The Daily Valet. - 1/19/22, Wednesday

✔️ We're Not There Yet

Wednesday, January 19th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

I’ve already ordered my tests. Have you?

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s edition is presented by

Today’s Big Story

We’re Not Over the Wave Yet

COVID is overwhelming hospitals, but you can now order your free home tests

As you now know, the quick-moving omicron variant may be les severe (especially for the vaccinated), but COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are climbing and modelers forecast 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans could die by the time the wave subsides in mid-March.

But the notion that a generally less severe variant could still take the lives of thousands of people has been difficult for health experts to convey. The math of it—that a small percentage of a very high number of infections can yield a very high number of deaths—is difficult to visualize.

Overburdened hospitals, whose staffs have been hollowed out, could also contribute to more deaths. “Medical professionals have been telling us the quality of care begins to suffer,” one expert told the Associated Press. “That may also lead to higher death rates, but that’s not in any of the models that I’m aware of.”

Public health leaders warn that while the number of Americans getting infected every day remains dangerously high (including an “eye-popping” spike in pediatric cases) there is no guarantee that the population is building enough natural immunity to hasten the day the virus becomes a manageable part of daily life.

Which means you want to protect yourself. And that means masking up and testing regularly. The federal government’s website for Americans to order at-home rapid Covid-19 testing kits unofficially launched on Tuesday.

Testing remains one of the biggest challenges for the Biden administration, with long lines forming at testing centers and at-home rapid tests selling out quickly. Just last month, the CDC updated the guidelines on self-testing, advising you to use at-home tests before indoor gatherings with people who aren’t in your household.

↦ Meanwhile: Sketchy lookalike websites have started popping up following the launch of the government’s free COVID test site.

Microsoft Buys a Big Name in Games

Microsoft-Activision is like Disney-Fox. Actually, maybe it’s bigger.

Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal valued at about $75 billion. The deal, if completed, would sharply expand Microsoft's already sizable videogame operation—adding a stable of popular games including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush.

For the deal to go through, the two companies will have to level up and face off against government regulators in order to score what would be Microsoft's biggest acquisition ever.

Mergers and acquisitions always come with cultural shake-ups—and that's precisely what Activision needs, reports Axios. This takeover sets the stage for Activision Blizzard to remove its recent sexual misconduct scandal from the spotlight, business ethicists say.

Of course, the deal is about gaming. But it's also about the metaverse. What isn't these days? As Peter Kafka notes in ReCode, “While streaming TV shows and movies occupy a ton of media attention, video games capture a ton of regular people's attention: Microsoft says there are 3 billion gamers around the world today, and says that number will get to 4.5 billion by 2030.” He also says that if any version of the metaverse or virtual reality future we've been hearing about for the past couple years comes to pass, “it will almost certainly be grounded in games.”

↦ FYI: This deal has a serious breakup fee. Microsoft will actually have to pay Activision $3 billion cash if the merger gets stopped by regulators.

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Are the Grammys in Trouble?

The show has been rescheduled and moved to Las Vegas

The music industry's biggest night was supposed to take place at the end of the month, at the newly-renamed Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles. Then the omicron variant happened.

On Tuesday, the Recording Academy and CBS confirmed the show will be moved to MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 3, with The Daily Show's Trevor Noah returning as host.

The Grammys have been having a tough go of it recently. Last year's ceremony was postponed and later tanked, with viewership dropping to 8.8 million. That's a 53% drop from its 2020 numbers. The 2021 show was also the same ceremony that The Weeknd vowed to boycott after being snubbed for any nominations, citing the anonymous committees that make up the initial ballots for voting as the main driver of his protests.

According to NPR, the Recording Academy has made some moves to increase equity to its roster of nominees—including doing away with those anonymous committees, as well as expanding the number of potential winners in the big categories.

↦ FYI: Billie Eilish could become the first woman to win record of the year three times.

Clean Up Your Online Persona

How to downsize your digital footprint

Depending on when you were born, there’s a good chance you've spent either several decades online or have never known an offline world. Whatever the case, it's fair to say that there's a lot of information about you online.

And most of it is fairly innocuous, but some might be embarrassing or potentially harmful for your career. Meanwhile, data brokers are churning away in the background, collecting all sorts of information about your likes and dislikes to sell to the highest bidder.

In any case, you could likely do with a little digital housekeeping. Remember your old Tumblr? Apparently googling your name can bring up long-dead Myspace accounts or subreddits you were active on years ago.

Of course, you'll never completely delete yourself from the internet. Nor should you, really. But you can certainly clean up your online persona and scrub away the stuff you don't need out there. Before you delete anything permanently (remember, simply deleting the app won't erase your account), here are a few things to keep in mind.

↦ Read: How to clean up your online persona

In Other News

↦ Daniel Radcliffe Will Portray “Weird Al” Yankovic in a New Biopic

↦ Jamaica Will Have a Four-Man Bobsled Team at the Olympics for the First Time in 24 years

↦ Snapchat Makes It Harder for Kids to Buy Drugs

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

Aimé Leon Dore

These modern Persols

This Twitter thread

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There's no denying that 2021 was a big year for cryptocurrency. We've seen Bitcoin hit multiple new all-time high prices and more institutional buy-in from major companies. People's interest in crypto has skyrocketed lately too. It's a hot topic not only among investors but in popular culture, thanks to everyone from long-standing investors like Elon Musk to that guy at work who won't shut up about it. But here's the really big question: what's next for crypto as we go into 2022?

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Last year, they predicted that 2021 would be “the year of crypto.” They predicted that Bitcoin would hit all-time highs. And that certain altcoins would shoot up by 1,000%... 10,0000%... and more. They were right on all accounts. Select altcoins they've been tracking since 2017 have gone off the charts since then—one is up 10,500%, while another is now up 18,000%. Wouldn't you have liked to know what those were last year?

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