Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of June 29

Jacksonville, Florida announced Monday that it would require the use of face masks indoors and in public. As the article says, that's especially significant because the Republican National Convention was moved there this year, so if the requirement stays in place, all of the attendees would probably be required to wear masks.

Mitch McConnell and some other Republicans have recently been more supportive of masks though, so maybe (hopefully) that might work out.

Pharmaceutical company Gilead has released it's pricing for Remdesivir. Spoiler: it's $520 a dose or $3,120 for a 5 day treatment. And this isn't a sure-fire cure either, it's just been shown to moderately improve recovery rates.

"It's unprecedented to price the drug below the medical costs that it's saving," Porges said, adding that remdesivir could save up to $40,000 per patient, if it prevents a COVID-19 patient from needing the ICU.

"In an offensive display of hubris and disregard for the public, Gilead has priced at several thousand dollars a drug that should be in the public domain," Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines Program said in a written statement.

Texas has had a massive uptick in cases after three aggressive phases of reopening and now back to a mild shutdown (no bars, no elective surgeries, 50% capacity restaurants, no outdoor events over 100 people) as our perfectly-positioned-to-kiss-President-Cheeto's-ass laughing stock of a elected official conservative governor rolls back openings that everyone told him was too soon.

Of course in right wing populated areas it'll have little impact as those cities have councils that have voted to ignore the orders.

Meanwhile my job was planning a soft (as in "if you want to come to the office you can") reopening of our office today, but has pushed that back a minimum of a month before it'll be reconsidered.

I fucking hate my neighbors.

We're in the states, in a one bedroom apartment in the city doing our diligence, staying inside quarantining; meanwhile they're in a sizable house right outside our window; they are your typical white Christian nuclear family with 3 or 4 kids, along with 2-3 rotating housekeepers.

They've had their grandparents over, not wearing masks.
They've had friends over, not wearing masks.

I don't normally wish suffering on others, but my god do I just want one of them to catch it like none other and drive home the seriousness of this friggin' pandemic.

/rant

More than 40 Bay Area school principals exposed to coronavirus during in-person meeting

A pre-symptomatic individual at the school reopening planning meeting on June 19 tested positive for the coronavirus just a few days after school administrators congregated.

[...]

On Tuesday, health officials in Santa Clara County gave schools a guide for reopening for in-person instruction in the fall but said they should be ready to resume instruction remotely if coronavirus conditions demand shutdowns. The district is hoping to open classrooms on August 17.

Florida's Miami-Dade county is now instituting a 10 PM - 6 AM curfew "until further notice", as well as rolling back the reopening of entertainment venues, and instituting some stricter mask requirements.

On Tuesday, Florida's governor said they wouldn't "go back" on reopening, so having the most populous county in the state do exactly that three days later is really mixed messages.

Article: 'This is no joke': Californian man died of coronavirus day after saying he regretted attending a party

[His niece] told USA TODAY that after the party, a friend called her uncle and said he knew he had coronavirus before attending the get-together, but decided to go anyway without a mask because he wasn't showing symptoms.

Your Guide to Shaming Idiot People Who Don’t Take Covid-19 Seriously

Been a minute since I've shared what my local situation is in NB, Canada. As a quick summary:

• My province was able to, at one point, eradicate COVID-19 locally (no active cases and 15+ days without a new case). At that point we had around 120 cases total. (Population around 750k.)
• A new case was brought in somehow. (Previously I was under the impression that it was a doctor who brought it in from Quebec, but that's been shown to be less clear since the last time I posted.) That border region of the province had some restrictions reinstated while the rest of the province's opening plan was put on was put on hold. Another 20-30 cases appeared there.
• Two people in my region got it from travel, but because they were following the rules and isolating it did not spread. Thanks, responsible citizens!
• It's now been over a week since our last case provincially (again).

Today we're loosening some travel restrictions and forming up a "Maritime Bubble" with other provinces that are also doing very well. This is exciting!! I have family in Halifax that I haven't been able to see in a while. (I would have been able to go before technically, the border was not TOTALLY locked down, but I would have also had to isolate 14 days on arrival between provinces. Now that isolation is no longer necessary because of the low base of infection among all maritime provinces.)

Restaurants have already been open for a few weeks now, so that seems to be going OK and have caused no bump in the numbers. A few more things are being allowed to open today, like indoor movie theatres with EXTREMELY limited capacity and enforced social distancing.

The plague did take another business, though... first it was my favourite market, and now, unfortunately, the local LGBT bar was forced to close. :( Lots of karaoke memories there, so that sucks.

From the top of /r/worldnews right now - Mexico closes US border in Arizona to stop July 4th visitors, citing COVID-19 fears

Something deeply ironic about Mexico refusing entry to US citizens during the presidency of Donald "Build The Wall" Trump.

All fireworks shows cancelled in San Francisco Bay Area