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.
While making my breakfast I just heard an NPR "feel-good" story about how gathering with family for the Thanksgiving holiday will be freer from previous years' COVID constraints.
NPR interviewed a few folks about whether or not they would rapid-test prior to gathering, how the presence of high-risk family members would affect their plans, etc.
The overall consensus of the interviewees was a more positive outlook and a "return to normal."
NPR then mentioned that COVID cases will most likely peak next month, while failing to explicitly connect holiday gatherings to prior years' COVID surges.
NPR did not interview anyone with long COVID for the story, which could have added some valuable balance by reminding the audience of the long-term risks.
Feel-good stories such as this are designed to tell us what we want to hear but will leave a lot tragedy in their wake.
Please be careful out there, y'all. Gathering with family and friends is important, but don't give (or receive) the gift of long COVID this holiday season.
"COVID is back" only in the sense that media+govts are talking about it again. It never went away.
Just because you hadn't been hearing the word doesn't mean it wasn't being spoken about, knowingly or otherwise.
While the aforementioned entities don't suffer symptoms or illnesses that necessitate explanation, they do discuss delays, worker shortages, supply chain disruption, etc.
On the other hand, an individual must use euphemisms like allergies, summer cold, under the weather, out sick, fatigue, brain fog, diabetes, autoimmune disease, cancer, natural causes, etc, to gloss over new or ongoing health issues.
Anyone know of a high quality "window" mask to allow lipreading? Last time I spoke at a convention, I used an FFP2 window mask that worked fine, but it doesn't seem to be made any more. I anticipate speaking at #WorldCon in Glasgow in August. @masknerd ?
I'm in the emergency room right now (I've been having awful headaches for days, and now the pain is radiating into my arm, so time to get it checked out!) and the majority of people here are wearing masks. Mostly bad masks, but it's a start.
Given that everybody here is sick 😜, I opted for the 3M VFlex 9105, which makes a better seal than the ear loop N95s I wear most of the time. #MaskUp
Hello, fellow US-based people. If you, like me, are alarmed at COVID tracking infrastructure being pulled offline, consider: https://data.wastewaterscan.org/
Yes, it's more useful when in concert with other metrics, but we don't really have that 'luxury' anymore :blobcat_thisisfine:
I've told the story of how I got into #EmergencyPrep... Local govt held a community meeting about preparing for a 9.0+ #subduction zone #earthquake hitting the #PNW. Power co, water co, etc all gave useful advice.
A "return to normalcy" is impossible in our current world.
We are in a pandemic world fueled by #ClimateChange that is causing massive fires, deadly warming of the oceans, mass extinctions, heavy pollution, record-breaking hurricanes and tornadoes and droughts, and we should be fighting against the "normalcy" that is allowing this all to happen.
All of these are CHOICES human beings made, and they can be fought against. We can CHOOSE to stop doing the harmful things, to do instead something that saves lives, that mitigates the pandemic and climate disasters to avoid further loss of life and biodiversity.
We can choose to do this. It is not impossible to choose to stop the cycles of harm.
But I don't know how to get folks to CARE about other people. To CARE about their own lives even. To care about the environment, which is also crucial to our survival.
And it's not my job to convince people to value life.
I tried so many times with various arguments from as many angles as I could think of, and shared it here and on other posts of mine, but some people just don't want to admit that their values do not include valuing the lives of others.
One of the most common arguments is masks.
Not wearing masks? That isn't at all like choosing tea or coffee. That's an ideological difference in how you value LIFE.
So people who don't mask regularly?
You are telling us you don't value LIFE. You don't value your own life even. Your comfort and denial mattered more than saving lives.
And that's an ideological difference that cannot be reconciled.
"We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist." -- Robert Jones, Jr.
The disagreement over masks is a denial of our right to exist. Not wearing masks makes you a vector in spreading a deadly, rapidly mutating vascular immuno-suppressive virus that kills and disables people on a mass scale. It denies other people's ability to exist in society, especially as society abandons us to death and extreme poverty.
And not wearing a mask? Not fighting for better air filtration/ventilation? Not fighting against the abandonment of millions of disabled and newly disabled people? Not fighting against this tide of eugenics?
That's denying the humanity of so many of us. It's treating us like trash to be thrown away.
All so the person can run around without a mask in a crowded venue in some sort of weird alternate reality.
Then when the person inevitably gets sick, and sometimes gets #LongCovid, and they come to us and ask how could this happen? Why don't we do more to stop this?
And I, and many others, look at them and say:
"We told you. We warned you. We gave you the tools. But you did not value life. You did not even value your own life.
We do not leave anyone behind, because our ideology values life and keeping each other alive. So we won't abandon you either.
Yes, this was a choice you made for yourself and all the people you were a vector to, so take the time to grieve and learn. So you don't continue the cycle of harm."
This is a nonnegotiable line in the sand. I cannot be friends with people whose ideology values comfort over saving lives, whose ideology denies the humanity and right to exist of others.
Hey.. Covid isn't over.
It's actually worse than the first few waves. That's our baseline now.
You have a 1 in 10 chance of becoming disabled after infection.
You can get sick up to 5 times a year.
You will never have immunity.
You are typically infectious for 12 days.
Deaths are being under reported by up to %60.
Why aren't you wearing a mask?
Don't let corrupt politicians steal your health away.
The reason people don't get that Covid lingers in the air like cigarette smoke is because most places don't allow smoking indoors anymore.
The analogy we should be using is Covid Lingers in the Air like Pee Lingers in a Swimming Pool. Every room is a pool & every unmasked person you see is a potential Pool Pee-er. The more unmasked people, the greater the risk of pee, but it only takes one going pee & there's pee in the whole pool for the rest of the day. Get it now? #Covid#MaskUp#N95
This hiking year has been a struggle. Covid left me breathless with a vastly reduced capacity for banging out the miles. I miss the hills and the solitude. More than I can say. #MaskUp#StaySafe
Last month a friend announced he got COVID for the third time.
A few days ago, a friend announced her entire household had COVID (I know it is at least her second time).
Yesterday, a friend canceled plans due to a sore throat. She's had COVID at least twice and this is probably indication of a third round. She went out to a birthday gathering at a crowded bar the previous night. Although she likely did not contract COVID there, she likely infected others with whatever she has.
Today, a friend announced she got COVID last February and now has it again this February.
>SARS-CoV-2 is a protean virus. It seems designed to reinfect a previously infected host, changing its outer coat as well as some of its properties.
>We all remember Omicron and how it swept the world that had already experienced several waves of Covid cases. There were so many changes in the outer spike protein of Omicron that previous infections did little to protect from new infections. How much previous infection protects from disease still remains in question.
>BA.2… contained 54 amino acid mutations from the original Wuhan virus. The cause for concern with BA.2.86 is that it contains 41 amino acid mutations on top of the BA.2 mutations, totaling 95 mutations from the Wuhan virus.
>BA.2.86 is likely a common descendant of one of the original Omicron variants, BA.2, [?and a more recent variant, XBB?]. In the spike protein of BA.2.86, we see 60 amino acid mutations, including substitutions and deletions. For context, the Alpha variant, which fueled the second-largest surge of cases in the United States behind the initial Omicron surge, contained just ten spike amino acid mutations. Dr. Eric Topol describes BA.2.86 as "Omicron Squared."
>…the updated Covid vaccine set to be released this fall is designed to protect against the XBB.1.5 variant, but not BA.2.86. The hope is that the vaccine will protect against BA.2.86 should it widely circulate, but it would be unsurprising if the variant evaded booster protection, given the degree to which BA.2.86 is mutated in the spike is extreme.