My colleague (whom I respect) was sick for 10 days but still decided to fly home to Spain with his wife and kid, who were also not well. It got worse, but after a week they still flew back. Now their whole family there is sick. His 85 yo dad had to go to hospital. A whole plane got a free gift on top. And I bet nobody wore a mask either. Did they get tested at all? No! I hate people and I trust hardly anyone any more to have common sense. #CovidIsNotOver #Flu #MaskUp
Disabled people have been warning others for nearly 5 years that eugenicist Covid policies would lead to a rise of fascist, racist, bigoted, misogynistic hatred. It's here now. So what’s next?
I will never understand why more people aren’t angry and radicalized by the events of the last five years.
The anti mask, anti-vaxx crowd are angry… but they’re also terribly misinformed and on the wrong side of history.
Those of us with disabilities are livid … but we aren’t heard. We’re treated as even more invisible now than we were five years ago. An unwelcome reminder of Covid and the frail nature of the human condition.
But what about everyone else? The anti mask crowd may be the loudest, but they’re far from the majority.
Why aren’t the rest of you angry? Why are so many people content to accept and normalize mass death and disability?
An article came out in PBS today that puts the total COVID deaths at over 20 million.
20 million people. Those are fathers, mothers, spouses, grandparents, siblings and children. Each number represents a loved one to someone else.
Where’s the outcry?
400 million are dealing with Long Covid. That’s an obscene amount of people whose lives are forever changed. Who may never again know what it’s like to be healthy or exist in a body that isn’t rife with suffering.
Where’s the rage?
We know how to prevent covid. We’ve known for years. Yet rather than adapting our lifestyle and being humble in the face of a novel virus - we’ve given it the reins.
We’ve conceded defeat before we even put up a fight. Accepted repeat infections as inevitable. Shrugged our shoulders as we report more and more deaths. Aggressively minimized and disappeared those with Long Covid.
This should make you angry. It doesn’t need to be this way.
What would success look like? What would fighting back entail?
🫶Mandatory masking in all healthcare facilities (with respirators)
🫶Free tests and vaccines for everyone
🫶Better funding of anti virals and other treatments
🫶Clean air in all public spaces with transparent data visible to the public
🫶Clean air on school busses and anywhere that children congregate
🫶Paid time off for everyone who’s sick
🫶Free respirators in public places AND freely available to anyone who can’t afford precautions
🫶A robust public health campaign about how to properly wear a respirator
🫶A brutally honest public health campaign about the dangers of COVID. We have to stop treating it like a respiratory virus and make the public aware that it’s a multi system vascular virus with immune damaging capabilities
Doing even a few of those things would make a huge difference. Doing all of them would end the pandemic.
Get angry. Get loud. Demand better. Demand transparency.
Say that 20 million dead is not “mild”. That 900 dying every week in the U.S. is not “over”. That 400 million disabled will NOT be ignored.
"SARS-CoV-2 causes the same genetic changes as every other virus known to cause cancer. [The idea that viruses can cause or lead to cancers is not new. Viruses like the Epstein-Barr virus, hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses, HIV and human papillomavirus are well-known pathogens associated with malignancies]."
This is just one excerpt that I could've pulled from the interview. I thought that this one was a shocking enough one that it might help some people pay attention, though.
This is a long read, and I know most people don't want to take the time to read, let alone understand it. Yet, this is one of the shortest and most accessible overviews of the mistakes in public health and messaging over the last five years that I have found to date.
This article finally gives me a piece of data that I've been looking for: 10 viral particles is all it takes for COVID to transmit from one person to another (and yes, I will be looking for other sources of this number somewhere out there in the data). As a infectious disease lay person nerd, that number means a lot to me. It means Covid is as transmissible as Norovirus. Actually, it is more transmissible.
To everyone still #masking, cleaning the air, monitoring CO2, and being conscious about not being a spreader of any disease, I thank you.
It sucks that we are in the minority.
You're doing the right thing, though. You're doing what you should be doing to effect public health, while everyone else, including public health officials, has lost their minds. Stay strong. The fight is not over.
For everyone not doing any mitigations to prevent being a viral reservoir in which COVID can continue to mutate -- know you can change your habits! You can change what you do in your life to protect yourself and others, even now, even after repeated infections. I highly encourage you to consider starting taking precautions again.
It's not difficult and it's not prohibitively expensive. I would argue that precautions are much less expensive in the long run than fighting cancer, immune deficiency, repeated bouts of pneumonia, etc. -- yet I understand it feels like swimming upstream.
Most people don't want other people to think that they are weird. Most people don't want to stand out. Nobody wants to be the tall poppy. But what we are losing in health and productivity and longevity because we have given into rampant transmission and reinfecfion with this virus is obscene.
You might have an employer who is hostile to the idea of taking your health in your own hands. You may be in a workplace that is designed to encourage viral spread. Your family or roommates might be entirely hostile to you taking precautions.
They are wrong.
A lot of money was wasted in the first couple of years of the pandemic not doing the things that we could've done to protect people and workers indoors -- filtering the air, monitoring indoor air quality, implementing UV technology, having people mask when they have symptoms or they think they've been exposed, and providing enough paid sick leave so that people can isolate and not infect others. Those are not our culture. We still have a long uphill battle on multiple fronts in that regard.
We're basically 100% in individualist Wild West territory at this point. It's going to get worse as the new administration enters the picture in the United States. More mask bans, more ignoring science, more "Let Er Rip" mentality. It's easy to give up and just go with the flow, though the price of that flow is two or three or five infections a year, each of which will lead to further health problems down the road.
It takes a lot of time and energy to resist. I'm in a position from which I can resist, though. Few others are in my particular situation. I have time and energy to devote to understanding the effects and costs of failed public health. I have a deep and abiding interest in understanding infectious disease as a lay person. Part of this is baked into the ethics and responsibilities of my profession. I hope that as I digest this information, it is helpful to you as a person who doesn't have these same privileges.
My personal stance is, I don't give a rat's ass what anybody thinks about me and my continued infection precautions. I know that I'm moving as ethically and responsibly as I can in the world. I also understand the risks of infection for my own self (high, terrible) and the risks of potentially infecting others.
I'm an outlier. But I ask you to consider joining me as we enter the second half of this pandemic's first decade. This is the only way public health is going to happen -- if we take it into our own hands and stop believing convenient fairytale bullshit and weakened public health entities.
Breakdown (tl;dr):
-- Public health has failed
-- disinformation is rampant, even from organizations that should be trustworthy
-- COVID is airborne and only takes a few particles to infect someone
-- COVID continues to evolve and evade rather than become "milder"
-- COVID can break your DNA, becoming a cancer precursor
-- vaccines are your LAST line of defense
-- Immunity debt is bullshit!
-- Masks work; even a beat up 30 day old 3M Aura mask filters well
-- Cleaning the air with HEPA filters is highly effective at reducing transmission indoors
For those of you still with me on this subject, those who have made it this far reading, as well as those of you who are becoming precaution-curious, here's a cookie:
"I think that if you’re out there taking COVID seriously, and if you’re out there still trying to avoid repeated infections, you’re still doing the right thing. It is still possible to avoid being infected and a worthwhile goal."
In this interview, Dr. Chakravarty discusses the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic and public health globally five years after the initial outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Wuhan, China.
If any event you're going to has a terrible Covid-19 policy, I invite you to shame them by pointing out an EROTIC HYPNOSIS CONFERENCE does a better job than them.
We would like to ask you again to test yourself every day for Covid before you come to the CCH. We also encourage you to wear masks - #CovidIsNotOver and other nasty things also go around.
Masks will be available at the entrance of the venue. #38C3
‘Tis the season for in-person gatherings. Be kind this holiday season by hosting Covid-safer events. Here’s some guidelines and checklists to help you plan your events with Covid precautions.
Before you tell a disabled person that they need to “just make the healthcare worker mask”… please understand the imbalance of power that exists in hospital settings.
We can’t “just make them” do anything. If they refuse -our options are to take the risk or go without care.
There’s little recourse when a HCW refuses to mask - there’s almost NO recourse that exists in the moment.
You can file a complaint after the fact - but if the care you require is urgent or an emergency - that won’t help you
Imagine you’re taken to the emergency room with an urgent (or life threatening) issue. The doctor comes in and refuses to wear a mask.
Do you walk out? Throw a fit? These are not good options
Even if you manage to keep your composure and strongly advocate for them to reconsider - the longer you argue the more potential virus you’re being exposed to.
The more you “annoy” the staff - the greater the odds of retaliation or reduction in care.
This isn’t like telling a friend or a colleague to mask. The dynamic is completely different.
HCWs have the ability to help you or harm you. You want them on your side.
A note in your chart indicating you’re anxious, difficult, non compliant etc can follow you around and impact all your care going forward. Getting charts corrected and notes removed is a time consuming and difficult process
As a result many patients don’t push the issue. They delay medical care as long as possible and then just cross their fingers they will get a compassionate HCW when they do finally go.
These delays can also cause harm - and shouldn’t be necessary.
Hospitals have never been terribly safe places. They’re where the strongest and most resistant bugs thrive. They’re also where the sickest and most vulnerable people are.
At least before Covid it felt like hospitals were TRYING to prevent infection.
These days it’s as though any amount of infection control is seen as weak. People are actually bragging about how many times they’ve had Covid or about the risks they’re taking with their health. Staff aren’t masking even around babies, cancer & transplant patients
We have to change course. Our healthcare systems could barely handle the amount of chronic illness they were facing before Covid - they certainly can’t handle the constant influx of disabled patients and staff that Covid is causing.
This is why we need mandatory masks in healthcare settings. The responsibility to keep themselves and others safe should NOT fall on the vulnerable patient.
Many are unable to advocate for themselves - and others are unable to mask.
Mandatory masking protects everyone
Lastly - the solution to this problem should not be “don’t go to the hospital”. It’s not right to make ANY patient feel like they’re wrong for seeking care. Like they’ve somehow “failed” if they end up with Covid.
Until you’re facing a life threatening emergency or serious health challenges - you can’t possibly know what you would do.
Is it scary to go to the hospital right now? Of course. Is it also necessary? Absolutely.
Patients should never be blamed for needing care or for being unable to get HCWs to mask. The system is failing us - we aren’t failing each other.
If you need the hospital - you have all my love & support. It’s impossibly hard - and I will keep fighting to make it better.
As long as hospitals refuse to do what’s right to prevent COVID (hello clean air & mandatory masking)… the onus is unfairly on the PATIENT to avoid COVID.
My guide offers tips to reduce your risk of hospital acquired COVID (and other HAIs)
A guide to navigating the risk of hospital acquired Covid - as well as how to manage overall risk of nosocomial infections and hospital derived complications.
Ugly laws will be enforced in Louisville. Medical masks will be allowed at “police discretion”.
Police chief says: “We do have to look at behavior of person, what they're doing at time, those kinds of things."
I have a disability that makes me LOOK nervous. I “appear” like I could be doing something wrong. As a result these bans terrify me.
Disabled people have been begging others to mask for years because we were afraid of this exact outcome.
Failure to normalize masking means those of us who NEED to wear them are seen as outliers. Deviants. Possibly criminals. There’s a target on our back.
Medical exemptions are not the answer - they leave too many people behind.
Everyone should have the right to protect themselves from a deadly & disabling virus. Whether already disabled or not.
Banning masks and then saying that the police will determine who is “legit” in wearing one based on their overall behaviour? Its terrifying.
This is exactly HOW profiling occurs. These bans will disproportionately impact marginalized individuals and people of colour.
They could also impact someone with a condition like mine. I’m immune compromised and high risk for Covid complications - so I ALWAYS wear a fitted respirator when I’m outside my home.
I also have dysautonomia - a literal malfunctioning of my autonomic nervous system.
If I’m upright - I “look” nervous. I’m sweaty, shaky, twitchy and sometimes wobbling. I’ve been accused of being drunk in public on MANY occasions.
It’s not my fault - Dysautonomia means I can’t regulate my blood pressure, heart rate, sweating & even pupil dilation.
The things that cops are trained to look for and consider “suspicious” are all symptoms of my disease.
In the past - the worst thing I had to worry about was being accused of public drunkenness. Even THAT was scary for me.
Mask bans mean I could be arrested and charged with a crime. Just for trying to keep myself & others safe.
I tell this story to encourage others to speak up against mask bans. To mask up in solidarity and help us normalize them so they will be harder to ban.
To encourage people to stop assuming if you have a “legitimate medical reason” you won’t have to worry. We DO worry.
We need less judgement, assumptions and gaslighting and more allies. These laws are dangerous. They will lead to more death, disability AND division.
Many of us have difficulty convincing HCWs of our illnesses - what hope do we have with police?
Please - if you CAN mask - now is the time. You don’t have to wait for a mandate or permission. You can choose to say “enough is enough” & be part of the solution. Break chains of transmission. Protect the vulnerable. Don’t allow government to decide who is & isn’t expendable.
We all have power and agency and can choose to do the right thing. We don’t have to sit idly by and accept repeated covid infections & exclusion of disabled people from public life.
Let’s work together and stop these bans before it’s too late.
I called EMS once and police showed up before paramedics (paramedics were busy).
The first thing they said? “You don’t look sick.”
They waited for paramedics who took me to hospital - but that initial response stuck with me.
It’s why mask bans are dangerous. Police aren’t trained to make medical decisions. They shouldn’t be the ones deciding who can and can’t legally wear a mask.
Many illnesses are invisible - you wouldn’t KNOW we’re disabled to look at us.
Most of us have experienced gaslighting from friends, family and even doctors - people are quick to judge and decide you’re “not that sick.”
So are we really expected to risk criminal charges by wearing a respirator & just HOPE police will believe we truly “need it”?
Not to mention that medical exemptions leave behind anyone who wants to mask to protect and preserve their health - as well as caregivers and family of disabled people.
We rely on them to keep us safe - we NEED them masking in public.
I sincerely hope more people join the fight against mask bans soon - because if we don’t fight against them - more cities and states will pass them and more people will suffer.
A good respirator is excellent protection against covid & other illnesses.
We shouldn’t be further excluding disabled and high risk people from public - but that’s exactly what these ugly laws do.
Call your elected officials - tell them medical masks can not and should not be banned.
Don’t embrace escalating fascism and eugenics just because you don’t think it will impact you.
Don’t celebrate it because you hold a grudge about mask mandates.
It won’t stop with disabled people. Help us now & your future self will thank you.
My full article on mask bans, medical exemptions and how we’re witnessing (and even welcoming) escalating eugenics and fascism: disabledginger.com/p/we-are-wi…
Fortsetzung des Abwassermonitoring, insbesondere, aber nicht nur, für #sarscov2 #COVID19 - bitte hier unterschreiben, das ist eine der letzten Metriken, die wir überhaupt noch haben.
“People not masking is literally killing me… If I do die, this is what killed me, people not masking or believing Long COVID lowers your immunity…” Tinu Abayomi-Paul, writer, disability advocate, and person with Long COVID, dies at 52: thesicktimes.org/2024/10/04/ti… #LongCovid #Covid19 #CovidIsNotOver #MaskUp #YallMasking
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…
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.
Thank you for sharing this Salon article on collective denialism. It touches so many subjects including Olympic athletes competing with covid, Taylor Swift superspreader concerts, surveillance of cases and deaths, how covid is not a cold or flu but a multisystemic disease that leads to disability in kids and adults, economic fallout, vaccination, and finally MASKING for mitigation. Superb article that needs a wider audience. salon.com/2024/08/10/noah-lyle… #Covid #CovidIsNotOver #MaskUp
Gemäß @RKI@social.bund.de waren in den letzten Sommern um diese Zeit nie so viele Menschen gleichzeitig krank wie jetzt. Die #Corona-Inzidenz wird auf 600 geschätzt (von Hobbymodellierern höher - irgendwo zwischen 800 und 1.300).
Sämtliche Infektionsschutzmaßnahmen wurden im März 2022 beendet. Ich würde mir wünschen, dass Journalist*innen nicht immer noch von "Nachholeffekten" schreiben, sondern mal endlich hinterfragen, ob wir ohne Infektionsschutz wirklich besser dran sind.
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.
This is really worrying. There's a bill in Nassau County, Long Island, New York, that has a good chance of passing due to GOP majority, that would fine people $1,000 for wearing a mask. https://www.nbcnewyork.
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:
Mask bans and revocation of medical exemptions have been all over social media this week - and anti-maskers are reacting with glee. They are celebrating disabled people losing a tool for protection.
What happens when you mandate masks at a conference now that most people no longer wear them but medically vulnerable people are still at risk because #CovidIsNotOver? In the case of #PyConUS, the conference sells out.
Why a masking policy? “Many of us and our fellow community members can’t attend without health and safety guidelines in place. We want PyCon US to be an event that everyone feels safe attending,” organizers explained.
⚠️ UPDATE⚠️ : #PyConUS 2024 is SOLD OUT. We had an unexpected spike in registrations just before opening the event today, and we've had to close sales of new conference passes.
It contains excellent explanations on the spread of COVID mutations/variants, why vaccination alone isn't the answer, why we should continue to mask and negative communications.
a friend and I were talking about COVID precautions and they just sent me this paper which appears to raise concerns about safety and efficacy of wearing masks for COVID - does anyone here know anything about this paper + what conclusions should be drawn from it? I feel like there's probably *something* wrong with it given it very much is the consensus in communities I'm in (that seem to pay lots of attention to the literature) that wearing masks is a good precaution to take against COVID, but I'm not sure how to respond. is there a good analysis of the paper somewhere or anything like that?
During the SARS-CoV-2-pandemic, face masks have become one of the most important ubiquitous factors affecting human breathing. It increases the resistance and dead space volume leading to a re-breathing of CO[2] .
Ich möchte auch einen umfassenden "gesellschaftlichen Aufarbeitungsprozess".
Warum wurden wir so inkonsequent geschützt? Warum wurde so konsequent aufgegeben? Warum wurde die Intensität der Forschung reduziert? Warum haben wir immernoch nichts gelernt für den Alltag? Warum kein Recht auf Schutz?
Ich bin wütend. Und ich vermute, keine dieser Fragen werden ernsthaft gestellt.
Julia Doubleday (The Gauntlet) takes on that horrendous article on NPR:
"NPR’s decision to platform a piece about the difficulty of navigating life with a spouse who can’t dine indoors, instead of a piece about the difficulty of navigating a society that has made dining indoors unsafe for vulnerable groups, is just that- a decision, and a political one. It is part of an ongoing effort to cast those who cannot play along with the “back to normal” fantasy- those who are being harmed and killed by it- as weird, paranoid, crazy, annoying, and “the problem.”
Long COVID is a major thorn in the side of the “back to normal” approach to COVID. While some people (appear) to recover well from COVID, many others suffer long-term post-COVID health problems."
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".
"Every picture of a masked face. Every negative COVID test. Every captioned picture from the event makes a difference. Every single one helps to normalize taking these basic precautions. Thank you. You are my tribe."
When you take a taxi in Tokyo, it's now pretty standard to have an air quality monitor inside.
The drivers all mask and there's plexiglass separating the driver and the passengers.
You may argue about the effectiveness of each of these measures, but it's clear that this is a society responding together and adapting to a new reality.
This is living with the virus: trying to mitigate it's harm. Instead of pretending it does not exist.
"Several people who attended the Epidemic Intelligence Service Conference have tested positive for COVID-19,” a CDC branch chief wrote in an email to staff on Friday.
Certain groups are pulling out of developing #COVID vaccines now that the "COVID opportunity" is "receding".
They are abandoning everything they promised. They aren't updating vaccines, they've stopped working on new vaccine development, they won't pay for testing & monitoring.
Businesses promised hybrid then forced everyone back full time. Businesses promised remote then forced hybrid. They're trying to force recession to take back power.
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"
Countries should consider recommending that passengers wear masks on long-haul flights, given the rapid spread of the latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19...
