The LA Times has an interesting read about how a high school student in Jeonju was infected with the coronavirus in restaurant from someone seated 20 feet away:

Dr. Lee Ju-hyung has largely avoided restaurants in recent months, but on the few occasions he’s dined out, he’s developed a strange, if sensible, habit: whipping out a small anemometer to check the airflow.

It’s a precaution he has been taking since a June experiment in which he and colleagues re-created the conditions at a restaurant in Jeonju, a city in southwestern South Korea, where diners contracted the coronavirus from an out-of-town visitor. Among them was a high school student who became infected after five minutes of exposure from more than 20 feet away.

The results of the study, for which Lee and other epidemiologists enlisted the help of an engineer who specializes in aerodynamics, were published last week in the Journal of Korean Medical Science. The conclusions raised concerns that the widely accepted standard of six feet of social distance may not be far enough to keep people safe.

The study — adding to a growing body of evidence on airborne transmission of the virus — highlighted how South Korea’s meticulous and often invasive contact tracing regime has enabled researchers to closely track how the virus moves through populations.

LA Times

You can read the rest at the link, but the study shows once again that air conditioning is able to push infectious droplets over distances longer than 6 feet. People with their back to the air conditioning flow were not infected, but those with their face directed towards the air conditioner were.

The classic Chinese honey trap which people keep falling for:

A woman suspected of being a Chinese spy slept with at least two US mayors and got close to numerous Bay Area politicians in a years-long intelligence campaign directed at influencing American officials early in their careers, Axios reported on Tuesday.

Fang Fang, also known as Christine Fang, was heavily involved in Bay Area and national US politics from 2011 to 2015, the outlet reported.

Two US representatives Fang reportedly fundraised for — Eric Swalwell and Tulsi Gabbard — both ran as 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

Business Insider

Note to old guys in positions of influence, if some young, hot Chinese woman wants to sleep with you, it is not because she wants to practice English. Yes that really was her excuse that people believed:

FBI surveillance also caught her having intercourse with an Ohio mayor in a car. Apparently, when the mayor asked her why she was into him, she told him it was because she wanted to improve her English.

NY Magazine

It looks like the North Koreans are building up the preparatory rationale for another provocation cycle in the coming months:

North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-Jong on Wednesday slammed South Korea’s foreign minister over her recent remarks on Pyongyang’s antivirus measures, saying that she will “pay dearly” for them and warning the already frozen inter-Korean relations could get worse. 

Last week, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told a forum in Bahrain that the North has been unresponsive to Seoul’s calls for cross-border antivirus cooperation, adding that Pyongyang’s claim that it has no coronavirus cases is hard to believe.

“It can be seen from the reckless remarks made by her without any consideration of the consequences that she is too eager to further chill the frozen relations between the north and south of Korea,” Kim said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“We will never forget her words and she might have to pay dearly for it,” she said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The spread of COVID continues to worsen in South Korea:

 South Korea’s new virus cases neared 700 on Wednesday on soaring community infections in the greater Seoul area despite toughened social distancing measures.

The country reported 686 new virus cases, including 662 domestically transmitted ones, raising the total caseload to 39,432, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

Of the 686 new virus cases, 524 were reported in the greater Seoul area, covering Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, just west of Seoul.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The problem Moon had not meeting the turn over timeline was that his own political outreach to North Korea that led to the suspension of joint exercises delayed meeting the conditions needed for this hand over:

South Korea is unlikely to reclaim its wartime operational command from the US by May 2022 as South Korean President Moon Jae-in has pledged, experts told The Korea Herald. 

Experts said little time is left in Moon’s tenure and the transfer will be delayed even after Seoul greets a new US military chief, as announced Friday. The new chief will replace Gen. Robert Abrams, commander of the United States Forces Korea who said it would be “premature” to set a date for the handover. 

The two allies skipped joint drills this year over coronavirus concerns, which would have tested Seoul’s readiness. 

“The new US commander will see the issue in a similar way. And the Biden administration will likewise highlight conditions to be met. There is little room for political maneuvering to expect otherwise,” said Choi Kang, vice president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

What I find interesting about this pick for Secretary of Defense is that I can still remember all the complaints about the militarization of the government when General Mattis was selected as Secretary of Defense. Will these same people be out there criticizing General Austin for the same reason?:

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate retired four-star Army general Lloyd J. Austin to be secretary of defense, according to four people familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first Black leader of the Pentagon.

Biden selected Austin over the longtime front-runner candidate, Michele Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official and Biden supporter who would have been the first woman to serve as defense secretary. Biden also had considered Jeh Johnson, a former Pentagon general counsel and former secretary of homeland defense.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.