Disability Rights New York has filed a class action lawsuit against Nassau County seeking an injunction to stop the enforcement of mask bans.

This is exactly the kind of action we need to see happen against discriminatory & ableist mask bans.

Law enforcement should not be the arbiter of who is “sick enough” to legally wear a mask. Many disabilities are invisible - and police are NOT doctors.

For more on the Nassau County mask ban and why it’s discriminatory - as well as why everyone (disabled or not) should be allowed to wear a mask - read my article here: disabledginger.com/p/nassau-co…

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #CleanAir #WearaMask #Disability #LongCovid #Ableism #Denial #CleanAir #Pandemic #PublicHealth #InfectionControl #Eugenics #SafeHealthcare #N95 #Respirators #MasksWork #MaskUp #Spoonie #Discrimination #Dysautonomia #mecfs #pots #mcas #communitycare #wearamask #chronicillness #keepmasksinhealthcare #MaskBans #NoMaskBans

med-mastodon.com/@luckytran/11…

Nassau County, NY Makes Masking Illegal - Why Medical Exemptions Aren't the Answer

Defendants of mask bans point to medical exemptions as proof that disabled people have nothing to worry about. They're wrong. A look at why bans are ableist, discriminatory and dangerous.

^{Broadwaybabyto (The Disabled Ginger)}

I urge everyone to read this post from Lucky Tran about a proposed mask ban in Nassau County that would see people fined $1000 for wearing a mask. As soon as North Carolina passed their mask ban - we began seeing other cities and states follow suit.

Mask bans are wrong. Period. We are in an airborne pandemic where one of our best and only tools remains a well fitted respirator. The idea that people should have to carry around a medical exemption (which not everyone can obtain) or face fines and/or arrest is ableist and discriminatory. These bans force disabled people out of society because they don’t allow us to exist safely in public spaces - and they will increase the spread of Covid.

Call, email, post… speak out against these bans. Let lawmakers know you won’t visit any city or state that doesn’t allow people to wear a medical device for personal protection and community care.

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #MaskBan #BoycottNC #CleanAir #WearaMask #Disability #LongCovid #Ableism #Denial #CleanAir #Pandemic #PublicHealth #InfectionControl #Eugenics #SafeHealthcare #N95 #Respirators #MasksWork #MaskUp #Spoonie #Discrimination #NorthCarolina #NewYork #UglyLaws #NewJersey

med-mastodon.com/@luckytran/11…

The proposed mask ban in North Carolina will turn people who are trying to protect their health (and the health of others) into criminals.

While the action of the government doesn’t surprise me - the response of the public does. I expected most people to find this type of law appalling - and instead I’m seeing people celebrating what I consider to be eugenics in action.

I wrote about the proposed bill, the public response and the disability community’s right to survive:

open.substack.com/pub/disabled…

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidIsNotOver #CovidCautious #sarscov2 #maskup #WearAMask #CleanAir #Pandemic #Disability #accessibility #DisabilityRights #ableism #Eugenics #MaskBans

> Jose L Jimenez et al. Indoor Air. 2022 Aug. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/360402…

> The question of whether SARS-CoV-2 is mainly transmitted by droplets or aerosols has been highly controversial.

> For most of human history, the dominant paradigm was that many diseases were carried by the air, often over long distances and in a phantasmagorical way. This miasmatic paradigm was challenged in the mid to late 19th century with the rise of germ theory, and as diseases such as cholera, puerperal fever, and malaria were found to actually transmit in other ways. Motivated by his views on the importance of contact/droplet infection, and the resistance he encountered from the remaining influence of miasma theory, prominent public health official Charles Chapin in 1910 helped initiate a successful paradigm shift, deeming airborne transmission most unlikely. This new paradigm became dominant. However, the lack of understanding of aerosols led to systematic errors in the interpretation of research evidence on transmission pathways. For the next five decades, airborne transmission was considered of negligible or minor importance for all major respiratory diseases, until a demonstration of airborne transmission of tuberculosis (which had been mistakenly thought to be transmitted by droplets) in 1962. The contact/droplet paradigm remained dominant, and only a few diseases were widely accepted as airborne before COVID-19: those that were clearly transmitted to people not in the same room. The acceleration of interdisciplinary research inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that airborne transmission is a major mode of transmission for this disease, and is likely to be significant for many respiratory infectious diseases.

#CovidIsAirborne

What were the historical reasons for the resistance to recognizing airborne transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic? - PubMed

The question of whether SARS-CoV-2 is mainly transmitted by droplets or aerosols has been highly controversial. We sought to explain this controversy through a historical analysis of transmission research in other diseases.

^PubMed

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who identified a chemical tweak to messenger RNA that laid the foundation for vaccines against #Covid19, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/ Medicine.

As this photo shows, both scientists are wearing masks and NOT relying on the "vax and relax".

#WearAMask #WearARespirator
#MaskUp #NobelPrize #Covid #CovidIsNotOver #SarsCov2 #COVIDisAirborne

Here we go #DrupalCon!!

Please stay home if feeling unwell.
Please take a rapid test before traveling.
Please test while at the conference.
Please, wear an N95 mask with over the head straps, flatten the metal nose piece and bend to fit, check no gaps, and verify tight seal for the best protection for yourself and others.
Please eat outside, when possible.

johnsnowproject.org/primers/wh…

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidIsntOver

World Health Organization Advice to Protect Against Long Covid - John Snow Project

The World Health Organization has joined the US CDC and HHS in providing new guidance on the ongoing public health threat posed by Long Covid.

^{John Snow Project}

We'll never fully understand the political agenda that popularized the removal of mask-wearing. It's the least expensive yet most effective way to protect the public.

Mask wearing should never have ended when there is currently over 500 deaths a day.

"WHO backs mask wearing on long flights as new Omicron variant spreads"

yahoo.com/news/1-backs-mask-we…

#COVID19 #CovidIsNotOver #PublicHealth #BringBackMasks #COVIDisAirborne

UPDATE 3-WHO urges travellers to wear masks as new COVID variant spreads

Countries should consider recommending that passengers wear masks on long-haul flights, given the rapid spread of the latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19...

^{Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Natalie Grover (Yahoo News)}