The coronavirus vaccine made by Moderna moved closer to authorization on Thursday, a significant step that would expand the reach of the nation’s vaccination campaign to rural areas and many more hospitals.

As the nation buckled from uncontrolled spread of the disease, with 3,611 deaths on Wednesday setting yet another horrific record, a panel of independent experts recommended, by a vote of 20 in favor and one abstention, that the Food and Drug Administration authorize the Moderna vaccine for emergency use. The formal decision, expected on Friday, would clear the way for some 5.9 million doses to be shipped around the country starting this weekend.

Moderna would be the second company allowed to begin inoculating the public, giving millions more Americans access to desperately needed vaccine. The first, made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, received authorization last week.

The Moderna vaccine can be distributed more widely because it can be stored at normal freezer temperatures and, unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, does not require ultracold storage. It also comes in much smaller batches, making it easier for hospitals in less populated areas to use quickly.

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Breaking News: An expert panel endorsed Moderna’s vaccine, moving it closer to FDA authorization and giving Americans another tool to fight the coronavirus. https://t.co/KCBsdDkc7k

— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 17, 2020

The pandemic has created multiple crises for health care workers.

Hospitals are stretched thin — in beds, but more so in staffing. In Yuma, Ariz., where Gilman works, about half of the county’s hospital beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients. That level is a “nightmare” scenario for staff, as one health researcher recently described it.

Then health workers have to worry about getting sick with COVID-19 themselves. More than 1,400 health care workers have already died, according to one count by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News.

And there’s also mental health strain. Researchers expect many of those working now to be at enhanced risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder. Physicians are already at higher-than-average risk of suicide, with one analysis putting the number at about 300 to 400 dying by suicide per year in the U.S., or about one per day.

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Arizona emergency room physician Cleavon Gilman says health care providers are under "unimaginable" emotional strain. https://t.co/6c4yeCyTyp #USRC pic.twitter.com/pawiXYn5z8

— Top U.S. & World News🗽 (@USRealityCheck) December 17, 2020

Germany’s biggest air-ambulance operator has ordered two electric air taxis to evaluate their potential in a pioneering role speeding doctors to patients.

ADAC Luftrettung, part of the country’s leading motoring association, will begin testing the 18-rotor Volocopter GmbH aircraft from 2023 after the simulation of 26,000 emergency responses in two cities indicated that it could fulfill a rapid-transport role currently performed by a costlier helicopter fleet.

The joint announcement Tuesday provides further evidence of the commercial potential of vertical takeoff air taxis, coming less than a week after Singapore said it plans to launch the world’s first such service.

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Germany’s biggest air-ambulance operator orders two electric air taxis to evaluate their potential in a pioneering role speeding doctors to patients https://t.co/QME5XipfWw

— Bloomberg (@business) December 15, 2020

Downing Street has announced that the Right Reverend Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani will be the next Bishop of Chelmsford, succeeding the Most Reverend Stephen Cottrell, who became Archbishop of York earlier this year.

Bishop Guli is currently Bishop of Loughborough in the Diocese of Leicester, a post she has occupied since late 2017.

Speaking about her appointment, Bishop Guli said “It is a great privilege to be appointed as the next Bishop of Chelmsford. I know there are many challenges ahead both in the church and wider society, not least as a result of the pandemic. However, I am hopeful about the future.

“I want to thank my friends and colleagues in Leicester Diocese where I have been very happy. I will be sad to say goodbye, but at the same time I am very excited about this next chapter in my ministry”

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Downing Street has this morning announced that the Rt Rev Guli Francis-Dehqani will be the next Bishop of Chelmsford.

Find out more and meet our new Bishop – https://t.co/M8xdYkRiTV

Please share your own welcome message to Bishop Guli using the hashtag #WelcomeBishopGuli pic.twitter.com/IQ39hnurmC

— Chelmsford Diocese (@chelmsdio) December 17, 2020

The connection with my earlier comments lies in the concept of mementos and individuals and past events. Though we expect our resurrection bodies will be perfected, and not carry the disabilities or scars of the past, the Lord Jesus Christ seems to be the exception to that. When He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, He pointed to the wounds in His hands and feet as evidence that it was indeed He (Lk. 24:40).

And later, when Thomas, who’d been absent at Christ’s first meeting with them, doubted their word, the Lord appeared and said to him, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing” (Jn. 20:27).

In his prophetic vision of the heavenly city, the Apostle John saw Jesus as “a Lamb as though it had been slain,” and he heard a huge assembly praising Him “saying with a loud voice: ‘“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!’” (Rev. 5:6, 12).

It appears from this that our Saviour will bear in His body for all eternity the marks of His passion. In a real sense they’re mementos of Calvary, reminders of what He did for us there. These tokens of His sacrifice will continue to fill us with gratitude and be reflected in our songs of praise, as we join in “the song of the Lamb” (Rev. 15:3). A stanza of Cennick’s revised hymn (not often used today) speaks of this. (See stanza six below.)

CH-6) The dear tokens of His passion
Still His dazzling body bears;
Cause of endless exultation
To His ransomed worshipers;
With what rapture, with what rapture,
Gaze we on those glorious scars!

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Don't forget today at 1 pm @evangelibrary Autumn Lunch Time Lecture 3, the third and final one in the series "Three men named John". Come and hear Gary Brady on John the forgotten Methodist on John Cennick. pic.twitter.com/nMB4gwvLsW

— Evangelical Library (@evangelibrary) December 3, 2018

O God, who orderest the common things of the common day, dignify by thy presence and aid the trivial round and routine tasks of thy servant whose hope is in thee, that least duties may be grandly done and all activities marked with the seal of thy righteousness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

Christ Church Advent Calendar – Day 17
"The holly and the ivy
When they are both full grown
Of all trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown."

Photos by Matt Wright@DioceseNorwich pic.twitter.com/5TpHGxYHSg

— Christ Church Eaton Norwich (@EatonChrist) December 17, 2020

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sad’ducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that befits repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

–Matthew 3:1-12

Leonardo da Vinci, Saint John the Baptist (1514)
#art #classicart #painting #paint #drawing #artist #LeonardodaVinci #SaintJohntheBaptist(1514) pic.twitter.com/xYKRNctNB6

— Andre Hale (@AndreHale20) December 10, 2020