Two things I love to do: Sing and travel. There are limits on both this year. Travel is “fraught” as they say. (I’ve noticed the news media calls everything fraught this year, so I thought I’d join in.)

Thanksgiving is here and there is no shortage of advice. Stay home, limit gathering size, eat outside, don’t travel. Remember when Thanksgiving news articles were about whether to baste, brine, or deep-fry your turkey? I looked back to last year’s Los Angeles Times to seek a bit of nostalgia. And this is what I saw:

Around midnight last night I saw conflicting news alerts about the vaccine from Oxford/AstraZeneca. This is the third vaccine to publish efficacy results in the last two weeks. But 70% and 90%? It’s a huge discrepancy. Apparently it didn’t bother the stock market.

Not only the vaccines are making progress this week. New studies are beginning to give us a better understanding of how COVID-19 spreads and how long our immunity lasts. Many of these studies are of the “meta-analysis” type. That is, they search the literature

Yesterday a second vaccine announced a milestone in the development process. This time it was Moderna that boosted the stock market by announcing a 94.5% efficacy rate. The press release announced that this meets interim criteria for the phase three trial by detecting 95 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in a study of 30,000 volunteers.

I found my snow boots today! I was so afraid I’d tossed them a move or two ago. Yosemite had its first snowfall of the season last weekend and we’ll be there in three weeks! It’s so important to have something to look forward to–to get you through the winter. Things that make you smile. Like snow and flowers and music.

Back in August Germany performed a study to help plan how to stage concerts safely. Even though I don’t go to concerts often, this is a subject dear to my heart because I do miss singing with my choral group the Festival Singers. Besides, bringing back concerts can be an opening for bringing back all the large-group events people love, like sports, theater, and group worship.

Marvel Comics, horror movies, punk rock, or Ninja Turtles –popular culture teems with mutants, usually not good ones (except perhaps for those turtles). So when you see in the news that the virus is mutating, it sounds ominous. Even when you search on the word “mutant,” coronavirus comes up with everything else.