#quarantinelife week 6 – mandatory masks, a letter from Gates, and lonely pigeons...

I was working on the first cut of today’s newsletter, and had a computer malfunction. Truly not sure what happened, but when I recovered email the nearly-completed #quarantinelife installment was gone. As my own IT tech support, I was able to restore to a previous version. So here we go.

Masks mandatory in Bay Area. Six Bay Area counties passed an order to wear masks in public starting April 22. Residents who do not comply can be ticketed. Reported by KGO 7.

Media tracking. This week's media tracking revealed 1.41 million mentions of coronavirus-related news. Word on the street is that reporters still want us to send them pitches, but they may not respond. Key message is make sure the news is relevant…otherwise, I think you're better off if you JUST DON’T PUSH SEND. This is according to a Cision survey of national reporters (and my own reading into the data and between the headlines). With so many stories and press releases in motion, reporters want to be in the know, but with no expectations to write or respond, and they don't want to waste time on information they can't use. Think about it. If you were receiving 50-150 pitches each week, would you have time to read them all? We are betting that reporters are reading their subject lines and madly deleting emails that aren’t a fit — much like we all do each day when a growing number of newsletters come through our inboxes. 

Save the date: April 30. Variety reported that Parks and Rec is returning live from the actors’ homes to raise money to feed America. Keep the laughs coming!

One state at a time. Some states are slowly reopening, and even inside the states there is confusion and disagreement. UPI and NYT each looked at a few states returning to business as usual from Alaska to Oklahoma to Georgia. NBC News dove deeper into the turmoil in Georgia specifically. And Vox reported on state by state differences in defining essential workers. For example: Arizona deems golf courses essential. New Jersey says that liquor stores are essential; Pennsylvania does not. Other things that vary by state include testing, as Washington Post reported. NPR looked at just how much testing we need, something states like California say is key to opening up.

Bill Gates on what it will take. Yesterday Bill Gates released his thoughts on the scientific steps to stopping COVID-19. Here’s his LinkedIn post in case you missed it.

The draft. Sports enthusiasts got a fix this week. On Thursday, the first half of the NFL Draft drew 6.1 million viewers, a 1.6 million increase over last year. Round two underway! 

Warning: Don’t drink the Lysol. The manufacturers of Lysol have publicly warned against ingesting disinfectants to fight Covid-19, as reported by NBC News. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who has not been on TV after taking some messaging into his own hands, Tweeted his own response. 

What he said. Polls reveal that American trust in what the president says is hitting a low, though how you feel may depend on how you vote. According to an AP-NORC poll, merely 28% of respondents are getting their news from Trump, and only 21% give him even a moderate level of trust. A similar slice, 22%, do not trust him at all; while 60% think he is not listening to health experts; and 80% want to stay under quarantine. As Gallup Poll found, public health is becoming more partisan, Axios reported this week. The AP-NORC poll leads to the same conclusion.

Return of the Mary Meeker Trends Report. Bond Capital, whose partner Mary Meeker was famous for her Internet Trend Report in the 90s, released the first Coronavirus Trend Report equating the impact of the pandemic to the 1906 earthquake. Axios provided exclusive coverage on the key takeaways.

Loans with loopholes. It seems that Shake Shack was the first to return a small business paycheck protection program (PPP) loan, according to NBC News. Others like Ruth’s Chris have followed suit. Yet small businesses, often called micro-businesses, haven’t been able to get their loans. CNBC also covered which public companies took loans. San Francisco Business Times financial/banking reporter Mark Calvey has been following this closely and wrote this week about what to expect. 

A startup drought. The WSJ looks at an unreported trend. Not the number of lost jobs. This time it’s the number of missed opportunities. In fact, year-over-year, the number of new business applications was down 20% last week. This could be any business, from barber shops to fintech apps. Entrepreneurism seems to have hit pause for many.

Are the terms of the deal changing, too? TechCrunch talked to veteran dealmakers about what to expect, and not, in the post-Covid dealmaking era.

More trackers and symptom checkers. Emory Healthcare offers one of many symptom checkers offered to the consumer public, as reported by STAT. Facebook also officially launched an interactive map that tracks coronavirus by county, according to the Mercury News.

More event cancellations. The Scripps National Spelling Bee will not go live this year, for the first time since 1945, NPR said. But days later, two siblings stepped up to take it online, said the NYT.

A return to building. From Seattle to San Jose, construction workers want to get back to work. The Silicon Valley Business Journal laid out what construction will be first to begin. Also on the commercial front, Alphabet is pulling out of some Bay Area deals, they told The Information. This will impact some, though not all, markets.

Up against the clock. Developing a drug is no easy task. The Economist covered the race to find a cure and mentions the work of U.S.-based Codagenix, part of global health fund Adjuvant Capital's portfolio. Adjuvant's managing partner also wrote an op-ed for STAT that encourages reducing the biosafety level for labs to stimulate innovation.

History lesson. This week we are sharing the origin of social distancing, from the NYT.

They built a gym. Here’s what TIME suggests you may want to include if you are considering a home gym.

Digital divide: the space between rich and poor. CNN wrote about the divide emerging between kids with computers, online access, and other comforts, and those without, in the world of sheltering in. Many of us are seeing this daily as we battle our own children for bandwidth. A reminder of just how fortunate we truly are.

The second curve: depression. There has been a lot of talk about a second curve. Some call it the rise in critical care not related to COVID-19. Science Magazine dove into a second curve facing healthcare workers: depression.

And if you think you’re depressed, don’t forget the pigeons of San Francisco (and other urban meccas) and how hard this must be on them.