Morning Reading – Saturday-Sunday, Dec. 5-6, 2020
The U.S. Has Passed the Hospital Breaking Point – The Atlantic
The pandemic nightmare scenario—the buckling of hospital and health-care systems nationwide—has arrived. Several lines of evidence are now sending us the same message: Hospitals are becoming overwhelmed, causing them to restrict whom they admit and leading more Americans to needlessly die.
Experts said the coronavirus is now spreading so quickly across the state and hospitalizations are soaring so fast that the time for incremental measures has passed, and the most effective way to bend the curve is to keep people home as much as possible.
With a vaccine on the horizon, Keller said his biggest concern was fatigue — for a general population that long ago grew sick of covid restrictions, but especially for medical workers whose most harrowing stretch may still lie ahead.
The Fisherman’s Secret: A modern-day treasure hunt
Along the murky seafloor, fish and rocks come in rounded shapes and soft colors, muted grays and greens. His eyes were attuned to this drab underwater landscape, which is why he had been puzzled by brief flashes of light on the video screen, shiny surfaces glimmering by. Then he saw it: a rectangular object, sharp-edged and pale, almost white, with a tinge of yellow.
Cinemas Join the Internet Makeover of American Cities – Bloomberg
Rather than blockbuster movies being released in 4,500 theaters across the U.S., there may be only a fraction of that to cater to the smaller number of consumers still interested in the big-screen experience when streaming options are readily available.
How John Adams Got Over Political Defeat – WSJ
The republic’s first one-term president also found losing painful because no one knew exactly what an ex-president was supposed to do. The Constitution offered no instructions on how to fail. … Adams and Jefferson died, with startling fidelity to the cause and to each other, on the same day: July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration on which they had labored together.
I Started Trading Hot Stocks on Robinhood. Then I Couldn’t Stop. – WSJ
The lesson? You can’t invest without trading, but you can trade without investing. Even the most patient and meticulous buy-and-hold investor has to buy in the first place.
Just Walking Around the Block – Scott Loftesness
From an old post (2006) of mine: “…rather than simply defaulting to trolling and then reading and reading and reading until I actually have taken in too many facts without giving my brain time to think about them, maybe I need to take a walk.”