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.
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".
Back when I was still in university, sometimes my professors appeared in news articles. More often than not, they didn't appear, but the same 2-5 others experts of the country appeared (again and again and again).
As students we asked some professors how this all came to be. Who appeared where and how? We got the following explanation:
A news outlet decides they want to create an article or video. The tone and conclusion of the piece have already been decided. Then they contact many experts in that field. For example, a query they would send out is: "Hello, we're looking for experts to talk to about X."
Not many experts respond, but some do. The query they will get in response will be something like: "Thanks for your interest, we are looking for someone to confirm that X leads to Y and Z."
My professors told me that in their naive days, they would still keep interacting and correcting and suggesting other takes. "Actually, Y and Z aren't like that, it's too simplistic, but I could talk about A and B and how it leads to maybe Y in your article."
What would happen? They were ghosted of course. 😂
Among many experts, news outlets would eventually always find one or two people willing to confirm their shitty clickbait shit. And once these experts work along, they get contacted more frequently than others. Experts who keep correcting and being difficult, aren't contacted again.
I studied in a very niche field and I know all experts in that field in my country. I started to recognize who would work along and what they would gain from it. I now know who's blacklisted and who is being kept out of the news and why.
This has been in the back of my mind during the #pandemic. I assume things work the same way among virologists, epidemiologists, and other related experts. It's frustrating because they carry the title of expert, they come across as knowledgeable and the media spreads their words everywhere. It's made to appear as if these experts represent their whole field and all others in it.
But how many experts have these news outlets had to contact before finding someone who was willing to collaborate with their minimizing?
Please don't say "After the pandemic" or "Post-covid world".
Don't use phrasing that reinforces the idea that the pandemic is over and it's all in the past. It is not.
Say "post lockdowns", "After the initial response", "since public health measures expired", "during the global emergency phase", "while schools were closed".
Use accurate terms for what you mean, don't erase this gigantic ongoing issue.
The family tradition of Covid testing en-route just resulted in 36% of the guests for tonight’s Thanksgiving turning around and going home. None are symptomatic. The tests likely saved the lives of the nonagenarians attending. #CovidIsNotOver#covid#thanksgiving
Careful out there, there's a lot of nasty stuff besides covid going around. Such as "covid but I did my rapid test too early to detect it", and "covid but I didn't re-test my negative rapid test 48hr later", and "covid but I got a false negative for some other reason".
These diseases have a lot of the same symptoms as covid, but unlike covid, it's "perfectly safe" to continue your normal activities and infect a bunch of people.
I read a dad's post today about how hard it was for his kids to remain masked at school when everyone else is unmasked. It takes such courage. I made this for all the kids still masking. I applaud you and thank you. Please feel free to print it out and give it to your little heroes. #CovidIsNotOver#NotAllHeroesWearACape But they do #WearAMask#covid#maskup#heroes#resistance#solidarity
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.
• Mask wearers are immunocompromised.
• Mask wearers are sick.
• Mask wearers are caregivers of high risk people.
• Mask wearers know that #CovidVax is not enough to stop transmission.
• Mask wearers are healthy and want to STAY that way.
We called the rural Idaho in-laws last night. Knowing they subsist on a diet of Fox "News," we alerted them to the present COVID surge and requested that they take due precautions.
Their reply? "Well, we don't think there's much of that going around here. Usually, when cases are high, the medical staff wear masks, and we haven't seen that."
I quickly popped up the wastewater data from their county on my phone and saw a precipitous incline on the graph.
"The wastewater data in your area shows a surge," I said. "Please be careful."
When we hung up, their comment about masks stuck in my mind. They look to medical personnel for signals about the state of the pandemic. Employee masking at their doctors' offices provides a visual cue that prompts them to resume precautionary behavior. Absent the masking signal, they feel safe.
To me, this anecdote sums up why masking should be required in all medical environments. Aside from the obvious benefits of deterring the transmission of COVID (and other airborne viruses), the public looks to the medical community for behavioral guidance.
I have to go in for an injection every four weeks. I visit my local clinic for these appointments. I'm masked, always, but there are no more masks in health care. Today's visit:
Nurse: So you still...
Me: I still what?
Nurse: points at face
Me: Sorry?
Nurse: You still wear a mask?
Me: I do.
Nurse: I see. You're going to have to take it off someday, though.
Me: No, I don't.
Nurse: It's mild now.
Me: They also said EBV is mild. I got it as a teenager and 15 years later I still have not recovered.
Nurse: Well...
Me: I have never beaten a bacterial infection without antibiotics. I have never been ill for less than two months with any viral infection. Everything up til now seriously knocks me down, like my medical file says. At least 10% of people still have symptoms six months after their covid infection. What does that mean for me? Why should I risk it?
Nurse: It's a really big offer to make, still wearing a mask.
Me: Actually it's really a very tiny effort to wear a mask.
Nurse: Do you wear that everywhere? Or just when you visit here?
Me: I wear it anywhere where people are, especially medical buildings where lots of sick people come to visit.
Nurse: So do you wear it at home as well?
Me: What? No. Why would I?
Nurse: Well, I don't know, since you seem to be wearing it everywhere.
Me: Could you please just use the syringe now?
Nurse: Okay, if you would rather wear a mask all the time than feel bad every once in a while...
Me: You know, I have to think about my income too. I'm a freelancer. Who's going to pay me when I'm sick in bed for at least three months? I don't get sick leave. Who's paying me? Will it be you?
Nurse: silence
Me: Anyway could you please do the injection and make a new appointment for August, many thanks.
😫
This is what being chronically ill is like now. I have 15+ years of bad experiences with medical personnel and their gaslighting, their withholding of care and their abuse. But it's frustrating to have another topic up for debate possibly every visit now.
It's now confirmed that my daughter contracted Covid at work (a local retail store). She discovered at least two of her coworkers also contracted it. The manager is pressuring them to go back to work with Covid. My daughter has refused to do so as she doesn’t want to infect her customers, many of whom are elderly. I'm sure this is not the only store pressuring sick people to work. Wear a mask while shopping, folks! #Covid#CovidIsNotOver
There is so much unprocessed grief about the loss of the before-times in our society right now. My coworker, who is now masking again, has been relaying her emotions to me since we started talking about COVID and I remember so much of what she's going through.
People are so broken right now. Denying we've lost something isn't going to bring it back, though. It just ensures we'll lose more.
American adults! You all now have access to a FREE, 24/7 ON DEMAND TELEHEALTH system for #COVID19 and influenza so you can get prescribed #Paxlovid or anti-flu medications, any time, day or night, that you test positive.
Anyone in the US who is 18 or older can use the telehealth service to talk to a prescriber if they test positive for flu or COVID.
AND! As a special service for those who are poor, old, or a veteran, they will also ship you free COVID and flu tests if you want. Sign up in the same system.
TL;DR: #COVID fucks up the immune system and AGES your cells. Recovery of vital immune cells can take months, even years. Adults have a LIMITED ABILITY to create new immune cells bc our thymus is atrophied.
Your body does NOT develop immunity to new COVID strains, and “immunity debt” is a MADE-UP TERM that has absolutely NO BASIS in reality or how our immune systems actually work.
"Pandemics retreat or fizzle out when society has wittingly or unwittingly addressed the social and ecological conditions in which they thrive. The great cholera outbreaks of the 19th century didn’t diminish until industrial elites built clean water and sewage works for the working class. COVID, an airborne virus, will likely dog us as long as we tolerate dirty air in poorly ventilated homes, hospitals, workplaces, schools and public transport."
New type of mask interaction today, when I had to go to the hospital for a yearly check-up (sadly unavoidable). Nobody wore a mask, not even medical personnel when they had to physically interact with patients. There was still disinfectant gel around, but I was the only one using it.
An unmasked nurse came to pick me up from the waiting room and when she dropped me off at the room, she pointed at my mask and said: "Miss?! Do you have corona?!"
I explained: "No, I'm trying to prevent it."
Her: "So you don't have any symptoms?"
Me: "No, none, just wearing this to protect myself."
Her: "Are you vulnerable?"
Me: "Yes."
Her: "Sorry about that, I just have to check when I see something, you know? With these new guidelines, anyone could be having corona anywhere! And most don't even wear a mask!"
Me: "True, I heard the coughing in the waiting room."
Her: "Yes! And they don't stay at home! They don't even mask! I bet people like you could use people like them like a tooth ache!"
Me: "Indeed, I wish people wore masks."
Her: "Unbelievable, such people!!! Coming here of all places!!! Anyway, I'll get the doctor, be right back."
I was kind of surprised that she felt so strongly about unmasked sick people (I'm used to everyone minimizing the severity or covid or claiming it's gone), but I was also annoyed that she wasn't masked herself either. I don't have energy for those types of conversations anymore though, I'm just trying to get in and out of the building as quickly as possible.
A little while later I was waiting in the treatment room for the doctor to arrive, when I saw the door open a tiny bit. I heard the same nurse explain to someone: "The patient is wearing a mask, but I checked and she doesn't have covid, she's just one of those vulnerables, you know? So don't worry, she's not sick."
Then the doctor came in, unmasked, and no further comment was made about my mask.
If only there was a simple way for all these medical people in the hospital to prevent the spread of covid to themselves and their patients... 🤡