And it keeps getting better:
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One unexpected side effect of Covid: the combination of (a) disruption to the normal schedules of men’s professional sport, and (b) lotsa bored people in lockdown has resulted in greatly improved coverage of women’s sport in Australia.
The AFLW had prominent primetime coverage earlier in the year, and now the women’s cricket is getting the same treatment.
However, cricket will always be cricket: the Sydney vs Melbourne women’s BBL game on the telly tonight is looking to mostly consist of commentators killing time while they hope for the rain to ease off.
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Merck’s advance purchase agreement with the US government pegs the price of a five-day treatment at about $700. But an independent analysis by public health researchers at Harvard estimated that a sustainable generic price—with a 10 percent profit margin built in—would be just $20 per treatment. Further, rival generic manufacturers in India are already expected to offer the drug at $15 or less for a treatment once it’s authorized for use.
Yeah, that’s not the sort of thing that can backfire horrendously at all, is it?
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In the USA? Business as usual. It’ll probably be €30 in the pharmacies here in France a week after it gets approval.
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Looks like Hobart is going into lockdown tomorrow:
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All thanks to our sociopathic fly-in Typhoid Mary wannabe.
He is unmasked in that image because (a) he refused to wear a mask, and (b) the cops didn’t want to have to wrestle with a known-infectious fuckwit just to force one on him.
Apparently he spent over an hour hanging around in a supermarket before he was picked up. I would be entirely unsurprised to learn that he spent his time there licking as many things as possible.
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Good luck, hope it’s genuinely short. Ours will be over soon, simply because it ultimately failed - too many selfish dickheads - so they’re moving to the vac-everyone-and-open-up play.
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I’m well north of it, and if it gets extended I have enough food stashed away to lock the gate for a month.
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“If authorized or approved by local regulatory agencies, we plan to implement a tiered pricing approach based on World Bank data that recognizes countries’ relative ability to finance their health response to the pandemic,” a Merck spokesperson told Ars. Merck is also “in discussions with various governments and other organizations regarding access approaches,” the spokesperson added.
My translation: “We’re looking to price this as close as possible to the average local value of a human life…” I’m sure if they could, they would involve an individual credit check in order to maximize profit shareholder value.
It’s bad enough that we are allowing people to profit off of a situation like this, but to allow a private company to purchase exclusive rights to produce a medication that was developed through publicly funded research seems like some next-level wrongness, not that I am shocked that such a system has been allowed to exist.
The best line in the article is the final one:
The highly effective and safe COVID-19 vaccines—which can prevent hospitalizations, deaths, disease spread, and the need for all of these pricy drugs—range in price from $10 to $40 per shot in the US.
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Apparently the reason for the lockdown is that:
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The dickhead has been persistently lying to contact tracers about his movements
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One of the dickhead’s close contacts/accomplices also decided to leave home isolation and go for a wander. After the dickhead was caught and the story was out.
Dickhead had been applying for permission to enter Tasmania from a high-risk zone (Sydney) on the basis that he intended to permanently relocate to Tasmania. This is an allowed exception, but you are required to provide some documentary evidence that you aren’t just making it up (e.g. a signed lease agreement, a job offer, etc.).
He failed to do this twice, and was therefore refused permission to enter both times. He then flew down on the last flight of the day (which is why he went into quarantine instead of being immediately placed on the next flight back) before doing his runner.
It’s probably just randomly reckless sociopathic fuckwittery, but it isn’t entirely implausible that the plan was “well, if Covid gets loose in Tasmania then they won’t have any reason to maintain the border restrictions, so…”.
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Personally, I’m spending the weekend digging out the mud and leaves from the drainage ditch along the top edge of my property.
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You can make wattles!
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Ooh, that might work for keeping gunk out of the trench. And I have an infinite supply of self-seeding acacia and melaleuca…
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Tassie media:
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Outrageous luck so far still holding:
The media has leaked the identity of Typhoid Malcolm; let’s just say that he already had some poorly-managed issues pre-Covid.
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Lol, subs not doing their job (if there’s any left).
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Oz today:
Two cases in Adelaide. Zero infections in Tasmania, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the NT.
NSW and ACT are still moderately fucked, and may be about to see an explosion of cases as they prematurely reopen. Victoria is still totally fucked.
SA and WA demonstrate that it isn’t about Tasmania’s island, QLD demonstrates that it isn’t about urbanisation or international exposure. NSW was fucked by government malpractice (aggravated by failure to properly manage its role as a major transport hub), Vic was fucked by proximity to NSW and a different but still avoidable set of government fuckups.
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Late Tuesday, on the eve of the scheduled release of the report, the committee removed the recommended charges of homicide and genocide, said Renan Calheiros, the centrist Brazilian senator who was the lead author of the report, just after midnight on Wednesday local time.
It is at best uncertain whether the report from the 11-member panel — seven of them opponents of Mr. Bolsonaro — will lead to any actual criminal charges, given the political realities of the country.
But in deeply polarized Brazil, it reflects the depths of anger against a leader who refused to take the pandemic seriously. The report may prove a major escalation in the challenges confronting Mr. Bolsonaro, who took office in 2019, faces re-election next year and is suffering falling popularity.
The extraordinary accusations appear in a nearly 1,200-page report that effectively blames Mr. Bolsonaro’s policies for the deaths of more than 300,000 Brazilians, half of the nation’s coronavirus death toll, and urges the Brazilian authorities to imprison the president, according to the excerpts from the report and interviews with two of the committee’s senators.
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