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Note: The answer grid will include every letter of the alphabet.
BY EMILY COX AND HENRY RATHvON

I think it is important that we name these appropriately and we don’t call these the South African variant or the UK variant. We need to use the names appropriately because we don’t want to stigmatise where these variants have been identified.

——Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist and the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 technical lead, during a press conference partially focused on emerging, highly infections variants of SARS-CoV-2 (January 5)

This is a health crisis of epic proportions. I am more troubled than ever before, and in part, my concern is rooted in the reality that it will take so much more for us to slow the spread given the high rate of community spread.

—Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Barbara Ferrer, in a statement released amid a steep increase in severe COVID-19 cases in the city (January 6)
ACROSS

1. Quercus palustris (2 wds.)
4. Edison: “The ___ of Menlo Park”
8. Amber, frankincense, or myrrh
9. Lab activity
10. Masticating malady, for short
11. Seed cone of a gymnosperm
13. Medulla oblongata’s location (2 wds.)
17. Change, especially to a higher form
19. “Science Friday” network
20. Tropical grassy plain
22. Talc’s place on the Mohs scale
23. Typically anadromous fish
24. Feature of Hale-Bopp?

DOWN

1. Mineral known as fool’s gold
2. Rhinoplasty, informally (2 wds.)
3. Some who struggle with information retrieval
5. Measures of brightness?
6. The A in CAT scan
7. What amylase helps us do
9. Arachnid that may have urticating bristles
12. Collectible for Frohawk or Nabokov
14. 12-Down dependent on Asclepias plants
15. Period of little evolutionary change
16. Nuclear particle
18. The middle ear’s incus
21. Opposite of paleo-

© JONNY HAWKINS