to existing conspiracy theories and spread it to the masses. —Security Magazine
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• — Not just an online problem. Dueling groups of right- and left-wing demonstrators faced off near the grounds of the Oregon Capitol building on Sunday. The crowd pelted passing vehicles with paint-filled balloons and other objects. In one case, someone threw a tree limb through the front window of a passing vehicle. Another man was taken into custody by police after confronting the crowd with a gun. —The Oregonian

Grier: Where next for our strained democracy?

"The good news in America is that as democracy has been stressed in recent years, the courts, the media, and brave individuals have proved resilient enough to stand up and protect it. Democratic culture in the country runs deep—perhaps deeper than in other places where it has begun to wobble in recent years. But the hard truth is that U.S. democracy has long been a work in progress, slowly accepting excluded groups such as women and Black people, sometimes rolling back gains already made, producing authoritarian areas little influenced by democratic ideals. The passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 put the U.S. on the path to becoming a full democracy. But there is still progress to made. Protecting democracy may involve building it in the first place, as well." —Peter Grier in The Christian Science Monitor

Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor.

One thing the Republican Party has made perfectly clear is that it doesn't believe it can win an election based on its policies unless it restricts voter participation. Instead of restricting voting, which will most likely backfire on them, maybe they should get in step with what the voters want out of a supposed conservative party. 

P.S. Thanks to Eden S. for a good warning on the dangers of stereotyping. —Tom A., Oregon

How long did Derek Chauvin have his knee implanted on George Floyd's neck? 

Let's go back to 1968, the worst year of my, and perhaps your, life until 2020, and two songs that were popular then, and iconic now: 

Have you ever listened to "Hey Jude" all the way through? It is 7 minutes and 11 seconds long. 

Have you ever listened to "MacArthur Park" all the way through? It is 7 minutes and 21 seconds long. 

Chauvin's knee was on Floyd's neck for more than one minute longer than the duration of either song. 

I was going to call Rudy Giuliani, or Sean Hannity, or Jeanine Pirro, or Mark Levin, or Greg Kelly, or Brian Kilmeade to mention this, but they would probably hang up on me, or pivot the conversation to mail-in ballots in Georgia. —Jim V., New York

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