  A recent paper promises new constructions that may make it possible to
achieve covariance in spherically symmetric models of loop quantum gravity.
This claim is contrary to the discovery of several stubborn obstacles to
covariance uncovered in the same models during the last few years. As the
authors point out in their abstract, new progress is supposedly possible if one
takes into account crucial features of a certain partial Abelianization of the
gauge transformations of spherically symmetric gravity, published by the same
authors. In canonical form, these gauge transformations are given by
hypersurface deformations. A closer inspection of the technical calculations
shows that spherically symmetric hypersurface deformations are, in fact,
violated in the construction.
