- A nurse at Kaiser Hospital in San Jose says that the co-worker who wore an inflatable Christmas costume to the ER was just "spreading joy," and this was not part of any party. At least 60 people were infected and one has already died, possibly because the costume's internal fan helped spread viral droplets farther than usual, and even though everyone was masked the entire time (and some had already received one vaccine dose but had not had enough time for it to take effect). [Mercury News]
- Marin County restaurant owners are petitioning the county Board of Supervisors to restart outdoor dining. At the moment, allowing outdoor dining is out the county's hands, though, and is based on a state mandate according to regional ICU capacity, which at present is at 5.9%. [Marin Independent Journal]
- A fire near the BART tracks briefly stopped train service Tuesday between Richmond and El Cerrito. [CBS SF]
- A group called Families for San Francisco that includes some "prominent" San Francisco Unified School District alumni has issued a 21-page report blasting a district effort to rename multiple schools as "deeply flawed." [Chronicle]
- Twitter is expanding into podcasts with the acquisition of Breaker, an SF startup that combines aspects of a podcast player and a social platform for sharing podcasts. [SF Business Times]
- Safeway and Vons are laying off delivery drivers and replacing them with DoorDash drivers. [SFGate]
- FYI, Trump has misstated the role that Mike Pence will play in the certification of the election in Congress tomorrow, which is largely ceremonial. [New York Times]
- Scientists are looking into whether the dosage of the Moderna vaccine could be halved and still be effective, in order to speed up the rollout of the vaccine and meet more demand. [New York Times]
- As polls close in Georgia, things are looking pretty good for Democrats. [New York Times]
Photo: Casey Horner
