The US is now averaging 700,000 new Covid cases per day. / USA Today

A malfunctioning space heater caused a fire in a Bronx apartment building that killed 19 people, including nine children. / News 12 Brooklyn

With Omicron, pediatric hospitalizations—while still the lowest compared to other groups—have hit their highest rate in the pandemic so far. / BuzzFeed News

Hospitalization and ICU data show that, like Delta before it, the Omicron appears more severe in the US than Europe. / Intelligencer

Ed Yong: "When a health-care system crumbles, this is what it looks like." / The Atlantic

See also: Lying flat without health insurance is very uncomfortable. / Bloomberg Opinion

Though it's possible for coronavirus variants to recombine, "deltacron" appears to be a lab mistake, not a new strain. / Quartz

What about "flurona?" Well that's real, but getting two viruses at once is not uncommon. / The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Billions are flowing into the industry—and barely a cent is going toward the creation of new music." On music icons selling off their catalogs. / The Baffler

The new era of fashion bootlegging: making your own parodies—or paeans—of well-known pieces. / GQ

A database of slaveholding members of Congress shows how they shaped the future of America. / The Washington Post

Each of Manchester's highly criticized electronic advertising billboards use the same amount of electricity of three households. / The Guardian

A developer appears to have intentionally corrupted open-source libraries, rendering countless projects by others useless. / The Verge

Watch: A giant slab of meat made from Lego, roasting over an open fire (also made from Lego). / Laughing Squid

See also: A backyard cookout rendered in felt, in a video short by Andrea Love. / The Morning News