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Nearly 1 million Chinese citizens have been vaccinated. State-run drugmaker Sinopharm reports that there have been no serious safety issues with the shots, but it has yet to report solid data that proves the vaccine’s efficacy. Authorities are moving ahead with inoculations anyway, and several other governments are considering ordering doses for their own citizens.
Xiaomi sold 13 million devices during India’s festive season. The Chinese tech giant, which is battling Samsung for dominance in the smartphone market, moved 9 million phones, plus 4 million TVs, smart bands, and other devices. Despite the pandemic, Xiaomi boosted sales more than 8% over last year’s season.
Facebook said one in 1,000 pieces of content includes hate speech. The company gave its first public estimate on the prevalence of the problem in a quarterly content moderation report. In the quarter ended in September, it flagged or removed 22.1 million instances of hate speech.
BuzzFeed bought HuffPost. The deal is the latest in a string of major digital media mergers, as online publishers seek to consolidate to kickstart growth. BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti will be reunited with HuffPost, a brand he also co-founded. The companies will share syndicated content and digital ad revenue.
Donald Trump continued to contest the results of the US presidential election. The president pressured a Michigan election official to rescind her vote to certify the state’s election results, the Washington Post reports. Trump succeeded in getting a partial recount in Wisconsin after his campaign gave $3 million to the state’s elections committee.
Covid-19 or climate change relief?
Why not both? A good chunk of initial Covid-19 aid funding is being used to support healthcare systems, preserve people’s livelihoods and stabilize employment, but much is slated for infrastructure and economies. Leaders like Joe Biden and Boris Johnson are speaking in terms of rebuilding toward a more sustainable future.
The global economic rebuild could include efforts to avoid the worst impacts of one of today’s looming mega-threats: climate change. Scientist David L. McCollum explores how coronavirus relief funds could stop the worst of climate change.
Charting Parler’s growth
Parler, a rightwing social media platform that bills itself as a place where conservatives can escape fact-checking and content moderation on Twitter and Facebook, has been downloaded more than 4 million times since the US presidential election on Nov. 3. Its explosive growth is the latest chapter in a 50-year story of growing partisanship in the US.
The rise of Parler would not be possible without plummeting trust in government and media, a dizzying array of partisan news outlets on TV and online, and a deluge of misinformation that has crescendoed during recent US elections. Whether or not the app catches on, the long-term trends that brought it to the fore will remain.
Honesty is a wonder
Wonder Woman 1984, the much anticipated sequel to 2017’s Wonder Woman, will premiere simultaneously in cinemas and HBO Max. WarnerMedia entered uncharted territory when it announced its reasoning behind the move—it simply wants to sell HBO Max subscriptions.
CEO Jason Kilar went ahead and told the truth in a blog post, underscoring WarnerMedia’s new strategy: HBO Max is its endgame.
In parallel, we will be paying close attention to the numbers of families and fans diving into HBO Max, as we certainly anticipate that a portion of fans will choose to enjoy Wonder Woman 1984 that way on opening day and beyond. To provide a comparable, a little over four million fans in the U.S. enjoyed the first Wonder Woman movie on its opening day in 2017. Is it possible for that to happen again this Christmas with Wonder Woman 1984 between theaters and HBO Max? We are so excited to find out, doing everything in our power to provide the power of choice to fans.
It’s a pivotal moment for streaming services—dive deeper in one of our recent field guides.
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You asked about vaccine safety
Is Pfizer’s vaccine a live virus? Or is it acceptable for immunocompromised patients?
Great question, Tom. Unlike many other available vaccines, this one isn’t a live virus that has been weakened, a virus that has been killed, nor a signature viral protein that can dupe cells into producing protective antibodies. Weakened live virus vaccines aren’t always safe for people with compromised immune systems: Because they have the most in common with actual pathogens, the mild reaction they provoke to get antibodies revved up for future infections can be too much.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, though, involves no virus at all. Instead, this vaccine relies on messenger RNA (mRNA for short), a type of genetic material that our cells can use as an instruction manual to kick off the process of building virus-busting antibodies. It provides the instructional code for the body to make non-infectious viral bits and bobs—in this case, the spike protein on the outside of SARS-CoV-2—that kicks off an antibody response. Moderna’s shot, another mRNA vaccine, works much the same way. So far, we don’t have data on the Pfizer/BioNTech’s candidates efficacy for those who are immunocompromised, but preliminary trial results suggest it’s safe with low side effects even in older trial participants—which is promising.
Surprising discoveries
Computer mouse-slash-phone. It really did exist.
Dog-sized lizards are invading the US. South American tegus, which can grow to four feet long and eat almost anything, are on the loose in several states.
Meat plant managers wagered on how many workers would catch Covid-19. The Tyson Foods plant bosses organized a betting pool while pushing employees to come in sick.
The Pope was up late scrollin’. The Vatican is demanding that Instagram explain why the Holy See’s official account liked a picture of a scantily clad model.
A grocery chain encouraged shoppers to “plan a super spread” for Thanksgiving. Giant Food apologized for its unfortunately phrased ad for holiday platters.
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