The Week - USA (2021-02-12)

ARTS

22 Books

A heartbreaking history

of maternity homes and

the families they tore

apart

23 Author of the week

Lauren Oyler gets ready

to face her critics

24 Music & Stage

Arlo Parks looks

like a breakout

pop star

25 Film & Home

Media

Denzel

Washington

hunts yet

another serial

killer in The

Little Things

NEWS

4 Main stories

Covid vaccines and the

new variants; Washington

haggles over the next

stimulus package

6 Controversy of the week

Is President Biden’s

climate change plan a job

killer or a planet saver?

7 The U.S. at a glance

Donald Trump outlines

his impeachment defense;

San Francisco schools

cancel Abraham Lincoln

8 The world at a glance

A worrying Covid

mutation in the U.K.; a

coup in Myanmar

10 People

Amanda Knox on

her wrongful murder

conviction; Joan Didion

on life in lockdown

11 Briefi ng

The rising threat of white

supremacist terrorism

12 Best U.S. columns

Biden’s coming China

crisis; banning lawmakers

from trading stocks

14 Best European

columns

How the EU bungled its

Covid vaccine rollout

16 Talking points

Rep. Marjorie Taylor

Greene and the GOP’s

“lunatic fringe”; why

it’s time to upgrade your

mask; are conservatives

being silenced?

LEISURE

27 Food & Drink

“Nude” ravioli from

Florence; montepulciano

d’Abruzzo’s everyday joys

28 Consumer

Ford’s new hybrid F-150;

valentines essentials for

locked-down lovebirds

BUSINESS

32 News at a glance

Jeff Bezos to step down as

Amazon CEO; GM plans

to go all-electric by 2035

33 Making money

The fi ght over a national $

minimum wage; a $7 billion

cryptocurrency joke

34 Best columns

Reddit traders take on

Wall Street; the Fed needs

more black economists

Administering vaccines at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts (p.4)

Amanda Knox
(p.10)
Ge
tty
(^2
)

Come have a look at my mask collection. There, on a corner

counter in my kitchen, is a heaping pile of protection: a box of

blue surgical masks, two kinds of KF94s from South Korea, a

dozen KN95s from China (NIOSH certified!), and several au-

thentic N95s. I’ve shared my stash with my wife, my daughters,

and my mom’s caregivers, hoping to keep the coronavirus out

of our bodies. At a time when so little is under control, masks

give us a way of managing risk when we go out into our be-

sieged world. In crowded indoor spaces where we work or buy

food, high- quality masks with multiple layers can keep you from

inhaling—or spreading—tiny droplets of aerosolized virus. The

failure of our government to educate Americans about masks and

make good ones available is “unconscionable,” says Dr. Nahid

Bhadelia, an infectious- disease expert at Boston Medical Cen-

ter. She’s among the many physicians calling for “the equivalent

of Operation Warp Speed” to make and distribute high- filtration

masks to all Americans at a cheap price. (See Talking Points.)

A year ago, South Korea—a densely populated nation of

51 million people— immediately began widespread distribution

of KF94 masks. It’s had 1,441 Covid deaths, compared with

nearly 450,000 in the U.S. In Taiwan, where mask wearing is

also near- universal, there have been eight Covid deaths. With

new coronavirus variants spreading, the need for high-quality

masks—or double masking with a surgical and cloth mask—is

even more urgent. The variants appear to be at least 50 percent

more contagious, and may reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.

(See Main Stories.)Viral mutations might even reinfect those

who’ve already had Covid. And it may be five or six months

before vaccines are widely available in the U.S. So, friends,

mask up—with the best ones you can find. Yes, wearing a mask

can be annoying. But it’s so much less annoying

than wearing an oxygen mask in the ICU.

Editor’s letter

Contents^3

William Falk

Editor-in-chief

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Editor-in-chief: William Falk

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