| South Africa halts AstraZeneca rollout, UK variant spreads rapidly across the US, and House Democrats probe Trump's Covid-19 response. Here's what you should know: Headlines South Africa halts AstraZeneca rollout after new data sows efficacy doubts On Sunday, South African officials halted a planned rollout of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 shot until there is more information about its efficacy against new strains. The decision came after a small clinical trial found that the vaccine doesn't appear to protect against the new South African variant of the virus. The trial only enrolled around 2,000 volunteers, so it's far too small and limited for data to be statistically significant. But it fuels concerns that existing vaccines may not protect as well against new virus mutations. New research charts the rapid spread of the UK variant in the US A new study posted online maps the rapid spread of B.1.1.7, the variant first found in the UK, across the US since its arrival in late 2020. The mutation appears to be doubling around every 10 days, and, as the CDC warned last month, it may become the predominant strain in the US in the next month. The scientists behind this research estimate that the transmission rate of B.1.1.7 in the US is 30 to 40 percent higher than that of more common variants, though those numbers could rise as they gather more data. House Democrats renew investigation of the Trump administration's Covid-19 response House Democrats and members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis are renewing an investigation into the Trump administration's response to Covid-19. Among other things, they're focused on issues with vaccine distribution, attempts to push hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, and alleged efforts to end asymptomatic testing over economic concerns. The committee began its probe last spring. Daily Distraction Filmmaking has been a challenge during the pandemic, but some have managed to shoot movies anyway. They're now starting to hit screens, and reviews are mixed. Something to Read Every office has its own secret geography: Seating arrangements, snack jars, best places to cry. These physical spaces have long been important to the way we keep track of our work lives. Most of us will go back one day, in one form or another, and that's probably not a bad thing. Sanity Check "A cluttered hard drive is a cluttered mind." Or so they say. Here are some tips for making room on your laptop. One Question How do virus variants get their names? Scientists try to avoid naming diseases after places or people, for obvious reasons. Ideally, a virus's name tells us something about what it does or where it fits on the family tree. But the world of Covid nomenclature has three houses, and all of them are confusing. There's GISAID, the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data, which is the main data repository for SARS-CoV-2 genomes. Nextstrain organizes information based on clades, or branches of the phylogenetic tree of life, each of which is then organized by the year it was discovered and a letter of the alphabet. And Pangolin, a system where the first two SARS-CoV-2 sequences are lettered A and B, and each subsequent generation gets a number, then another number after a period, for the first three generations. These are all way too complicated. In response, the WHO has started organizing meetings to make sense of how all of these systems work. They may also devise a new, more media-friendly way to talk about new mutations. Covid-19 Care Package 📦 The Covid-19 virus can linger on objects for as little as a few hours or as long as a couple of days, depending on the surface. Here's a look at the research. 😷 If you're planning to go out in public anytime soon, you're going to need a mask. Here are the best ones you can buy, or how to make one at home. 🧼 It's not just your hands that need washing—your gadgets, clothes, and home need it too. Here's how to properly disinfect your stuff. 💻 Whether or not you're a work-from-home pro, here's how to stay productive without losing your mind. 😔 It's hard not to be anxious about a global pandemic, but here's how you can protect yourself and your family without spiraling and how to not hate the loved ones you're quarantined with. ✂️ It may still be a while before you can see your hairstylist, so here's how to cut your hair at home, plus other ways to keep yourself lookin' fresh. 🦠 Read all of our coronavirus coverage here. | 
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