The phrase "burnt out former gifted kid" has always given me the ick, but there are unique challenges/issues/traumas related to that experience that tend to come up in #autistic discussions and I've never encountered a good description.
Proposal for a slightly less icky alternative:
✨ burnt out former high achiever ✨
We think you may have forgotten about us. Or, at the very least, you are trying to. The new normal in society at large excludes many people, among them some of your comrades: us. Need we remind you that disabled and chronically ill people can be radical leftists? The entire range of self-proclaimed radical leftist politics should include anti-ableism by default. Without anti-ableism as a founding principle, all that remains of the radical left project is hypocrisy.
CDC director recommends #masking against tide of rising respiratory illnesses, including #COVID
The CDC hasn’t seen anything new in terms of viruses or sickness, but recommended a handful of precautions
By Nicole Karlis
December 7, 2023
"CDC director Mandy Cohen released a video this week about how to take precautions this winter as the #pirola clan outpaces previously dominant COVID-19 variants, alongside the rise of other respiratory viruses across the country. In the video, Cohen said respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases are 'elevated.' COVID-19 is starting to increase again, and pneumonia cases are also on the rise. Cohen specifies the CDC hasn’t seen anything new in terms of viruses or sickness.
"Still, she recommends taking specific precautions for people to protect themselves, like getting the updated COVID-19 vaccine, this season’s influenza vaccine, and the RSV vaccine for those over the age of 60. Additional layers of protection, she said, include washing your hands, improving #ventilation, and wearing a #mask.
"As masking recommendations eased up over the summer, the CDC appears to be tightening its guidance on masking this winter in light of Cohen’s latest video briefing. In May 2023, the CDC advised healthcare facilities to take a risk-based approach when it came to universal masking in healthcare facilities. In addition to masks, Cohen urged Americans to get tested when they’re sick in order to receive proper treatment. As of November 20, 2023, households in the U.S. are eligible for another order of four free coronavirus tests.
"'CDC will continue to closely monitor respiratory illnesses including respiratory viruses and pneumonia spreading across the US and around the world,' Cohen said. 'And we'll be sure to share additional updates and information.'"
Well, the #CDC's most recent #COVID today email doesn't mention #masking, but at least the "Learn More" link does, more emphatically than in the past, so let's acknowledge progress when we see it! #MaskUp#CovidIsNotOver@novid
Unless you know me fairly well, you probably don't realize that I am not a "holidays" person. Between #autism, #cPTSD, and #grief, I find the excessive cheer exhausting. The required #masking of my true feelings wears me out.
But please know, I don't begrudge anyone their holidays.
So my 24 year old coworker has called in sick again, it's basically every couple of weeks. He's been wearing a mask and social distancing, besides coming to work, since March 2020.
Is it possible that he has wrecked his immune system by wearing a mask basically 24/7 for close to 4 years now? I'm serious, I can't find any data one way or the other but no one else I know is as sick as frequently as this 24 yr old guy.
Between not masking, not testing (or charging for tests) stockpiling, rather than deploying #COVID19 vaccines, not filtering enclosed spaces, the government is masking its failure to get to grips with this virus and selling out the vulnerable & immunocompromised
And many someones in overlapping layers of responsibility ENABLED this infection.
This linguistic shift from the passive to active voice might seem irrelevant but, instead of just echoing the framing we see in the headlines — that Neil Gaiman got COVID-19— it’s time to own that somebody has infected Neil.
The passive voice has served a macabre purpose in this pandemic. The passive voice, by erasing the subject of the sentence, neatly obscures accountability, and with it our own role in unmitigated infections. Moreover, it has prevented us from identifying the layers of responsibility in enabling infections on a mass scale. This mental block is the first obstacle to advocating for effective mitigations and constructive solutions. It stops us from preventing infections. But that is changing now.
It is time to own the damage that we are causing by infecting others with COVID-19. I believe that we all know, deep inside, that we are causing harm. And many of us are suffering from the cognitive dissonance of pretending that we aren’t. Because, in a pandemic, this is serious and large-scale harm.
This harm that, according to estimates, has killed over 25 million people and disabled at least 65 million and counting. The sooner we face the harm we are causing by infecting other people, the less damage we will cause to ourselves, to our loved ones, to our community, to strangers on the other side of the world. And to people who entertain and inspire us, like speculative fiction author and TV creator Neil Gaiman. And inspiration is necessary when we are facing so many challenges. It’s that simple.
I booked an appt over 2weeks ago for some blood work at #Lifelabs that I need for an upcoming specialist appointment, I had to fast at least 10 hours for this blood work to be done. I just now woke up to get ready to go and I have an email telling me that my appointment has been cancelled due to "unforeseen circumstances" when I check the site, the location is closed for the day. It's hard to get a first thing in the morning appt at that place. I'm pissed. Maybe they should be #masking.
I was so dumb. I hesitated to restart #masking, waiting for anyone of authority in public health to tell us it was time. Then I tried for weeks to get a #booster appointment at CVS, where I’ve gotten my pfizers, but no luck. I didn’t get proactive enough. And guess what? Now I’m down with #covid. After years of being careful, I blew it. Do what I say not what I do, kids. #MaskUp
I love the covid-aware community, but goddamn if I am not bored to tears from hearing about how few people y'all saw wearing masks at the grocery store.
It's been this way for years now. We know! We get it!
@pixplz@Njord That's true. Yes. Nobody is being convinced. Nothing is improving at all.
I'm just very disillusioned. We had mandatory masks for a while here, with theoretically even impressive fees, and I remember very well how that went. Also I know that 100% of political parties in parliament, plus all the bodies responsible for e.g. medical care and hospitals here want to ignore Covid. It's not about campaigning to give more weight to one group as opposed to the other when there's no group. Nobody wants to get involved with anything. There's individual doctor's offices that mask, but they don't even want to advertise that.
I'd love to do more for clean air. I started with our school and kindergarten. Originally I had the naive idea of getting the other parents who care together. Turns out, there aren't any. It's a collective action of one. It's me. (Occasionally there's a grandparent with a mask picking up a kid, but they don't want anything to do with anything else.)
I wear a mask, yes, but not as a statement, that's just a side effect. I talk to the teachers about the air in the classroom. They open windows. I check if the windows are open in the morning. I tell everybody how important clean air is. Because of cultural reasons there's a widespread belief that cold air and drafts cause disease (you catch a "cold"), so people do not want open windows in classrooms. Air cleaning machines are very suspicious and dangerous (the filters will spread disease!), whereas getting a bit sick all the time is no problem at all. So right now my campaign is stuck at the educational stage, telling everybody who listens how much I enjoy not being sick and how great clean air would be. Comparing it to water. Explaining air filters. I'm tired of it. It's not helping.
Stronger climate policies have a larger part of the population and even of the political establishment behind them. Not enough, not by far, but climate change is coming while Covid is over, haven't you heard.
Btw, I strongly believe that we have to do both, individual small actions and the large collective revolution. Don't stop biking because fossil fuels are still subsidised. Keep meeting outside, wearing masks, opening windows, and explaining airborne pathogens, even in the face of ignorance and political evil.
Thanks for bringing it up. It's not nice but we need to talk about it.
I went to the dermatologist last week and I was the only one masked. (Did I mention that I live in Utah?) After being taken to an exam room, the nurse asked if I’d like her and the P.A. to mask. I said yes. I asked during the appointment if they’d seen evidence of Covid rising. They said yes simultaneously, and seemed very concerned. They lamented the politics. It also seemed that the mostly elderly patients envied my mask and seemed worried. But politics. 🤦♀️ #Covid#Masking
As Ed Mazza reports, the real reason Trump bridled at wearing a mask during the pandemic — and set an example that led to countless needless deaths — was vanity. Image. Make-up. Bronzer.
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson reveals this in a new book.
The thought that people would lay down their lives for … that, that travesty of a human being … is simply mind-blowing.
I hand delivered a few masks and a sage plant to a neighbor today, hadn't spoken w her in a long time. The K/N95's will sadly go to waste. She sees them as nothing more than a symbol of greed, a better life awaits us all in heaven, etc. But hey, I tried. #masking#pandemic#community
The Pirola variant is spreading, covid monitoring & data gathering has been stripped back, #vaccinationis getting under way but is limited by capacity & demographic(s)... no social measures (#masking, #socialdistancing) are as yet being publicised.
Could this be about to be a very difficult #winter? The trouble is as yet we have no good way of knowing until well down that road!