Not wearing a mask out and about should be as socially unacceptable as smoking around kids
Opinion
December 19, 2020 11.00pm
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Just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water, when we thought there was nothing more that 2020 could throw at us . this. A little more than a week out from Christmas, the news broke from the northern beaches. A cluster of five! No . 17! No . 28! It changed every few hours, but whatever the number the message was clear and unmistakable: the plague, which we thought we had overcome, was stalking among us and had come to stay, an unwelcome intruder just in time for the end-of-year break when so many of us are travelling and gathering with our families.
If we have learned anything from 2020, it’s ‘don’t eat bats’.
From Ebola to Covid, these winged Petri dishes have proved troublesome. In fact, it’s best for everyone if humans don’t touch bats at all. Don’t experiment on bats. Don’t crawl into bat caves looking for the next great pandemic. Don’t bring bats back to a slightly dodgy Level 4 bio lab. Don’t extract viruses from the kidnapped bats. Don’t take a ‘bat soup to go’ from the local wet market. Just – leave the bats alone. Evolution made a mistake when it stitched wings onto rats. There is no need to make that situation worse.
| UPDATED: 09:09, Fri, Dec 18, 2020
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The First Lady-elect and husband Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20, after the President-elect beat the outgoing Donald Trump in the US election. But a Wall Street Journal article taking the future First Lady to task for using the title of Doctor has sparked a debate in the US. Mr Carlson has covered the story for the third day in a row, where he described Mrs Biden as “borderline illiterate” over her dissertation.
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Living in New York, I’ve often yearned for Slade at this time of year. Now we’re all in the same boat
Merry Christmas, everybody: Noddy Holder of Slade celebrating in the 1970s. Photograph: Erica Echenberg/Redferns
Merry Christmas, everybody: Noddy Holder of Slade celebrating in the 1970s. Photograph: Erica Echenberg/Redferns
Fri 18 Dec 2020 07.15 EST
Last modified on Fri 18 Dec 2020 10.19 EST
Monday
Along with a lot of other people in New York, we put up our Christmas tree early this year – the day after Thanksgiving, and three days before the end of November. It felt like a joyful gesture and a sensible move, given all the time we’d be spending at home. Besides which, we had nothing else to do.
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