The Daily Valet. - 11/19/20, Thursday

✔️ We're Getting Closer

Thursday, November 19th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

Today is apparently International Men’s Day ... should I be anticipating a card?

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s Big Story

Vaccines Move Closer to Approval

A respected epidemiologist calls it “the best of times and the worst of times”

On Wednesday, the United States surpassed 250,000 deaths from COVID-19. And the Associated Press reports that 36 states set records for daily new confirmed cases as overwhelmed hospitals convert chapels, cafeterias, even a parking garage into patient treatment areas.

At the same time, the country is on track to have two remarkably effective coronavirus vaccines in record time—both are proving to be about 95% effective in clinical trials so far. The FDA could grant emergency-use by the middle of December, meaning the first batch of deliveries could come just before Christmas.

According to WIRED, this is the first time in history (in large part because of Bill Gates’ challenge), a vaccine has been produced at the same time as it was being developed. But an epidemiologist says that while this is great news, there’s still a lot of work to be done ... and more waiting for the rest of us.

The next phase of this race will depend on the herculean task of producing these tiny vials of vaccine at a vast scale—nearly overnight—and distributing millions of these frozen doses without wasting any.

Basic questions remain to be resolved: Which hospitals or pharmacies will receive, store and administer the doses? Who will get first crack at receiving them? That same epidemiologist said a list has been published by the Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine. “They put out a cadence of first responders initially, high-risk individuals and nursing homes second, other high-risk individuals, all the way down.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, estimated earlier this week that “as we get into the late spring and early summer that people in the so-called general population—who do not have underlying conditions or other designations that would make them priority—could get the shots.” Remember you’ll need two before being fully vaccinated.

↦ Meanwhile: The one pandemic safety rule that really matters? Don’t spend time indoors with people outside your household.

Biden Approaches 80 Million Votes

But Trump still isn't giving up

The really wild thing about this election (and there are a lot of wild things) is that the milestones have all been a bit washed out because it's dragging out so long.

But Americans cast a historic number of votes in the 2020 presidential election—resulting in the highest voter turnout in more than a century. And according to the Associated Press, President-elect Joe Biden’s winning tally is approaching a record 80 million votes as ballots continue to be counted.

Biden has already set a record for the highest number of votes and President Donald Trump has also notched a record for the most votes for a losing candidate. The rising Biden tally and his popular vote lead—nearly 6 million votes—come as Trump changes tactics.

Trump seems to have abandoned his plan to win reelection by disqualifying enough ballots to reverse Biden’s wins in key battleground states. Instead, his campaign wired $3 million to election officials in Wisconsin to start a partial recount and asked a federal judge to consider ordering the Republican-controlled legislature in Pennsylvania to select the state’s electors.

↦ Meanwhile: Current and former Trump officials privately reach out to President-elect Biden.

Scientists Used Human Genes to Make Monkey Brains Bigger

What could go wrong?

Well this doesn't seem like the wisest experiment to embark on in the year 2020, but you can't stop scientific progress, right?

In an experiment that could portend a real-life Planet of the Apes situation, scientists spliced human genes into the fetus of a monkey to substantially increase the size of the primate’s brain. And it worked.

According to Popular Mechanics, German researchers spliced a gene which directs the human brain stem cells to produce more stem cells—a requirement for a larger brain—into common Marmosets, a species of New World Monkey. This led to marmoset fetuses having larger neocortexes, an area of the brain associated with higher brain functions such as cognition, language, and reasoning among others.

The scientists call these human-monkey hybrids “transgenic non-human primates,” which may be enough to ring the alarm of any doomsdayer. It certainly raises a lot of ethical questions when doing experiments on primates, let alone when introducing human genes into other animals.

Americans Are Tired of Cooking at Home

So they’re buying more frozen and pre-made foods

As the week wraps up, I can personally say one thing I'm looking forward to is weekend ... not cooking. I enjoy making our meals during the week, but come the weekend, the only food prep I'm willing to do is popping a frozen waffle in the toaster.

The same thing is happening across the country. As lockdowns began back in the spring, Americans bought groceries like never before, and embraced the chance to dabble in elaborate cooking projects. But eight months into the pandemic, the initial novelty of whipping up homemade meals and baking bread has long faded.

A recent study of 2,000 Americans found, due to restrictions when dining out, people are cooking an average of nine meals a week at home and 55% said they're suffering from "cooking fatigue." And nearly half said they'd prefer to cook a meal with less prep work.

Which is why there's been a significant growth in sales of meal kits, frozen meals and prepared foods at grocery stores, reports Quartz. Could all this be leading to a revival of the classic TV dinner?

↦ Order In: Today on Valet., our Holiday Survival Guide has an emergency plan for ordering your Thanksgiving meal (and dessert). There's still plenty of time to get out of cooking.

In Other News

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

Swindling casinos

Dominic Cooper’s car collection

Ideal wines for Thanksgiving

It’s a Holiday Miracle

Good Grief!

The “Great Pumpkin” never showed on broadcast television this year, but PBS, PBS Kids and Apple announced Wednesday that Snoopy and the gang will be coming to television for the holidays, after all.

Though Apple TV+ has the rights to Peanuts content, a new deal with PBS will enable the broadcaster to air “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” this year.

It could be considered a grassroots win. According to CBS News, when last month's news that the Peanuts characters would be streaming exclusively, hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition, comparing the move to one that Charlie Brown himself knows all too well

“To our shock and dismay, it was announced that Apple had swiped the football from us and claimed the specials for their Apple TV platform, leaving us devoted fans who have grown up with the Peanuts gang in the dark, unable to watch,” petitioner Michael Nebbia wrote.

↦ Watch It: The specials will air ad-free on PBS and PBS Kids on November 22 and December 13, respectively, at 7:30 p.m. local time/6:30 p.m. CT.