#either from the virus or from us killing them to prevent it from spreading

[eridan-ampora]

okay i am way too tired to pull up sources and shit to explain how wrong this is but "99% of artic foxes have rabies" is ABSOLUTELY not true, i promise you

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

As we’re facing the next COVID surge (brought on by holiday travel), I thought I might try a different kind of COVID post. You can skip to here for some easy to do tips and tricks you might have missed, or you can read down for my discussion of why this is important.

I have recently been writing and thinking a lot about why so many of my friends and family’s actions on COVID are so different from mine. Namely why so many people I know no longer seem very interested in either preventing themselves from being sick or, importantly, not spreading sickness to anyone else.

In my own case, the experience of staying home to stop the spread in 2020 forced me to strongly reconsider my behavior up to that point. Why had I ever thought it was OK to go to work or ride the subway with the flu, unmasked and taking no precautions, knowing that the flu certainly hospitalizes and kills people each year? Even if the flu was no big deal for my body, my behavior had limited other people—particularly disabled people—from comfortably being in public during flu season. I had knowingly spread around an illness. I radically reconsidered a lot of my behavior, and in particular, 2020 pushed me to focus more specifically on disability justice in my activism. A disability justice framework pushes us beyond thinking about individual access to consider how ableism limits us all from liberation.

Getting back to why this reconsideration didn’t happen on a mass level, understanding disability justice also means understanding that ableism is the current social order. And if it’s the order of the day, like other oppressive ideologies, that means we are all drenched in it and it is impossible to avoid ever doing something ableist. Furthermore, most people are going to act in ableist ways, most of the time. None of this are exempt from this, but not even trying is definitely worse!

I am also well aware that good COVID information is hard to come by, especially if you are not on the regular lookout for it. And if you do go looking for it, it can quickly get overwhelming. So I’d like to offer here a very short, distilled list of things people might have missed since 2020. (I’ve not taken the time to track down citations for all of these things; you’ll have to trust me that I got them from trustworthy sources or you can verify on your own. I’m happy to give more info on any of these too.)

Some of these things are easy enough to do. I’m offering this list because from a “stop the spread” mindset, each specific thing you do is helpful. This list is not meant to be comprehensive, and it’s hopefully not overwhelming. You don’t have to be perfect or avoid COVID 100% of the time or make this part of your identity, but I’d like to ask everyone reading this to take one step up in your mitigations for the holiday season, since this is reliably a time with huge increases in virus transmission. With around a thousand people still dying every week from COVID in the US, you don’t know whose life you may save by being a little more careful.

Masking This is the biggest bang for your buck, precaution-wise. If it’s hard for you to mask all the time in public, consider masking in places that disabled people really can’t avoid, like the pharmacy, the grocery store, and on public transportation.

I’d also suggest that if masks are uncomfortable, try different kinds of masks! The Aura is my favorite mask – it’s tight to my face so my glasses don’t fog and head straps don’t hurt my ears like ear straps do. Wellbefore sells masks in different sizes and colors, and Armbrust has sampler packs. Just try a bunch and see what works for you!

Finally, know that if at all possible, you should wear an N95 or KN95 mask. This is a change since spring 2020 because the current variants of COVID are more contagious.

Mouthwash Washing your mouth out with a mouthwash containing CPC (cetylpyridinium chloride) before or after seeing people, or just regularly, will kill some of the virus in your mouth and keep you below the threshold to get sick and/or shed the virus to others. This is a really easy one; CVS brand mouthwash has CPC.

Sip mask These valves will allow you to drink without breaking the seal of your mask. This is great for airplane travel, crowded conferences, or other risky spaces that you need to be in for an extended amount of time.

Airplane The most dangerous time on an airplane from a virus transmission standpoint is the time sitting on the runway (because of the way they circulate and filter the air onboard). Even if you don’t mask up during the flight, this is the best time to mask. (And if you do mask, this is the worst time to have a snack or drink – try to keep your mask on for all of this period.)

Space out risky or crowded events Don’t go to a wedding and a concert in the same weekend! Illness takes 3-5 days to develop after exposure, so give yourself time to know if you got sick from the last thing before potentially spreading that to the next thing.

Air purifiers work! This is a great one for places that you can’t avoid, like school, work, or daycare. You can make your own Corsi-Rosenthal box, but there’s also a variety of high quality air purifiers you can get for $70-100. You want to make sure it has a HEPA or Merv13+ filter on it, and check how quickly it changes out the air in a room. Since COVID is airborne, there can be COVID in a space even after the person has left it. Setting up air purifiers and/or opening windows until enough air has circulated before you remove your mask is a great way to make a space COVID safer

Test before going to events, even if you don’t feel sick Rapid tests (the kind you’re used to getting from the government and at the drug store) False negatives from these are rampant but a positive test reliably means you have COVID. The accuracy of these tests also increases a LOT if you take two of them 48 hours apart.

Better home tests are now available Metrix and Pluslife are both testers you can buy that offer a similar level of accuracy to a PCR test (that is, very accurate!). These devices are expensive, but so is another COVID infection: think of the missed work, cost of Paxlovid, and potential for Long COVID to keep you down even longer.

It’s a good idea to get an updated vaccine 2x a year too; like the flu shot, these vaccines are updated to try to fend off the particular variants that are circling. Be mindful though that vaccination will not necessarily stop transmission, especially of asymptomatic cases. Handwashing is also good for general prevention, but it doesn’t really stop COVID transmission. In the early days of COVID, researchers guessed that it was spread by physical droplets. That’s why we were instructed to wash our hands and groceries. But now we know that COVID is airborne; it spreads more like cigarette smoke than spit!

Of course, no single thing works perfectly. The best model is still the Swiss cheese model, but that also means each thing you do helps. If you’re reading this, please consider doing *one more thing* to take care of yourselves and others. I love you

[collapsedsquid]

In the U.K., the Health Security Agency recently raised its threat level to 4 out of 6, the stage immediately before large-scale human outbreaks. In Europe, countries are proactively vaccinating dairy and poultry workers against infection, with 15 nations already securing a total of 40 million doses through the European Commission. In the United States, despite having a stockpile of those vaccines, we are not distributing them, instead focusing on standing up voluntary supplies of seasonal flu vaccines to frontline workers. (The hope is that this will prevent animal infections of human flu that might aid in the further mutation of H5N1.) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has cited the low number of cases to justify its inaction, but it has also moved remarkably slowly to promote the kind of widespread surveillance testing that could actually identify cases. Only recently has the agency begun to mobilize real funding for a testing push, after a period of months in which various federal groups batted around responsibility and ultimate authority like a hot potato. And as was the case early in the Covid-19 pandemic, the C.D.C.’s preferred test for bird flu “has issues.” Three months into the outbreak, only 45 people had even been tested; six weeks later, the total number of people tested had grown only to “230+.” [...] Most farms aren’t supplying N95 masks, goggles or aprons to protect workers, either, and when Amy Maxmen of KFF News surveyed farm workers to ask why they weren’t getting tested, “no one had heard of bird flu, never mind gotten P.P.E. or offers of tests,” she reported. “One said they don’t get much from their employers, not even water. If they call in sick, they worry about getting fired.” Last month, a crew was deployed to slow the spread of the disease by killing every last chicken of 1.78 million on a large Colorado farm where H5N1 had broken out and six of the workers contracted the virus, partly because the gear they’d been provided was hard to use in the punishing 104-degree heat. In June, Robert Redfield, former director of the C.D.C., echoed many epidemiologists in predicting that “it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic.” In July, Brown’s Jennifer Nuzzo warned that the steady beat of new cases “screams at us that this virus is not going away.” Tulio de Oliveira, a bioinformatician who studies global disease surveillance, marveled that the American effort to track the spread of the disease was absolutely amateurish and the country’s apparent indifference “unbelievable.”

[ghostopossumlives]

Didn't like how the torso started going, but pretty satisfied with this face. This is a sketch of a Hool's face.

Long ancient lore ramble:

Long before the FTL Dark Age of the Nebula, the Hool ruled an empire that was ruined and scattered by the Ixionites a bit before the Ixionites wiped themselves out in the Terminarchomachy (an egofascist civil war between all remaining Ixion warlords to become the sole ruler and sole lifeform of the nebula.). The remaining Hool usually now serve under Bauosar warlords, being kept to assist with martial archeology (hunting down their own old shit that might be reverse engineered and giving it to the Bauosar in exchange for keeping their own petty fiefdoms). The Bauosar have similarly incomprehensible lifespans and had been a peripheral force during the age of the Hool and Ixionites' squabbles, but never posed enough of a threat to be focused on seriously by either empire while the other existed. They pretty much took over by default during the Dark Age after events at the end of the Terminarchomachy destroyed all FTL of that era. The Bauosar paperclipped any Hool they didn't exterminate, and their position hasn't risen past "on a short leash" since. (Ixionite survivors received no quarter, and are probably extinct.)

The Hool created the Pards, and were powerful bioengineers at their height. They usually killed their enemies with plagues until their populations were reduced enough to be safely recreationally tormented with monsters. They were unexpectedly hard-countered by the long held Ixionite practice of obliterating anything that might be sapient from millions of miles away with solar lasers, then using their now lost shield technology to hide inside of a sun if they suspected that they might lose the fight (they had a more efficient version of the SLIME systems used in modern planetary siege shields that turned afflictive input directly into monomolecule cohesion, allowing the energy from the stellar corona to make them completely indestructible for as long as they desired), preventing the Hool from ever making biological contact or obtaining cells to experiment with.

The Ixionites defeated and scattered the Hool, but before they were able to hunt down every survivor, they splintered and went to war against themselves. At some point in the conflict, a computer virus of unknown origin or method of transmission began to spread throughout all Hool, vermin, and Ixionite starships and fortresses, sabotaging them undetectably and causing total system failures that struck intelligently at the most devastating opportunity. A typical manifestation was shield failure during the standard Ixionite "sun sitting" tactic, causing the Ixionite to immolate itself. Knowledge of this virus event is mostly from Hool and Melusine witnesses whose ships were also bricked. Hool weren't likely to survive the virus attacks, but were more likely to survive the virus than Ixionites, because they weren't inside of stars when it struck, and were merely forced to hibernate adrift for centuries until they were collected by scavenging Bauosars or vermin. This virus eventually destroyed all FTL vessels in the Nebula, causing the FTL Dark Age, and setting the stage for the Bauosar to rise to power (The Baousar still mostly used STL starships and simply slugged around with several generations of slaves between pillaging planets for minerals). It is unknown whether the virus was an Ixionite, Hool, or vermin creation, and it is unknown if it is gone or still out there. Some even theorize that it might be in full effect throughout the Nebula, and that all modern technology has been inadvertently developed in ways that are immune to the virus because any technology invented that isn't immune is automatically affected by the virus, doesn't work, and isn't pursued, rendering the virus invisible to modern civilizations. It doesn't help that how the virus even spread was never determined.

Hool should never be considered trustworthy sources of information, but they are the main source for these events and are consistent with the accounts of the Melusines. The Melusines provide less information because they went to sleep when the Ixionites and Hool started showing up. (The Melusines are a long-lived species that don't individually live as long as Hool and Baousar, but who are able to hibernate for vast periods of time. They typically try to live peacefully with whatever civilization is closest to a "Golden Age", with whom they invest and trade with, then go on secretive hibernation flights when "Things Look Bad", such as when the Nebula gets split between "Hool airdropping one billion lions on your house" and "Ixionite laser go brrrr". The hibernation flights are attended to by generations of Melusine sentinel monks who would fly reconnaissance missions every few centuries to see if things are getting better, though they were forced into ground structures for awhile after the virus ruined their ships.)

[ciaossu-imagines]

Could you write something, you’re allowed to choose the format, of Namba going through a zombie apocalypse?

C

Of course I can! Thank you for sending this in, since I mentioned having a lot of ideas for this that I never thought I'd get the chance to rant about and now I can! I hope you'll all enjoy the ranting!

So, the zombie apocalypse comes to Nanba Prison. There's a couple ways I could see it happening. One way it could go is that a visitor, or even one of the prison staff or guards, could unknowingly have gotten infected on the mainland. Maybe they had a random and bizarre experience with someone already zombified and they blamed the encounter on someone just being high on bath salts. Maybe the food they ate carried the virus needed to create zombies. Whatever way it happened, they unwittingly got exposed to whatever makes people turn into zombies and then, when they did get onto the island, the virus really took hold and they went full zombie and started attacking. While that initial zombie was probably put down and put down relatively quickly, they managed to do some damage and spread the virus to at least a couple more people, who then spread it to a couple more before they could be killed and so on and so forth until it's getting more and more difficult to keep up with putting them out of their misery.

Another way it could happen? It could definitely be an experiment the Otogi's were working on together that went terribly, terribly wrong. I think I prefer the first one a little better, just because in this kind of scenario, the Otogi's would either become some of the first to go zombie or just straight up get killed and that really puts Nanba in a real tight spot as to whether anyone survives because they really need their healers and researchers.

Now, in a way, Nanba is the perfect place for the zombie apocalypse to really break out. It's not only inescapable but it's pretty impenetrable, not only with the high walls and security feature but by the simple fact that it is an island. There's only one way on, one way off really. I think that's something that was banked upon during the first initial outbreak, when things were getting bad but still seemed to be under control. Momo ordered all forms of transportation to the island to cease temporarily but overall, the guards figured their strength and diligence alone could prevent it from spreading.

When things started to spin and the zombies started getting more plentiful in number, too much to easily control and take down, Nanba goes into full lockdown mode. Each building is quarantined, much like how we saw Building 5 during the Enki arc. Travel between different buildings is forbidden and the guards are given the orders. Squash this zombie uprising, protect your prisoners, and prevent any prisoners from trying to escape.

In headquarters, Momoko is in charge, overseeing everything, and really tries to keep a handle on the situation. She plans and oversees this as the commanding chief of an army would and believe me, she puts her army to good use.

Of course, she's only able to do that because Mitsuru is also locked safely in headquarters with her. If it wasn't for Mitsuru's communications and technological skills keeping all the different buildings connected and updates kept coming at hourly intervals, Nanba would likely have fallen completely.

Of course, the Otogi's and KAGU-8 are also within headquarters, commanding their teams in a joint effort operation to figure out what the hell is causing all this, to find a cure for it, and to figure the best way to get that cure out to everyone who might need it.

KAGU-8 actually comes in incredibly useful as well because, as a robot, she is immune to becoming a zombie. She goes out of the building whenever it's deemed safe (as in, she won't let anything in and they know she can't transmit the virus back to them as it's not anything skin to skin contact), acting in a variety of manners. Not only can she give them a better view of the actual situation outside of their building, but she can act as a go-between and aid various buildings in need of support.

Because animals also seem to be completely immune to being turned zombie, Kyakuya, Hiiragi, Tsubaki, Sazanka, and Kikiyou also help KAGU-8 in those kind of roles and they're also a valuable source of intel for Building 4.

And Building 4? It makes itself useful. Not only is Yozakura exceptionally strong and more than capable of taking down a single zombie, but he is a very smart man and knows how to research and investigate. Musashi actually is allowed out of his cell, though he must still be closely supervised every minute, under the orders of the Warden, to help as that is something Musashi excels at as well. Building 4 really dedicates itself to helping Headquarters' research and investigation team as much as they possibly can. Even though Hitoshi isn't really the most skilled at research, they help by taking care of the others, rationing out food while still making sure everyone is fed, and really taking over the supervising of the other guards and the overseeing of the prisoners.

Speaking of food, it becomes clear after the first week or so that travel must be established between the different buildings so that rations and provisions can be shared. Not only that, but after the first building or two fell due to zombies, it became apparent that staff needed to have a way for backup to reach them in case things did start to go bad inside a building.

While Momoko and Hajime will definitely need to have a meeting after this whole thing is over, it's really Building 13's time to shine when it comes to finding ways for the Buildings to safely travel between each other. While Jyugo and the others normally keep their travelling within Building 13, Jyugo has probably snuck around to other buildings without Hajime or the boys noticing, just because he could. And with the inmates of Building 13 really being given a little leniency, and the blueprints to Nanba, it's a walk in the park for them to figure out, test, and secure safe passage between the various buildings. Anyone going between the buildings must be accompanied by a Guard, and honestly Building 13's supervisors and guards have the best reputation and everyone wants them to accompany them. The pure amount of just stupid levels of strength and combat that both Yamato and Hajime have make them more than capable of taking on any zombies that come their way. Seitarou and Tsukumo, meanwhile, actually have really fast reflexes and a kind of stealth that makes them really talented at going safely in between the different buildings and at leading groups between buildings.

Building 3 finds their purpose during the apocalypse in several ways. Not only do Honey and Trois team up but they also team up with Ruka under the supervision of Kiji and start to produce various weapons and battle plans and tactics. Honey often collaborates with Building 4, Uno, and even the Warden herself on one occasion when it comes to tactics and plans. But they also do something else that proves useful as the apocalypse wears on. The communications channel gets turned over to Building 3 once a day, where Kiji or other staff from Building 3 just spread positivity, remind everyone of why they're fighting, assure them that things will return to normal, and remind everyone that they also need to take care of themselves. Shower as often as you can, make sure you get your beauty rest, don't forget good skin-care and little mindfulness breaks, just to keep yourself looking and feeling the best you can. After all, if you look and feel good, you can conquer anything, even a horde of zombies.

Building 5 tends to be the building most everyone counts on to actually go out and put those plans and tactics into action. They're really the front-line soldiers of this battle and not without very good reason. Not only are the guards of Building 5 exceptionally physically and mentally strong, but it's inmates are normally quite physically strong and talented fighters in their own rights. Even Qi gets drafted, becoming a sort of combat medic and he's the one to test the zombie antidote, each time the Research Team thinks they have perfected it, out in the field. Other inmates and guards from different buildings do back them up whenever possible, but they are really the ones in charge down on the ground.

[foreverlogical]

Politico has launched a five-part series on the American "anti-vaccine political movement," and yes, there is no way to understand current anti-vax hoaxes except as a "political" movement. But Politico focuses this first entry on the Biden administration’s lack of options when it comes to actually doing a damn thing about the hoaxes, and if anyone has a solution, please drop a line to either the White House or federal public health officials because there sure doesn't seem to be one that any of the rest of us can find.

The problem, at its core, is that a large chunk of Republicans decided to make a political movement out of pandemic denialism, claiming that the most significant worldwide health crisis since AIDS or the 1918 flu epidemic was no big deal, even as over 1 million Americans died around them. Even the simple act of wearing a mask to slow the spread of the virus so that hospital morgues would not be quite so overwhelmed was seen, by a certain collection of self-absorbed monumental assholes, as an infringement on their burping, ignorant freedoms.

It was inevitable that this would evolve into contempt for the rapidly developed vaccines that would soon make COVID-19 far more survivable. Because if you're already pushing the theory that the whole pandemic has been either faked or overhyped, then dismissing the resulting vaccines would logically follow.

Even before the pandemic, all of this really stemmed from the intentional political remaking of conservatism into an explicitly anti-science, anti-education movement. This was a necessity for conservative pundits and politicians who needed to sell the base on a party platform of letting polluters pollute, letting drillers drill, and telling everyone else that whatever horrors they or their loved ones had to face as a result were simply the price of patriotism.

Campaign Action

The anti-vax movement is not exclusively Republican (although if you're looking to conspiracy-promoting gadfly Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as evidence of "Democratic" support for those themes, then you're going to have to explain why Kennedy sells his shtick almost entirely to far-right crowds and on far-right platforms). But Republicanism is now inextricably linked to it. Case in point: the vicious cruelty of aspirational fascist Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. He has been the most aggressive in pushing dangerous pandemic hoaxes to his base, and his gleeful, purely political appointment of an infamous anti-vax hoax promoter as Florida's surgeon general was one more middle finger. There's no other way to read the elevation of hoaxer Joseph Ladapo to the state's top health post other than a willingness, on DeSantis' part, to kill Floridians outright if there's a chance it could boost his own credentials within the conservative movement.

Because once you've appointed someone to fraudulently alter scientific findings and then announce anti-vax conspiracies as official state government policy, you've erased all of the more charitable interpretations.

That still leaves federal officials in their current bind, however. Republicans have been promoting anti-vaccine sentiments as a supposed part of conservatism's new identity; there is no way for the White House to respond to anti-vaccine hoaxes without being immediately dismissed as doing so out of partisan spite.

So I guess we all live with the return of diseases like polio, since preventing polio or anything else is just too damn partisan now?

I don't have any deep pundit insights on this one; it's the lack of options that's most maddening. The first rule of conspiracy theories is that anyone who rejects the conspiracy theory is declared to be in on the conspiracy, and calling out Ladapo, Kennedy, and others as obvious self-promoting charlatans and snake-oil hucksters will only boost their appeal to the ignorant jackass brigades who follow them. Conservatism is a cult; it no longer has policies, freeing followers to "believe" whatever needs to be believed to support the Dear Leaders of the moment.

This is convenient for anyone looking to be the next Dear Leader; it is catastrophic for anyone who expects the government to do the bare minimum of protecting citizens during a natural or human-made crisis. And as unfortunate as it is, anti-vax cranks are not primarily harming themselves. They're harming other people, which means the good old have fun with that, and let me know how that works out for you approach is neither satisfying nor responsible.

We may need cult deprogrammers to help sort this one out because I don't think either political experts or sociologists will have solutions. And whatever you do, don't talk to historians: It will turn your stomach to learn about the denialism and conspiracy promotion that happened during long-past pandemics—and how those turned out.

[taiblogcomics]

Earth, But Not as We Know It

Hey there, prisoners of the lost universe. T-minus seven issues! If weeks were days, we'd be done in a week! Which would only be a day! So we'd be done today! That's how that would work, yep. Anyways, all of that made more sense than Countdown.

Here's the cover:

Well. This is a cover. Like, it's not awful like last time. But I wouldn't call it great either. Certainly not poster-worthy. Now, let's analyse this a bit. Could Superman shatter a Green Lantern construct? Hmm, plausibly. I might believe he could do that. Could Wonder Woman shatter a construct? This might be a little harder, I don't think she's as OP-strong as Supes. Especially not with the Lasso of Truth. It might be unbreakable, but I don't think it works that way. At the very least, it should be cracking the entire length of the loop. Now, could Batman have construct-dissolving capsules? That seems pretty far-fetched. (But maybe with enough prep time...)

So, what've we got to recap? Pied Piper's out of the story, sacrificing himself to defeat Brother Eye. Darkseid has declared his game with Solomon over. Solomon, meanwhile, has passed on his people's tradition to our group of main characters. Namely, standing around and debating "We should do something!" The group is teleported back to Earth, but are still bogged down in the debate of whether to kill Karate Kid to prevent the spread of the Morticoccus virus. And we're still reading this damn comic~

Thankfully, we're spared more debating. We just immediately cut to Harley Quinn and Holly Robinson boarding a bus to Gotham City. Harley asks why they're ditching, and Holly explains (for the audience) that they're taking Karate Kid to the JLA, and the situation outclasses them. Especially since they've lost their god powers suddenly. Harley laments the loss of her giant hammer, and Holly retorts that it made her look like a watermelon-smashing comedian. Harley sees no issue with this. So there you go! In between issues, they decide that maybe Karate Kid should live rather than be murdered in an alley.

So while they're exiting the plot, the Multiverse Crew (sans Jason Todd), Mary Marvel, and Una are flying in with Karate Kid to the JLA headquarters. Ooh, I almost never get to say this: Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice…! The lot of them are discussing the other changes to the party. Holly and Harley ducking out, they get. But they didn't figure Jimmy Olsen for a quitter. Taking his Hairy friends back to the Habitat is probably safer for him, though. And Mary Marvel voices her gladness that Jason didn't stick around. Everybody agrees he was a creep. Hey, no argument here~

The gang enters the Hall and are quickly confronted by Superman. Except… Superman doesn't recognise them. Even when Ray Palmer introduces himself, Supes says the only Ray he knows is Ray Terrill (AKA the Ray). Flash and Hal Jordan step out next, and immediately gets angry when Kyle Rayner addresses him by name. Who the hell is this who knows his secret identity? They're even more shocked when Firestorm phases through the wall, announcing that something freaky-deaky is going on here. He teleports them out (which I don't think is in his powerset), while Superman demands the rest of the League be called.

The group reappears in the Adirondacks, where Ray exposits that Firestorm doesn't have teleport powers, he just shrank rapidly under Firestorm's smokescreen and then hit randomise on the JLA teleporter. They didn't have time to show us this, so Ray just spits it all out while they recover. Firestorm explains the reason for his manic entrance: he tried to go home, but his home simply wasn't there. He doesn't exist. The JLA didn't recognise them either. But this should be their Earth. So were they all erased from reality somehow? Would that be the weirdest thing?

While they're musing over this, Una breaks down. None of this shit matters, they're supposed to be helping Karate Kid. Everyone stands around in silence awkwardly for a bit at this. Ray apologises, saying they're doing their best, but they really need a facility with specialists to help Karate Kid. Kyle asks why he can't just whip up whatever they need with his ring, which is a valid point, but Ray replies he doesn't know what they need. None of them are doctors or molecular blood-ologists, but wherever they take him, it has to be state-of-the-art and defensible. Firestorm hits on it: Cadmus Labs. Should conveniently be near here, even! What luck!

They fly off, and on reaching the Cadmus site, they find Jimmy Olsen, Forager, and the Hairies all camping there already. Naturally, the Habitat wasn't there, so somehow they reasoned that this was the next likely place for the group to go and set up to wait for them. What a coinkydink! And Kyle somehow shows up with Harley and Holly, despite also flying Karate Kid there. They mention they figured out this wasn't their world when the Joker didn't recognise Harley, and they could tell he wasn't kidding. Harley is in tears over this. Sigh. Also, they still didn't bring Jason with them, which is very funny~

So they sneak into the big Cadmus facility underground, and are almost immediately attacked by a group of flesh-coloured mutant homunculi. Same as breaking into any facility, I guess. They fight for a while until Jimmy remember his new powerset includes opening Boom Tubes, and he portals all the goons away. Boy, this issue is all about convenience, huh? No sooner are they gone than do they meet Dubbilex, a common feature of Cadmus stories. Thankfully, he's calmer than anyone else encountering someone who knows his name but doesn't recognise them in turn. His psychic powers, perhaps? if only they'd met Martian Manhunter at the Hall of Justice, then~

Indeed, Dubbilex uses his psychic powers to read Jimmy's mind and find their familiarity. Ray says it's a long story, and he has no doubt about this. Una starts to break down again, begging Dubbilex for help. He tells her to calm down, using his powers to extract the helpful info from her mind. And he'd love to help, truly he would. He could even extract a curative serum from inside Ray Palmer. But there's a problem with being able to help Karate Kid. You see, Karate Kid is already beyond their help. He's dead. And on that bombshell, the comic ends.

Well, this is a weird wrinkle, eh? Did you really think we'd be wrapping up so soon or so smoothly? Nah, here's yet another parallel world, where none of the people the story is specifically about actually exist. How convenient! That's really the running theme of this whole issue. About the only inconvenient thing is Karate Kid's death, which is yet another life claimed by this story, and another main character you can strike off the list. Who will be next??

[the-haunted-office]

Thursday pretty much never talks about this, but she used to have a friend named Brian who was a virus, who for a period of time lived in the Office. He wasn't widely accepted by the others, as they deemed him dangerous and untrustworthy (while others were straight up intimidated by him), but Thursday was quick to befriend him - rather, she was determined to help him feel more welcome in the Office, or at the very least help him feel as comfortable as possible there.

Brian was extraordinarily dangerous, being a virus. He wasn't the kind to make people sick - he was the kind that could take over bodies and devices. He was more so a paranormal entity in that way. He was able to spread and destroy living things, as well as destroy data, and could destroy the Office too if he wanted. He could even destroy the Office folks, essentially killing them off permanently by preventing them from respawning.

He had the ability to do this by taking their brain from them and keeping it separate from the body, in a location infected with himself. The brain contains the soul, thus preventing it from reuniting with the body, thus preventing the respawn.

For a while, things were relatively calm. Brian never learned to get along with the others, but he and Thursday formed a very close bond. He trusted only her, and Thursday was very protective of him and loved him so much it hurt. She helped him open up and talk about some of his dark past and secrets, and she shared a lot about herself too. It had been a long time for either of them since they'd been open with anyone like that.

It hurt them both even more when Thursday had to give the orders to have Brian killed.

You see, by the nature of being a virus, Brian couldn't contain himself indefinitely. He could not truly change who he was, and one day attacked Thisday. He murdered him, took his brain, and kept it separate from his body, preventing him from respawning. In order to save her brother, Thursday had to make the very difficult decision to send Doomsday after Brian to kill him.

Thisday was able to respawn, the rest of the Office went back to normal, but Thursday hasn't been the same ever since. She has a lot more difficulty fully trusting outsiders now.

[official-ly-yours]

A government that refuses or is unable to help its citizenry during a crisis can always do the next best thing: pretend there is no crisis. The CDC’s apparent belief that the covid virus, like Tinkerbell, can only survive on Tinkerbell’s behalf by our collective belief in it is not just absurd, it borders on evil.

They have effectively ceded their authority on covid to the American public -- which is the exact wrong set of people to leave to their own devices during a pandemic -- by making it a matter of personal responsibility.

This is particularly heinous in the case of health care workers, who are left to fend for themselves during a pandemic of a disease that is spread through the air they breathe; I had a dentist’s office actually tell me I didn’t need to wear a mask if I didn’t want to.

The American public, in general, is not known for doing the smart thing, and they have, en masse, come to regard the wearing of masks and the maintaining of social distancing not as a minor inconvenience to be endured for the general benefit of all, but an assault on their personal liberties. The American individual, it seems, is a self-interested, ill-informed, poorly-raised ass who needs to be protected from his own stupidity, either by the benevolent hand of Big Brother or, in the case of covid, by Big Nature. The CDC has decided that public ignorance -- even when it is lethal -- is in keeping with individual liberties, and that a pandemic will work itself out by natural selection.

The pandemic and the CDC’s response to it have become highly politicized. The CDC seems to have decided it would rather be seen as an ineffectual, neutral force rather than perceived as siding with people or policies that the American public, in a fit of self-righteous, right-wing rage, has vilified.

This is wrong and unethical of the CDC because the one body of people specifically established to prevent and mitigate diseases is now allowing a deadly disease to run rampant because of a vague fear of political blowback.

And the most cynical of all possible explanations: because they are in the pockets of Big Pharmaceutical, and Big Pharma has assured them that a cure is on the near.

The fact that this cure, like the cure for cancer, is always around the corner, is of course irrelevant to Big PHarma, because if the cure arrives, they stop making billions treating the disease with their pills and their shots.

So it's best to keep the cure forever on the horizon, and keep on treating the symptoms and the virus, all the while insisting that only Big Pharma can save you.

And if you don't trust Big Pharma, you are anti-science, and an unworthy citizen; thus, there is never any meaningful debate in the media about treatments or prevention for covid.

t’s a perfect example of the self-defeating nature of a profit-driven medical system: it’s more profitable to treat diseases than to cure them. And even a pandemic that kills more than a million people isn’t enough to get the system to stop treating the disease that killed them and start spending money on what really works: prevention.

If you don't want to wear a mask, and you don't want to get vaccinated, and you don't want to worry about staying home when you're sick, because you “can’t take it no more,” or you have a “right” not to do those things, you should be free to suffer the consequences. Unfortunately the rest of us have to live with your choices.

In that sense, the CDC has handed over not only their authority on covid to the American public, they have also handed over responsibility. They have not only given us a pass to be selfish and irresponsible; they have turned our health into a moral or political matter when they should have stepped in with authority and said, “No, here’s what you have to do, period.”

The CDC should be ashamed but, just as the American media is ashamed and afraid of speaking out about gun control, the CDC is ashamed and afraid to exercise its authority and to be seen to violate our perceived freedoms, even if those freedoms are destructive or deadly.

I realize that the American public would go berzerk at the merest suggestion of a government mandate that everyone wear masks and stay six feet apart, all the time, and have regular testing. And this is not an easy argument. I’m not even suggesting that we do any of these things. I am only saying that we have a government agency specifically created to keep us safe and healthy, which has instead, after three long years of pandemic (we're currently at the 4.5 year mark, by the way), decided to leave us to our own ignorance and devices.

The CDC has betrayed its mandate in order to placate the most paranoid and ill-behaved, the most selfish and irrational people in the land — the kind of people who need to be coerced and directed for their own good, for your good, for the public good. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship, but there should be such a thing as a benevolent public health organization that has a responsibility to the health and life, not to the whims and superstitions of an ignorant and petulant populace.

Their inaction and spinelessness have made this disease last far longer than it should have, making it seem like an unavoidable fact of life, like the common cold or the flu. They might as well be recommending prayer.

They should have treated the pandemic not as a political football, and not like an excuse for the American public to behave childishly, but like a medical threat which required a full-throated response from the top, including draconian mandates. They should have been in the media every night, telling us what is and is not true, and what we must and must not do; they should have been pushing vaccines, testing, masks, and safety regulations, not worrying about what the Fox News audience or the CNN audience might think.

That is their job, isn't it? To stand in the breach and take the heat for making us do what is best for us? Yes, they take some heat for mandating vaccines, and making us wear pieces of cloth in front of our stupid faces -- but how much heat should they have taken for not doing these things?

Because four and a half years in, we are living with the long-term effects of allowing the American public to decide for itself what is best, allowing every state and locale to determine its own rules, and allowing individual businesses to decide whether they care about the safety of their patrons. It is the public health equivalent of the Wild West. And it has, frankly, gotten ridiculous.

We have moved to a life without mask mandates, without lockdowns and, of course, without vaccines, even as the virus mutates into ever more virulent forms and spreads by the hundreds of thousands, killing tens of thousands. People are getting sick and dying and the CDC says, “Ah, well, what can you do? That's life.”

This is an abdication of responsibility, it is cowardice disguised as humility, this is a betrayal of their oath as doctors and as public servants. And it is killing us and making this pandemic almost endless and endless.

As long as the CDC continues to be so ambivalent and weak-willed (or bought out by corporate interests), and the American populace continues to behave like spoiled children, covid will continue to be a plague that we have to live with, that we have to learn to live with. All because the CDC is too cowardly . . . and fearful of losing its authority and its “street cred” to make us do the smart thing: wear masks and get our shots. Three years on, and they still haven't even come up with a national slogan or ad campaign in favor of masks and social distancing. Not even “Mask Up, America.” Because they know it would offend the right-wing and the left-wing, and it would offend the anti-vaxxers and the liberals, and both sides would threaten to pull support, and so we have a public health organization that is too afraid to make a public health appeal — a “Please, do the right thing,” campaign — because it might upset one or two of the warring political factions.

And, of course, because people have become bored with covid and are tired of taking precautions, we have a situation where everyone is doomed to get covid, probably multiple times, and many of us, most of us, will suffer the long-term consequences, because the CDC was to cowardly and politically-compromised to go into the nation and say, “Listen, this is a serious public health problem, and everyone has to help us solve it. You get your shots, you wear your masks, you keep your distance from people, and we can all get through this. But if you don't, there will be serious consequences for you and for everybody. So help us to help you.”

But no, because the CDC has lost interest in public health, and they're happy to see us all suffer the long-term effects, happy to let the disease get worse and worse, and they're happy to blame it on an ignorant and recalcitrant public, all the while avoiding their own culpability.

The CDC is an impotent organization, an ineffectual one, an amoral one.

And yet, they still command the respect of much of the American public, who assume that if there is one organization that is watching out for our health, it is this one. And they have betrayed that trust, not just this pandemic but, with its failure to recognize, in a scientific way, the health risks to gay men from AIDS (which led to thousands of unnecessary deaths in the 1980s).

The CDC has failed us in many ways and failed its own mission time and time again; and yet, it continues to operate as though it is an authoritative voice for our health, and that it is an objective and responsible one. There is nothing objective or responsible about this organization, and it does not deserve our respect. 

And we all know that you cannot be a sociopath when in the public health business, but that is what the CDC has become: completely indifferent to the welfare of an ignorant and frightened public that they should be educating, not ignoring.

Four and a half years into this pandemic, and the CDC still cannot be bothered to issue an official public statement, a campaign to encourage masking and distancing, to encourage shots and boosters and better treatments — even now, they are silent, even now, they have given up.

The long-term consequences are going to hurt us all: the long covid, the damaged immune systems, the thousands of Americans who are losing their cognitive functions, their ability to work, their capacity to remember, their very memories. Our loss of brain tissue — not just our economic loss, but the diminishment of our future — are going to be profound.

Four and a half years of long-term covid-induced cognitive damage (on top of what we were already enduring with Facebook, TikTok, and all of the other brain-numbing “social” media) — we’re all collectively stupider than we were in 2020. That’s the American future: a mindless mass of disabled covid victims and a culture where ignorance not only rules, but can live forever — not just survive — in the vast echo chambers of social media, where the CDC does not venture and where the lies take over what is left of the brains of Americans.

I know that, as an organization, the CDC has no individual sense of responsibility — just a vague idea that they failed to do their jobs. But I hope the CDC knows it is responsible for so many deaths. I know they don’t care, but they should.

Imagine if they thought about that from time to time, as they send out their little memos and advisories, as they refuse to do anything more than the barest of minimums — and as they hide behind their scientists and their politicians — imagine if they thought, sometimes, about the lives they could be saving, not just now but in the future, instead of thinking about their own political and intellectual cowardice.

They’re going to be remembered as fools, sociopaths, and cowards, as ignorant and selfish, as just as irresponsible and dangerous as the people they couldn’t make follow sensible policies. And they will have done it themselves with their spineless inaction and their cowardly inability to lead.

I think I read recently that it is becoming a bit of a joke at the CDC: an employee will email another with “Merry Covid!” They are so detached from the suffering outside their bubble at the CDC — which is, of course, why they have been so cowardly and unfeeling.

If they had any soul, they would be wracked with fear and shame for the deaths that have resulted from their cowardice. And yet they probably tell themselves they did the best they could in a time when we have a divided nation, when half the country is completely ignorant and irrational.

That is how politicians and organizations avoid responsibility for their actions (or inactions): they say, we did the best we could in a very difficult time; it’s not our fault that some of our public cannot cope with science or facts or logic.

We should say this at the end of every news report about the latest number of covid deaths: that thousands of those deaths are preventable, and that the CDC is the organization responsible for minimizing that number. And they are responsible for many other thousands of deaths in the long term, as people suffer from the cognitive and physical impairments caused by long covid.

askingallthequestions.wordpress.com

[trendtrackershq]

Gene Therapy for Infectious Diseases: A New Frontier in Fighting Pathogens

Introduction:

The fight against infectious diseases has been a constant battle throughout human history. From the devastating plagues of the past to the ongoing challenges of antibiotic resistance, new approaches are urgently needed to combat these persistent threats. Gene Therapy Market, a revolutionary technique that modifies an individual's genetic makeup, offers a promising new weapon in our arsenal against infectious diseases. This article explores the potential of gene therapy in tackling infectious threats, examining its mechanisms of action, current areas of research, and the exciting possibilities it holds for the future.

Download free sample: https://www.nextmsc.com/gene-therapy-market/request-sample

Traditional Approaches vs. Gene Therapy

Traditionally, we have relied on vaccines and antibiotics to combat infectious diseases. Vaccines work by stimulating the immune system to develop immunity against specific pathogens. Antibiotics target and kill bacteria, but their overuse has led to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains. Gene therapy offers a novel approach:

Targeting the Root Cause: Instead of simply attacking the pathogen itself, gene therapy aims to modify an individual's genetic makeup to render them resistant to infection or better equip their immune system to fight the disease.

Long-Term Potential: Gene therapy has the potential to provide long-term, and potentially even permanent, protection against certain infectious diseases.

Broader Applicability: Unlike traditional vaccines that target specific strains, gene therapy might offer broader protection against different variants of a pathogen.

Mechanisms of Action in Gene Therapy for Infectious Diseases

Gene therapy employs various strategies to combat infectious diseases:

Immune System Enhancement: Gene therapy can introduce genes that encode for powerful immune system proteins like antibodies or T-cell receptors, specifically targeting the infectious agent.

Disabling Viral Replication: Techniques like CRISPR gene editing can be used to disrupt viral replication within infected cells, halting the spread of the virus.

Gene Correction: For individuals with genetic mutations that increase susceptibility to certain infections, gene therapy can rectify these mutations, bolstering their natural defenses.

Current Areas of Research in Gene Therapy for Infectious Diseases

Researchers are actively exploring gene therapy for a variety of infectious diseases, with promising progress in several areas:

HIV/AIDS: Gene therapy strategies aim to target HIV by either modifying immune cells to resist infection or disrupting the virus's ability to replicate within infected cells.

Hepatitis B: Research focuses on introducing genes that stimulate the immune system to eliminate infected liver cells and prevent chronic hepatitis B infection.

Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV): Gene therapy approaches aim to prevent the reactivation of the latent HSV virus that causes cold sores and genital herpes.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV): Gene therapy holds promise for preventing CMV infection in immunocompromised individuals, reducing the risk of serious complications.

Mosquito-borne Diseases: Researchers are exploring ways to modify mosquito genomes to make them less susceptible to transmitting diseases like malaria and dengue fever.

Challenges and Considerations

While the potential of gene therapy for infectious diseases is significant, several challenges need to be addressed:

Safety Concerns: Ensuring the safety and efficacy of gene therapy approaches remains paramount. Off-target effects and potential for unintended consequences require rigorous evaluation.

Delivery Methods: Developing efficient and safe methods for delivering gene therapy vectors to target cells presents a significant challenge.

Long-Term Effects: As gene therapy is a relatively new field, the long-term effects of modifying an individual's genetic makeup are still under investigation.

Cost and Accessibility: Gene therapy research and development are expensive, raising concerns about affordability and equitable access to this potentially life-saving technology.

Inquire before buying: https://www.nextmsc.com/gene-therapy-market/inquire-before-buying

The Future of Gene Therapy for Infectious Diseases

Despite the challenges, the future of gene therapy for infectious diseases appears promising. As research progresses and technology advances, we can expect to see:

More Targeted Therapies: Gene therapy approaches are likely to become more specific, targeting different strains and variants of pathogens with greater precision.

Combination Therapies: Combining gene therapy with traditional vaccines or antiviral drugs might offer even greater protection against infectious diseases.

Gene Editing Advancements: Advancements in gene editing techniques like CRISPR could enable more precise and efficient modification of the genome, leading to safer and more effective gene therapies.

Expanded Applications: Gene therapy could potentially be applied to a wider range of infectious diseases, offering hope for combating currently untreatable illnesses.

Conclusion

Gene therapy represents a revolutionary approach to combating infectious diseases. By offering the potential for long-term protection and targeting the root cause of infection, gene therapy holds immense promise for revolutionizing how we manage infectious threats. Addressing safety concerns, ensuring affordability, and fostering international collaboration will be crucial in realizing the full potential of this innovative technology. As research and development continue, the future of gene therapy for infectious diseases offers a hopeful prospect for a world where we can effectively combat these persistent health challenges.

[radiantbastard]

read the article about the mutant brain eating covid and it casually says "the original strain of Covid also killed 100 percent in mice in some studies, meaning the new results may not be directly applicable to humans." lol ok. Then I read the actual study and they note their results contradict other existing studies on this specific non-covid (though covid-like) virus, and the genetically engineered mice they used had "abnormal physiology" and potentially compromised brains, so it's worthless

For context, anon is referring to this post

I mean, I was just posting it for the memes but since we're on the subject, yeah dude, Gain of Function research is fucking wild. I think for that article in particular it's at least to some small degree the media misrepresenting the original research, but there is a MASSIVE part of the scientific community that sees GoF as a useless field of study, and incredibly dangerous. The latter belief I think was proven with the Covid pandemic, seeing as how everyone pretty much agrees now that the most likely source was the Wuhan lab.

One thing that's kind of interesting about this though is that, paradoxically, viruses with extremely high mortality rates actually tend to be less dangerous than those with low mortality rates. They might be more dangerous to the individual, but they tend to kill much less people. The thing is they tend to have much more severe/debilitating symptoms that inhibit the carrier from interacting/spreading the virus further. Since they also tend to kill off the host that also prevents it from infecting more people. Turns out it's pretty hard to catch a disease from a corpse unless you're rooting around in their guts with ungloved hands.

Viruses like influenza, i.e. the flu, tend to be much more dangerous because they spread around much more rapidly due to most people having fairly minor symptoms with it. The flu kills 30,000-40,000 people per year in the US alone.

This is also why despite the first humans being around 200,000-300,000 years ago we've never had a "super virus" that has completely wiped out the species. Viruses with high mortality rates tend to either die off from not being able to spread, or they mutate and evolve to be less deadly. The less deadly ones propagate more, and the highly deadly ones die off. This is why things like the Spanish Flu in the 1920s eventually tapered off. The highly deadly strands die off, while the more mild variants propagate and immunize people/give them resistance to similar viruses. This is likely, in part, why you saw such high mortality rates for covid in the beginning of the pandemic, but now in current day it's pretty benign.

One exception to this rule is chronic infections like HIV. Chronic infections lay dormant in the host cells before activating and reinfecting the host. Because the human immune system has no way of deinfecting cells, the virus stays in the body in perpetuity reinfecting the host and random intervals. Even without treatment HIV takes years to kill the carrier. This allows viruses like that to spread and infect large populations despite having a high mortality rate.

[autisti-kat]

I'm wasn't talking about the right to do anything but now that you have brought it up, no one has the right to use civilian death as means of pressure, ever. But the way you talk about it, it sounds very much like you want to use the virus as a biological weapon. That is despicable.

And again, this doesn't help the hostages at all, it will endanger them even further. Hamas has shown over and over again that they don't care about deaths on their side. The deliberately calculate that civilians will die because then they can blame that on "the Jews". Do you not think that they would turn this into "The Jews are using polio as a means of pressure against us, that's why they are [insert any kind of antisemitic rhetoric] and deserve death"?

Also this is not about Hamas this is about civilians, children specifically! Those in power will get a vaccination either way or are too deep in their death cult to care, the ones that won't be able to get vaccinated and the ones that will mind dying, will be children. Their death will be publicly mourned and secretly celebrated by Hamas, while further turning the world against Israel.

I don't know how to explain to you that it's very much desirable to have "moral high ground" over Hamas. If Israel didn't have moral high ground over Hamas, that would be extremely bad. That you don't react with a war crime when another party commits a war crime is how you differentiate between war criminals and not war criminals.

Again, If your ultimate goal is protection of Israelis - which is a legit pursuit for a government - you should WANT as many people to be vaccinated asap. Israel is tiny, Palestine even tinier and Polio doesn't differentiate between Israelis and Palestinians. The more it's able to spread, the worse for everyone, especially for those living close to the border (and soon then everyone). I am having a hard time believing you when you say that the safety of the hostages is what is most important to you when what you suggest would put them even more at risk. Hamas has shown time and time again that they don't care about civilian death and therefore they wouldn't be pressured into vaccinating the hostages either way. And even IF that should happen, it would probably take way too long. The news about Polio aren't that new anymore and considering the current sociopolitical and socioeconomic state of the area, Polio will probably spread FAST.

I don't even want to address the logistical issue of making sure that hostages would be vaccinated properly, etc. because that would take away from my main points that

1. Using civilian death as a means of pressure is barbaric and a war crime and

2. Your suggestion wouldn't help with keeping either the hostages or Israelis at large safe but instead would do the exact opposite. Those that cannot/are prohibited from getting vaccinated depend on herd immunity and luck. Polio spreading uncontrolled could easily be a death sentence to them.

I am not trying to advocate for the people who support Hamas and I cannot fact-check what you said. But considering your sources are valid, that would make 70% in Gaza and 30% in the West Bank innocent civilians that would be at HIGH risk of being killed and/or having their children killed by a horrible disease that is preventable. That has nothing to do with calculated warfare that unfortunately always includes civilian deaths. Again, that would be cruel, inhumane biological warfare with no regard for fighter or civilian, Pro- or Anti-hamas and disproportionately would kill children.

Also, the people who live in Gaza or the West Bank are constantly being fed extreme antisemitic and Anti-Israel propaganda while living in a war zone.

First of all, I cannot help but shake my head at your claim of there being "no consequences" when most Palestinian civilians have suffered beyond words - no matter if they support Hamas or managed to unlearn and deconstruct all of the propaganda they were, are and will be told their entire life.

Secondly, Israel would play Hamas' game perfectly by behaving the way you suggest because then Hamas could tell "their people" how Israel doesn't care about civilians and uses civilian death to get treatment for their people while they just watch the people die, who just happen to be born on the other side of the border AND actively prevent them from getting help.

Maybe I am too naive but I am having a hard time believing that is what you want, though your words were pretty clear. And honestly, I am scared of Pro-P*l accounts seeing your post and circling it for propaganda. And I mean, this time they wouldn't even have to lie because what you said is definitely a pretty bad look.

Israel agreed to daily pauses in the war to allow vaccinating the population against polio.

Wooptie fucking doo. Do any of the hostages get a vaccine, or for that matter any medical attention at all in the last 10 months?

Why are we supposed to bend over backwards while our people get nothing?

As long as the hostages don't get medical treatment, no one in Gaza should.

[torturing-characters-101]

Hi! This is kind of a weird question but how/why was influenza (and other diseases that we have vaccines for now) so deadly 100-200 years ago? Obviously vaccines help tremendously, and probably immunity over time, but are there other reasons that the flu was a much bigger deal a century ago? Sorry if this is oddly specific, but my current project is historical. Thank you!

This is a very interesting question and there are a couple of different ways of looking at it.

Let's start with influenza:

[Note: it's surprisingly difficult to get good worldwide flu data, so I'm going to use US numbers for the purposes of this post.]

I think the first thing to understand is that unlike many other infectious diseases, influenza is substantially different every year. That means that the immunity that you build in 2017 from either the flu or the flu shot won't necessarily help prevent you from getting the flu in 2023. By then it will be a different enough virus that your previous immunity won't be as helpful. Though it might make it a little milder. But keep reading, I'll give you some fun facts to share at parties:

We name flu (A) viruses based on two different proteins on the surface of the virus. The proteins are "H" and "N". There are 16 different "H" proteins, and 9 different "N" proteins that we currently know of. The combination of the two forms the "name" of a particular flu virus. Think H1N1, or H5N6, or any other combination. Each combination has their own attributes, which contributes to how infectious or deadly they are in any given year. And which ones circulate are different every year.

Just mathematically, that's a lot of substantially different flu viruses. Hundreds of them, in fact. And you have to build immunity to each one individually. You could, say, build immunity to H2N5, but that would do little to save you from next year's H4N3. And not only that, but within a single type there are many smaller variations. For example, say you got H5N3, but then it went and mutated. If you then got exposed again, you might have some immunity to new!H5N3, but it could also be just different enough that you still get sick.

Like I said above, different types of flu virus are deadlier or spread faster than others. H5N1 (a type of avian flu with a human mortality rate of 52%) is terrifyingly deadly but fortunately doesn't spread particularly well, while H1N1 (the star of both the 1918 and 2009 flu seasons) spreads rapidly and kills primarily young adults (weird, since flu usually kills babies and old people).

This is why in 2009 we did the whole "close the schools vaccinate the teens hide the president" routine. Because if it was *that* H1N1 we were all about to be screwed in ways we had never experienced before. Fortunately it wasn't, but thank goodness we did it. Also if you got vaccine #2 in 2009, you are also protected against the 1918 strain of H1N1. You're gonna be a hit at parties with that one.

Now, if you look at only deaths (not the best measure, but one with some emotional punch), within the last decade alone we have years where 12,000 people died of flu in the US (2011-2012) and years where that number is as high as 61,000 (2017-2018). These numbers are similar throughout recent history (relative to population), but then you get years like 1968 (where 100,000 people died in the US) and 1957 (where 116,000 died), and then sometimes you get these wild whopping years like 1918 where 675,000 died (equivalent to 1,750,000 people dying in today's US population). These fluctuations have happened since Hippocrates was around, and probably long before that, and there's really nothing to suggest it's getting any milder in any statistically significant way.

Now, outside of these natural fluctuations, we do have some ways of driving down these numbers. We do have a vaccine. It is different every year, based on our prediction of what the most likely or dangerous types of flus will be this year. Fortunately, you do get to keep this immunity for some time, so you can look at the flu vaccine as a personal collection of different flu viruses you have immunity to- you can collect 2-3 different ones every year in one shot and you didn't even have to catch them!! Yay! Unfortunately, since we never reach herd immunity with the flu vaccine, and we can't perfectly predict and incorporate all the strains that will circulate in a given year, while you do get some protection, it's not ever perfect. But it *is* still worth it.

We also have other feats of modern medicine as backup to the flu vaccine. We have oxygen, antiviral drugs like tamiflu, immune modulating drugs, and technology like ventilators to help keep people alive in ways we would not be able to in previous generations. So that's also an advantage. Unfortunately, these don't always work either, and we are still at the whim of those yearly fluctuations in influenza virus deaths.

And really, if you ask any epidemiologist, covid is just a little trial run for the next Big One. Which is both extremely likely to be a flu virus and which we're statistically overdue for.

TL;DR: The flu isn't getting milder so much as it varies wildly in severity every year. The next major flu pandemic is probably going to be in our lifetimes, so start collecting your flu immunity now if you haven't yet. New collections drop every August and are available until April. Get em' while they're hot. This year's included a 2009-like strain of H1N1 and a delightful H3N2 number from Hong Kong.

As for All the Other Vaccine Preventable Illnesses:

*ahem*

Yes, it's vaccines. It's obviously vaccines. Its basically only vaccines. Anyone who has ever told you it's not vaccines is lying. No other major discovery of modern medicine has ever saved as many lives, prevented as many disabilities, and created as many opportunities for a life well lived as vaccines have. No antiviral drug, no antibiotic, no ventilator can even hold a candle to vaccines. The answer is f*cking vaccines*.

I hope I have made myself clear.

Enjoy this table:

*Yes I do have a masters degree in public health and am a registered nurse that interacts with the public regularly, how did you know?

-Ross @macgyvermedical

[personasintro]

Love Lockdown | 01

𝐢. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

↳ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬; no longer hiding in your apartment, it's either your beginning or definitive end

⇢ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: yoongi x reader

⇢ 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: zombie apocalypse au, enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, eventual smut, horror au (?)

⇢ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: explicit language

⇢ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 7.7k+

𝐚/𝐧: huge thanks to @dee-ehn​ for creating this masterpiece! I knew I wanted her to make the banner for love lockdown because I trust her the most & her work is absolutely stunning! dee, thank you again x

𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐱 | 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 ⇢ 

Windows completely shattered, the building and grocery store that once looked and used to be one of the better ones now looks as if a big group of vandals have vandalized the entire place. The shelves are almost empty, minus the items that have been destroyed by rushing, desperate and eager citizens. With the glass everywhere, different kinds of liquid and sauce makes the whole store stench and even more disgusting for the nose, rather than a pair of eyes.

It's dark, too dark to try and avoid any necessary sound the shattered glass makes under your boots. Cringing at the sound, you continue your path down the aisle in desperate need to find something to eat. Anything that could drive away the hunger that caused you to come out of your hidings to the cruel and dark world.

It's been around four months since the hell broke down.

It started with a supposed virus all around the world. People were asked to wear face masks to prevent the virus from spreading, and follow the hygienic instructions the government ordered. With a little knowledge, everything got closed for a certain time – it's just for a certain time, they said. From stores to cinemas, schools and workplaces. It never came back.

They never opened any of these again.

The last true information people got was that the virus got mutated. Each day scientists, doctors promised they were working on it and were doing their best to figure out what was wrong. And maybe they weren't lying, they really tried but never succeeded.

Not until the real hell broke down and people started turning into something that was uncontrollable, spreading like disease that slowly but surely killed people and turned them into monsters. Most people wouldn't believe it, if it weren't for the live television where everyone could see. People surrounded a human that came out of nowhere, walking slowly as if its two legs were broken until it came to the camera, letting out the most disgusting and horrific sound before it bit the journalist right in front of the camera while millions of people were watching.

It cruelly bit off the flesh of the man's hand, the camera man screaming before the camera fell down and that's the last thing people saw before the world erupted into panic.

The disease, as scientists called it, spread fast and relentlessly. Humans turned into zombies in some might say short process, going after everything that breathed.

Zombies.

If someone said there will come a time when all those movies will turn into reality, disguised behind the terms of sickness and disease, most people would laugh.

All those people that tried to run away as fast as they could, in a hopeful promise there is a place where the disease and apocalypse didn't hit.

Is there a place like that?

Nobody knows.

There is no news, no contact with other people. There is barely any electricity as the whole world got swallowed into the darkness.

How did you end up all alone with no one to help you?

Easy.

The government sent all people into a hard lockdown, not allowing anyone to get out of their homes until completely necessary, which happened to be an emergency that required medical attention. The food and everything people needed got delivered straight to their doorsteps.

Living alone never felt more lonely.

How wrong you were.

Living in the world alone, where the undeads lurk behind every corner to bite off the flesh of anything that lives feels ten times worse.

Undeads – the name they have gotten and was last referenced in the television before no more news ever made it out.

An uncompromising whine wants to rip out of your mouth when the shelves of canned food are completely empty, no sign of anything small you can at least take a bite off. This is your end… maybe you won't die being bitten and turned into the blooded and rotten undead. You will die of hunger.

Still, hope dies last and you don't want to give up unless you find at least something. Not when you've risked everything to get here.

The flashlight in your hand that is slowly dying and shows barely any light isn't making it any easier for you to find something, maybe some hidden gems, but at least it's something.

The sheer light exposes even more spilled liquid, both the sight and stench of it making you almost gag as you crouch down, not wanting to get your clothes dirty – especially when you don't have any spare ones. You had to leave everything behind. The building you lived in is swarmed by undeads. It's a miracle you made it out alive. Without killing or harming anyone.

But your grumbling empty stomach protests and you crouch down even more, your knees almost hitting the dirty floor when you see a single can of peas, rolled out at the very back of the last shelf. Somebody had to miss it.

You want to let out a cry of happiness, ignoring the way your nose scrunches in disgust when you realize the can is covered in an unfamiliar liquid and you will have to reach for it and touch it with your bare hand – that is until you still want to eat.

You know you will have to get used to this. This new style of living because you no longer can go back to your small apartment, there is no food and electricity. You will never be able to come back when your neighbors are undead and if anyone there managed to survive, they are no longer there.

Fuck it, you think as you reach for it, swallowing a gag as you take the can. Holding it with your two fingers, a disgusted grimace present on your face, you point your battery further down the aisle as you try to find at least something to wipe your hands off.

Just like you thought so, even the aisle of toiletries is empty and even if there is something that was left behind, it's completely damaged and ripped. Finding a cloth that has dried blood on it, you take it and wipe your hands with it along with the can.

That's something you still need to get used to. The sight of blood everywhere.

Tossing the cloth away, you ignore the way the can stenches from the previous spilled liquid over it. You need to eat at least some of it. The canned peas are in water which could at least quench some of the thirst you will feel once you finally eat something.

Just as you're about to open the can, a sound of someone entering the store and the glass crushing under their boots makes you stop. Heart dropping down your stomach, you quickly hide behind one of the ending shells, heart thumping in your chest.

The footsteps and the constant glass crunching makes you realize there are several footsteps. It has to be a group of people.

Some may be happy, the knowledge of not being alone sparking hope inside them. But even humans that are alive and managed to survive so far have turned into monsters.

They are greedy, willing to fight and some even kill over the smallest things. On your way here you stumbled upon two men, fighting over something in the middle of the street until their fists were blooded. You hid behind the corner, praying they wouldn't see you even if you didn't have anything with you they could take.

People are ruthless.

You waited around twenty minutes until the sound of their fists stopped. When you peeked from the corner that managed to be your hiding spot, no one was there. That's until you noticed one of the men lying on the ground, blooded and not moving.

Should you go there and check if he lives? Should you get over your fear and help him?

The questions were answered before you could even think them through because a growling and deadly sound caused you to freeze. The man was too far away for you to be able to make it to him and even if you did, you are not strong enough to pull him up. Adrenaline and fear racing inside of you, you watched right in front of your eyes as the undead made its way to him and bit off his flesh.

The man wasn't moving. He never responded.

He was dead and the man fighting with him ruthlessly killed him.

You can't trust anyone. Not when the world is in the middle of an apocalypse and people are willing to fight over anything. There is no way people wouldn't kill you for the stupid can of peas.

There are distant voices you can't make out that slowly inch closer to you with each minute and you know it's just a matter of time before one of them notices you.

“This place is a fucking mess,” A man voice says, someone snickering nearby them. “I told you this will be an empty shot.”

“Shut up Johnny,” A feminine voice scolds the man, “You never know, that's why we come to these places.”

He grumbles something back, too low and quiet for you to understand.

Looking down at your hands, the battery is already dead and you're hidden in a complete darkness. Slowly walking around the aisle, you stay crouched down.

Maybe you will be able to make it out alive. Once they will be further down the store, you will silently leave without them noticing. It's still worth a try, you think.

Still hearing their footsteps and occasional grunts of disgust, you are careful about making any sounds as you round the corner, looking behind you where the voices get nearer and nearer. Too focused on pinpointing where they are (on the other side of the aisle where you are hiding) you are completely oblivious to another presence near you, too near, until you bump your back into their chest.

A yelp leaves your mouth, so loud that even the others shut their mouths. Turning around, you see a man standing behind you and you immediately stumble back, boots slipping on whatever that's on the floor as you land on your butt. The humiliation or disgust are long forgotten when you try to get away from the man who keeps walking towards you.

“Ah, hello,” he lets out, amusingly staring at your face full of fear as you clunch the canned peas to your chest.

He turns on his flashlight, aiming its light to your face which immediately makes you squint your eyes as you try to block it with your hand.

The rush of other footsteps are heard and you know you're bused. This is it.

“Looks like we have company.” The man chuckles, the sound causing you to shiver as you can think of nothing but danger.

It's the fact he clearly sees you scared, trying to get away from him no matter how much the metal of the aisle is digging into your back, and does nothing to assure you he is not going to hurt you.

“Get away from her, idiot. Don't you see she's scared?” A feminine voice scolds him. It has to be the one you heard when you were hiding. Oh, how gladly you would turn back time.

You turn towards her voice, seeing her standing a few meters away from you and the guy, flashlight aimed somewhere behind the two of you so she doesn't directly aim it at your or his eyes. You notice there is someone else standing beside her and from the looks of it, it looks like it's another man but you can't really make out any specific features.

There's no time to look at them thoroughly, especially when the man leans down to you and his flashlight points at the item in your hands.

“Looks like we found something after all,” And just as he says it, his hand is about to take it away from you but you don't let him, clutching it to your chest as you try to turn your body away from him.

His grin drops and a frown makes it into his face, you see it thanks to his flashlight illuminating the space around you two.

“We are not gonna hurt you,” he finally says, but still sounds annoyed at your stubbornness and unwillingness to hand him the food you've found. “Just give us the food.”

“No,” you manage to croak out, “I found it.”

“Oh, she speaks.” he calls out amusingly, but no one actually laughs and his presence causes goosebumps to appear on your skin.

“Just leave it to her.” The woman tells him, equally annoyed at him as he clicks his tongue.

He doesn't listen to her though, growling annoyingly as he leans down again, this time his hand making contact with you which makes you whimper as you start to wiggle on your spot again.

“What the fuck is this commotion about?” Someone's rough and loud voice booms out, no doubt it's another man, as another set of footsteps nears you and a new person joins the woman and man as he stands next to them.

“Johnny is being an idiot again.” The woman says right away, the guy next to you scoffing loudly immediately.

“You guys are stupid. There's no food in here and she has it,” Johnny, the man not leaving you alone and causing the hair on your body to stand, snickers. “Yoongi, we came here for food. There's nothing!”

“That doesn't give you the right to take it from her!” The other man scolds, the one standing next to the woman who's been quiet so far until now.

“You idiot, it's just a matter of time before we will run out of our supplies! Why the fuck do you think we went to look for food the third time in the row?” Johnny angrily spits as both of them scoff.

Yoongi, who only said one sentence so far starts to take long steps towards and for some reason, you grow even more intimidated because so far Johnny seems to wait for his next move rather patiently. Even with the lack of lightning you notice the dominance he holds, the whole group growing silent immediately as he moves.

His boots stop next to you, flashlight pointing at the item in your hands as you clutch it in your hands, hiding it from his eyes as he lets out a bitter chuckle. You think it's aimed at you, but then he looks up.

“You are seriously fighting over a fucking can of peas?”

The woman and man a few meters away from you start to stifle a laugh, Johnny stuttering over his words.

“It's something!” he points out as Yoongi shakes his head.

His flashlight illuminates the whole space even more and you take that time to fully look at his face. The first thing you notice are his cat shaped eyes, sharp and holding depth and strength as he glares at Johnny, looking rather annoyed at the man and his antics.

But then he glances at you and your eyes meet, and you immediately shrink under his cold gaze.

“Leave it to her.” he simply says, a groan of disapproval resounding from Johnny right away.

“Yoongi–”

“Look at her. She looks like she has been barely eating. We will keep looking,”

In other times you would grow offended by how sarcastically he says those words aimed at you, looking at you with so much coldness that makes you want to cuddle into your thin jacket.

Before anyone can say something else, the dark-haired man turns around and starts searching for supplies again, totally ignoring you or anyone else.

“Let's get back to work. It's already dark enough.” he says sternly, Johnny giving you one last glare as he turns around and walks away from you, finally leaving you alone.

Releasing a breath that you seemed to be holding, you shakily stand up back on your feet but that's until someone walks to you again and you rush to get away from them, feet stumbling once again.

“No, don't be afraid,” The man says in a soft and worried voice, “I'm not gonna hurt you,”

You stop, staring at him wide eyed as he comes closer, setting his flashlight down on the shelf as you can make out his soft features.

“I'm sorry about him. He's an idiot,” he says, chuckling a little but your features remain frozen as you can't bring yourself to laugh at his obvious jab at the guy named Johnny. “Are you okay?”

You hesitate, giving him a soft nod.

Sighing, he takes off his backpack as he starts rummaging through it. Doing that for a moment, he suddenly stops as he pulls out a small bottle of water handing it to you. You stare at him, still not moving an inch as he moves his head towards the bottle.

“Take it, please.”

You do, hesitantly but then you snatch it from his hands that makes him smile amusingly.

“Thanks.” you murmur, clutching the bottle to your chest as well.

He nods, eyeing you for a little bit. “Are you alone?”

Well, duh. Does he see someone else here?

Maybe that's why he is asking. He wants to make sure there is no one that could hurt them. You obviously can't.

“It's okay, you can tell me. I'm not gonna hurt anyone.” he assures you, despite his deep voice, it's somehow sweet and caring which makes you relax slightly but you still don't let your guard down, being aware of your surroundings and them.

“Yes.”

You watch the man's eyes widening before he gives you a pitiful look. He opens his mouth, ready to say something before the previous cold and deep voice cuts him off.

“What the fuck are you doing, Taehyung?”

You turn around, seeing Yoongi and the woman making their way to you both as he visibly frowns at the guy – Taehyung – in front of you. He eyes the bottle in your hands, immediately giving a glare to him.

“She is alone here, Yoongi,” Taehyung starts, not hiding worry in his voice. “We can't just leave her here.”

“You are alone?” The woman asks, letting her presence known as a concern can be heard in her voice and she joins you and Taehyung.

You notice her staring at you, giving you unconditional attention while you squirm under her eyes. She looks pretty, she hovers over you slightly but still lets enough space between you two not to make you extremely uncomfortable.

Shocked at the sudden attention, you give her a hesitant nod as she turns her head to Yoongi.

“Yoongi…”

“No, Zoya,” he says immediately and firmly, shaking his head. “We don't have enough food for anyone else. We are not here rescuing people.”

After a long time being in the presence of people, you comically start to feel more safe of not being alone but you're still aware of them. You're not fearing them as much, now that they seem like they really don't want to hurt you.

The sudden hope of not being alone makes your heart pick up its pace, although you're not sure if joining a group of people you don't know it's the greatest idea. Still – is it worse than staying alone knowing you have nothing to defend yourself with? You have nothing.

“She has nothing with her. She will be dead by the end of the night.”

Her words make you wince, knowing she's probably more than right.

“We can't save everyone, Zoya.” Yoongi tells her firmly again, Zoya clicking her tongue annoyingly at him.

“You don't have anything with you?” Taehyung asks, gaining your attention as you shake your head. “What's your name?”

You hesitate, staring at all of them as Zoya softens her features. “It's okay. We won't hurt you.” she reminds you, although she doesn't know Taehyung told you the same thing.

“Y/N,” you answer, voice shaky and fragile as Taehyung deepens his pitiful gaze full of empathy and worry. Zoya looks just the same, giving you a slight smile which you don't return, too scared to let your guard down.

“Do you have something to at least defend yourself with?” Taehyung asks gently, brows rising in concern when you slowly shake your head.

“I–I packed something,” you start, Taehyung nodding his head encouragingly at you. “But as I was leaving my building there was one undead, it attacked me and I lost my backpack.”

“Are you bitten?” Zoya asks warily immediately, suddenly looking on guard.

“No,” you answer, “No, I am not.”

Before it could, you let it drag down your backpack as you hurriedly made it outside. You lost all your spare clothes and some of the snacks in it. You have nothing.

“You didn't kill it? Didn't you have anything with you?” Taehyung asks, trying to understand your situation.

“I had a knife.” you answer.

“Why didn't you use it then?” Yoongi asks, sharp eyes glaring at you even from the distance between you and his friends.

“I dropped it when it almost jumped at me from around the corner.”

“You didn't kill it?” Taehyung asks again, brows pinched together.

“I-I got scared. I ran.”

That makes Yoongi scoff as he shakes his head, staring down at his boots almost amusingly as Taehyung frowns.

“How are you even alive?” he asks and you know it's just a bitter metaphorical question he doesn't expect an answer for.

You frown, growing embarrassed how mockingly he treats you. You're not a fighter, you never were. You locked yourself until you were forced to get out. You knew you wouldn't be able to make it out by yourself. You still know that.

“Yoongi, we can't just leave her here. She has nothing.” Zoya tries again but he only says her name through clenched teeth.

She keeps her mouth shut though, both her and Taehyung giving Yoongi a disapproving frown.

He doesn't seem to care, walking towards you while he pulls out something from a pocket of his cargo pants. He tosses it on the floor, the object landing next to your boots as he raises his brow at you. A knife.

“This will have to do,” he tells you. “Next time you meet undead, use it.”

There is a low chance of that happening – you using the knife and killing something – you think.

“You can't be serious, Yoongi!” Taehyung exclaims, not hiding his distaste as Yoongi just gives him an unbothered look.

“Guys, there is a backroom here!” Johnny calls out to the group, Yoongi's attention already elsewhere as everyone turns their head to Johnny. “But it's locked.”

“It's probably a supply room.” Zoya says in thought, Yoongi already nodding as he starts walking towards Johnny who stands in front of a dark blue metal door.

“Can you open it?” Yoongi asks, Johnny shrugging as he opens his backpack and starts looking for something.

He pulls out something metal – a gun, you realize – and you immediately start to back away, your eyes widening as a fear crosses your entire body. Taehyung and Zoya notice it, Zoya gently catches you by your forearms as you try to pry her hands off you.

“Hey, no, don't be scared. It's just for safety measures. It's just for the undeads.” she assures you, Taehyung immediately nods.

“Come on, if there is food you can take some of it. I'm sure there is enough.”

You hesitantly look at Johnny as Zoya snickers next to you. “Don't worry about that idiot. If there's a problem we will just give you our shares.”

Taehyung nods, motioning your head to follow them. Not that Zoya gives you too much of a choice, she keeps a hold on your forearm as you approach Yoongi and Johnny hesitantly.

“The sound will just attract them,” Yoongi comments, frowning at the gun. “Why do you think we haven't used guns in the middle of the night?”

Wait–guns? They have more than one?

“Do you have a better idea?” Johnny remarks, glaring at Yoongi from his crouched position as he slings his backpack across his shoulder.

“We have to try, Yoongi. If there is food, we can have enough supplies for another month or two.” Taehyung reminds him, causing the man to think before he gives a nod.

“But be aware and listen to every little sound.” Yoongi reminds the group, staring at each of them as if he is giving them an order, his eyes falling onto you momentarily.

His stare is cold, even if it barely lasts a second but you know he doesn't want you here. He probably wonders what the hell are you still doing here. However, he doesn't comment on it as he fully focuses on Johnny who aims the gun at the lock.

“Be careful, the sound is not really pretty.” Taehyung murmurs into your ear as you nod, expecting a loud sound to come from the gun.

And it comes, loud and clear despite the silencer used on the gun, causing you to jump. Zoya slightly jumps next to you but the guys seem like they're already used to it, not even flinching. The lock is destroyed immediately, falling onto the ground with a loud crash as everyone stays unmoving and silent. There are no sounds, Yoongi giving a nod as he pulls out a knife, much bigger one than he gave you (which is still laying on the floor where he tossed it, your hands full with holding the bottle and the can).

Johnny opens the door but Yoongi is the first one to walk into the room, your breath hitching at his bravery of going into a dark room when he has no idea what's behind the door.

They're wary, Johnny joins Yoongi right away with a gun pointed at whatever that could mean danger. Taehyung, Zoya and you are the last one to follow them, Taehyung pulling out his own knife while Zoya does the same.

“You should put this down, just in case,” Zoya tells you, pointing at the food in your hands. “No one will take it, trust me.” she says, laughing a little at your widened eyes.

And then she pulls out another knife, the one that looks exactly the same Yoongi gave you. Your widened eyes make her chuckle.

“You should've taken this with you first. This one will save your life, a bottle of water and canned peas won't.”

You listen to her, letting her take the stuff from you as she quickly puts it into her backpack, telling you she will give it back to you. You're not sure if you can trust her but there's nothing much you can do anyway. She hands you the knife Yoongi so “kindly” gave to you. You don't remember her picking it up. You are so nervous and constantly on edge that you don't know what to notice first.

The room is dark but illuminated with everyone's flashlight.

“It looks like nobody was here.” Taehyung comments, shining his flashlight at the food supplies.

There are tall shelves with a bunch of canned food, most food already rotting and spoiled which explains the unpleasant smell in the room.

“Bingo.” Yoongi mutters, noticing not only the amount of food but also water and some beer.

You don't even have a backpack to put the food into, you think as they start loading their backpacks and bags with food.

“Don't worry, I have an extra bag.” Taheuyng tells you softly as he notices your distraught and you give him a slight smile in return, silently thanking him.

“Oh my god, how much I missed ramen.” Zoya cries out dramatically, her arms taking as much as they can as Johnny and Taehyung snicker at her, although sharing her joy with her.

“Man, I can't wait to have beer.” Johnny says, almost whining at the carton of beer.

This supply room is clearly untouched, nobody made their way here to take all the food. It had to be locked even before the apocalypse happened. It would explain the full shelves and spoiled fruit, vegetables and other food that has a short expiration date.

The rustle sounds of everyone packing the food is the only thing heard for a moment, as you squint your eyes in the distance noticing another shelf hidden behind the corner. You slowly make your way there, wanting to get useful and maybe discover more food.

Nobody notices you, you're still in the same room and not that any of them truly cares – they came here for food after all. You don't belong with them.

You clasp your hand over your mouth at the sudden stench, undoubtedly more spoiled food in this section. This is where the main smell has to come from. It's too dark for you to make out what kind of food it is and as you squint your eyes even more, trying to figure out if any of it is edible and in good state, you hear a faint growling and grunting which makes you freeze.

You've heard it before. Not many times but it's unmistakable because the single sound makes you tremble with fear. Backing away, you whimper as the sounds start coming closer and you make out a shape of someone, of something coming out of the shadows. Undead.

And then it hurls at you as it spots you, or smells you, causing a scream rip out of your mouth as you start backing away fastly. But your feet stumble in the rush of everything, causing you to fall to the ground as you start to kick the undead that falls too, bringing some of the items on the shelf with it with a loud clunk. It grabs you by your ankle, your eyes watering as you scream and join the others in the room by backing away from it on your butt.

It happens too fast for you to even grasp it, the undead tries to grab your ankle and bite into your living flesh, its movements slow but enough to terrify you with its need to eat you out alive. Before it can make any further movements, a knife is stabbed through its brain as the undead stops immediately, falling onto the floor.

The first thing you see as you look up is Yoongi, staring down at you with stern eyes.

“Oh my god, are you okay? Are you bitten?” Taehyung asks immediately, crouching down next to you as he helps you to stand up and pulls up your shaking form.

You shake your head at his question. It almost bit you.

Yoongi then glances at the knife, his knife, in your hands as he's about to walk past you but not until he stops next to you.

“What do you have that for, huh?” he spits, your entire form flinching how cold he sounds as Taehyung mumbles his name in disappointment. “No, Taehyung. She needs to learn how to defend herself.”

“She clearly doesn't know how to! Not everyone is ready to fight right away!” Taehyung exclaims, as if he reminds him of something but Yoongi's expression stays stoic before he glares at you.

“She better learn or she will be dead before the sun comes up.”

“Yoongi is right, if she's just gonna run away every time, it's just a matter of time before she gets killed and turns into one of them.” Johnny joins.

Their cold words make you flinch as Taehyung squeezes your forearm in support while Zoya glares at Johnny.

“You're just kissing Yoongi's ass.” Zoya remarks, Johnny glaring back at her.

But you know they are right. You will never make it if you won't be able to kill undead.

“Maybe that's why she needs us.” Taehyung's deep voice booms as he frowns at Yoongi.

“I said no.”

“Yoongi!” Taehyung exclaims in disbelief. “You know she will never gonna make it. You seriously want her to die?”

“We can take care of everyone we stumble upon, Taehyung.” he reminds him harshly.

“It's okay…” you tell Taehyung with a soft tone but he just glances at you disapprovingly.

“No, it's not,” he scolds you, “Yoongi, are you really that heartless?”

“I'm fucking taking care of all of you!” Yoongi suddenly screams, throwing his hands angrily as that shuts up Taehyung while Zoya flinches and Johnny grows silent. “I can't take care of everyone.” he says more calmly.

“Taehyung, right?” you ask silently, your soft voice booming in the suddenly quiet room as Taehyung nods in confirmation. “It's okay, Taehyung.” you assure him, despite the tears rushing to your eyes at the thought of being alone once again.

Yoongi just saved your life.

If they weren't here, you would probably be dead. Maybe not at this exact time because you wouldn't be able to open the supply room you're standing in right now by yourself. But like Yoongi said, you will be dead by the time the sun comes up.

Taehyung can't even look you in the eyes, his own features twisted in anger but most importantly sadness because there's nothing he can do. From what you understood, Yoongi has the final word and he doesn't want you to join them.

“I,” Taehyung starts, turning around as he takes a bag off the ground and tries to hand it to you. “I packed you some food. It should last for at least a month.” Yeah, if you will ever make it for a month.

He still doesn't look you in the eyes while Zoya watches you interact with empathic eyes. Yoongi stares with a cold expression while even Johnny looks a little pitiful at the sight of you.

Zoya sniffles, suddenly rummaging through her backpack as she hands you the stupid canned peas and the bottle you got from Taehyung.

You take it, clutching it to your chest as you ignore Taehyung's hand, not taking the bag from him.

“Keep it.” you tell him, his head snapping towards you immediately as he widens his eyes, looking shockingly at you.

“What? Why?” he breathes out, “Do you want more? I can give you some of mine. Please, take it. At least you won't have to go search for more food.” he tries to tell you quickly but you just simply shake your head, giving him a slightly saddened smile.

“I probably won't make it, I won't eat all of this food. You need it more,” you tell him, voice shaky as you angrily blink away the tears. Then you look at all of them. “All of you,”

Taehyung gasps, Zoya shaking her head at you but you ignore them, gently pushing Taehyung's hand away from you.

Giving Taehyung one last smile, you see his own eyes watering but you straighten yourself, ignoring it. “Thanks for the water,”

And then you look at Yoongi, his dark and emotionless eyes watching you. You should be mad at him. You are not.

You hate how angry you feel at yourself for not being strong enough, having to rely on others.

“And the knife… and for saving my life.” you say quietly to him, biting into your lip as you quickly make it out of the room.

Yoongi is met with one of the deepest glares he has seen on Taehyung and Zoya once you are out of the room. Johnny stays quiet though, knowing that's what life is about now. He might not be the person with the kindest heart but he did feel bad for you. Surely, he wouldn't want to be in your place right now.

“I can't believe you.” Taehyung spits at him, eyes watering.

“You just met her, you don't even know her. You really want to bring a stranger to the rest?” Yoongi asks sternly, Taehyung gulping as he's reminded of other friends that are waiting for them.

They are already low on the food supplies, even with what they have found right now, they will still have to move and search for more food. There is not a place that is completely safe.

“This store is in the middle of nowhere. We are surrounded by woods.” Taehyung comments through clenched teeth, causing Yoongi to scoff because the younger one doesn't listen to him.

“She can be dangerous.” Johnny suddenly says, taking Yoongi's side as always but that's not surprising which causes both Taehyung and Zoya to scoff.

“It's bullshit and you know it. She doesn't know how to defend herself, she would be dead if it weren't for Yoongi and you both know it.” Zoya spits.

“She might not be able to hurt us but she is still a stranger. She still can be dangerous. Are you hundred percent sure she won't steal our medicine and food once she has the chance?” Yoongi asks angrily, causing Taehyung to clench his jaw as Zoya does the same.

Still, she straightens herself and holds her head high as she faces Yoongi.

“She gave up the food and left it to us because she knows she's gonna die either way.” Zoya says brokenly and that's when for the first time, Yoongi looks away.

Jaw clenched tightly, it flexes under the pressure he puts into it as he rubs the bridge of his nose. “For fucks sake.”

And then he's out of the room, walking down the aisles to leave the store.

You are nowhere in sight and a part of him hopes you are already gone. It's selfish of him, he knows that. It's so fucking selfish but he needs to take care of his close friends. It's already tough as it is, they can't bring another person with how low they are running on everything. Plus, you can't even fight and he can't keep his eye on you every time you stumble upon some danger. You will just put them all in more danger.

He wonders how it is possible that you've made it out to this store that's settled far away from the city, surrounded by woods and trees. You had to walk here until it got dark, that's the only explanation he has.

And he looks left and right, a part of him still hoping you went into the woods and he can tell others he tried (because he did) but he couldn't find you.

But there you are.

Walking just a few meters away from him, making your way down the driveway. Your steps are slow, you don't rush anywhere and it's more than clear why. You have nowhere to go and you know your end is nearing.

Woods are full of undead, you will never make it by yourself and by walking.

Cursing under his breath, he grumbles as he starts walking towards you.

You're angrily wiping your tears, putting the knife into your pocket as it sticks out but you don't care. Will you even use it? Sure, it's practical and you're not giving up. But you're also not stupid and you know you're not skilled to fully defend yourself from undeads.

“Wait!”

You stop, turning around to find Yoongi standing not far away from the store.

Then you notice the others making it out of the store with bags and backpacks full, eyes watching you as you nibble on your bottom lip as you slowly make your way back to them.

Did you forget something?

Do they want to offer you more food? You already told them you don't need it.

What's the point? You can't feel your legs. You've been walking here for hours, which is usually just a twenty minutes drive by a car. You are tired. You can't possibly carry a heavy bag.

Stopping a few meters away from Yoongi, just enough to see and hear him as he watches you attentively. You don't make a sound though, both of you just standing there until an irritated sound makes it out of Yoongi's mouth.

The others stay in front of the store, not jumping into this interaction – or whatever this is.

“You can join us.”

It's simple, yet it leaves a bitter feeling in your chest. He sounds unwilling, as if it's the last thing he wants you to do and you know that's exactly what it is. Johnny, the man with slightly longer hair falling into his face and big eyes, most likely agrees with him.

“It's fine.” you tell him, hating how broken you sound but your voice still comes out strong despite its shakiness.

“So, that's it? You suddenly don't need our help?” he asks angrily, growing even more irritated by you as you stare at him with nothing but emptiness, until you scoff at turn around.

Meanwhile Taehyung watches the interaction from afar, his mouth opens and face drops in sadness while Zoya looks anxious next to Johnny who simply watches and waits for what's going to happen.

“Why would you want to help me?” you ask him silently, voice completely opposite from Yoongi's as it comes out emotionless yet soft. “I can't fight. I'm scared. I will be just a burden.”

He fucking knows that.

“So, you're just gonna give up?” he asks, scoffing in both annoyance and disbelief.

“What's there left for me to do?” you ask quietly, almost whispering it into the night but Yoongi hears every word.

Are you stupid?

“You learn how to fight. You learn how to survive.”

It sounds simple from his mouth. Will you ever be ready for that?

You have no one to survive for.

Your family is probably dead for all you know. You have lost contact with them since it happened and there is no way you can get to your home country. Your friends lived in a part of the city full of undeads around every corner. You would be dead even before you could make it to the part of their city.

“I'm all alone,” you tell him angrily, but you know it's just the sadness speaking out of you. “Who am I going to survive for?”

“Yourself,” Yoongi answers immediately, frustratedly brushing his fingers through his hair.

You would rather be dead than by yourself.

You don't realize you mumble those words under your breath, turning around from him and the group that funnily enough, turned out to save your life and scare the shit out of you at the same time.

“Just let us fucking help.” he growls, causing you to stop in your tracks as you slowly turn back to him.

That's when Taehyung and Zoya rushes to you two, Johnny following as well holding Yoongi's backpack along with his and a few bags.

“You can't just leave,” Taehyung pleads with you, “You will be safe with us. We will take care of you.”

Yoongi clenches his jaw but stays silent, though you see the way he really doesn't want you to join them. For some reason, he's against it but still stands here and offers you the help. Why? Because Taehyung and Zoya persuaded him?

“She will learn how to fight and will help us to get stuff for everyone,” Yoongi corrects, dominantly as Taehyung still stares at you with a hopeful gaze. “You will be safe with us, will have food to eat and a place to sleep in. That's my offer.” he says, staring right at you as you glance between him and Taehyung who pleads with you with his eyes.

“Don't be stupid,” Zoya says to you, “You know we are your only chance.”

“Zoya's right,” Taehyung reacts immediately, “You don't have to be alone.”

As much as your old self never wanted to depend on somebody else, things change when your own life is at stake. Especially if there's a high possibility you will be killed and eaten alive by a monster and later on, you will become one of them.

“I'm going to the car.” Yoongi suddenly says, dismissing this conversation as he walks past you.

Johnny follows him, giving you a look as he brushes past you but not before he momentarily stops and leans down to you without even looking at you. “Don't be stupid.” he says quietly, joining Yoongi as you see them approaching an old Jeep.

You were wondering where that car appeared from. It's theirs.

“I'm not taking a no for an answer,” Taehyung approaches you, frowning at you as if he's disappointed they even have to ask you to come with them.

You understand them. They pity you and you don't blame them. You would be acting the same way if you saw a lonely person against the whole world with no chance to survive.

“We will protect you.”

Zoya nods along to Taehyung's voice, squeezing your shoulder as you slightly flinch at the surprising touch. You look at her, seeing her features soften as she's close to you.

“Come on, you can leave whenever you want to. We won't hold you hostage.”

Before you can utter a single word, Taehyung is already grabbing you by your wrist and leading you towards the car where Johnny and Yoongi are loading the truck with backpacks and bags of food.

They don't notice you, Yoongi opening the driver's door as he slips inside the car as Johnny does the same with the passenger seat.

Taehyung ushers you into the car and you let him, appreciating how warm it feels and smells of vanilla. He goes to put Zoya's and his backpack into the truck, taking your things away from you with an encouraging smile.

Zoya does the same, wanting to assure you it's going to be fine and there's no need to be unsure about your decision to come with them. You know it's your only way of survival.

They are.

When you face forward, you catch Yoongi's eyes in the rear mirror, seeing them clearer than ever as they seem to be even sharper and darker than you thought.

Quickly looking away, your attention is taken away as Taehyung slips into the seat next to you, telling Yoongi everything's ready. He turns on the engine and puts the car into drive.

The vandalised store is slowly drifting away as you drive out of the parking lot and make it onto the highway.

[tousey-mousey]

To be clear, from someone who is currently working as a med student in a GP office in Australia (where it is currently winter and thus virus season):

COVID is still present in the community.

COVID is no longer a pandemic. "Pandemic" is a word that has an actual definition and refers to when a disease is absolutely everywhere and is infecting absolutely everyone in a place. That is no longer true for COVID.

COVID is an endemic virus, exactly like influenza and rhinovirus. This means "it's floating around in the community, but in general most people are either fully or partly immune and new infection rates are stable." It will never stop being endemic: once a virus is endemic, it does not go away ever unless we find a way to vaccinate absolutely everyone, which isn't going to happen for a coronavirus because they mutate too fast.

It is currently on the tier of "bad flu" for the large majority of people. It sucks for a few days and then you get over it.

This can still absolutely wreck certain vulnerable people, but COVID as the strains currently stand do not actually do this worse than influenza A or B do, especially H1N1 strains. COVID and flu can both kill people, but neither of them kills otherwise-healthy people without causing some other complication along the way anymore.

If you are reading this on tumblr, you are unlikely to be IN that minority of people who are at significant risk.

Surgical masks do nothing.

Cloth masks do nothing.

P2/N95 masks are the only viable option.

If you want to use them, you should ideally be fit-tested. If you cannot be fit-tested, then please do not simply assume that the cheapest masks will work for you.

Please understand:

COVID is over.

The virus and the disease are not, but "COVID" as synecdoche for "the COVID pandemic" is absolutely over and has been over for years. Claiming otherwise is simply medically illiterate and I'm sorry if that upsets you.

If you want to wear a mask, please do. However, please understand that unless you are wearing a brand-new N95 or P2 mask, that you are fit-tested for, and that you are wearing correctly...

...Then you might as well not wear one.

Cloth masks do not work anymore. They only worked for the initial months of the pandemic when it wasn't airborne: now that it IS airborne, cloth masks are absolutely useless.

Surgical masks are also not suitable: we use them in theatres (hence "surgical") because they prevent a person who is breathing slowly and evenly from easily spewing bacteria into open wounds, but we aren't trying to prevent viruses and they don't really work to prevent viral spread very well. They're strictly better than nothing... but not considerably better.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have good hygiene about travelling outside, but please don't act like this is because "the pandemic isn't over."

The pandemic is over.

However, please do mask up if you want to, and make sure that you always wash your hands when you come in from going anywhere that involved you touching lots of public things, especially public transport.

---

Currently, the main viruses we're seeing in the community in Australia are

Rhinovirus (always present)

Influenzas A & B (please get your vaccines)

Respiratory syncytial virus/RSV (particularly a problem for the very young and very old)

Human metapneumovirus/HMPV (often causes croup in kids)

Coxsackievirus (causes hand-foot-and-mouth disease, if you have kids in daycare who suddenly get a rash this is 90% the reason)

We actually don't see much COVID, as people generally RAT test at home for it if they suspect they have it and stay self-isolating, which is nice of them!

You can also now buy RATs which ALSO test for influenzas A & B, which is VERY nice. They're what we're using in the clinic right now and it really speeds things up!

If you have a random rash that's appeared and/or you're suddenly getting mouth ulcers and/or abdominal pain... it's probably hand-foot-and-mouth. It's an extremely common childhood infection and kids with it tend to be a bit grumpy for a day or three and then get over it, but adults with it can find the rash extremely painful. If you do get a rash, just remember that it's going to be over soon I promise!

Also, please do make sure that you check your Australian Immunisation Record (AIR) on the Medicare app and see that you've got an MMR shot. Measles is sadly a bit on the rise right now, so make sure you've got your measles shot if you're unsure! You can always get a new one.

COVID shots are still available and I recommend them. I haven't got this year's yet because I caught COVID at the start of the year off a patient who sneezed Directly into my eyeballs, which no amount of masks (which I was actually wearing, and was indeed fit-tested for) will prevent. It's currently not recommended that you get the COVID shot if you've been infected in the last 6 months because your immunity is probably better than the vaccine's immunity anyway, but I'm getting the COVID shot in about a month. Just treat it like your annual flu shot.

If you're 65 or over (which, on Tumblr, is unlikely but your parents might be) then please do tell them to get the shingles vaccine. It's not worth it for young people but as you age your risk of post-herpetic neuralgia increases, so do make sure it's got.

[strawberrisoulmate]

also. y'know what. 🌟 + sigma too :3c

!!!!!! yay, thank you!!! It's going to be a bit hard to account for all the overlapping and diverging timelines in this one, so I'll just give a very basic overview.

When Hannah and Sigma first met, they were in college and shared a couple classes together. While Sigma made a lasting impression on her, being a decently popular guy who always stuck out in class, the same couldn't be said for the reverse; as to him, Hannah was just some quiet girl in one or two of his classes that he barely remembered. So when the both of them were suddenly kidnapped, locked inside a giant warehouse, and forced to play a game of life or death with a group of strangers, they had no other choice than to stick together to try and figure out how the hell to get out of this place alive.

Over the course of the game (and Sigma subsequently going through multiple different timelines where either one or both of us die and has to keep jumping back and forth across time and space to prevent that from happening), the two become practically inseparable. Wherever Sigma goes, Hannah follows timidly behind. The group needs to split up to search new areas? Sigma is the first to volunteer to be paired with her. Even if they do need to part ways for a particular section of the game, they are always the first to reconvene and check back in with each other. At first it's just familiarity, but sooner or later, they both come to feel such a deep, inexplicable bond that neither of them can describe, but always keeps them close to one another — as if invisible red strings keep tugging them back if they venture too far.

Eventually, it comes to a point where Sigma is practically smacked in the head with the notion that having met this girl has — and will continue to — alter the trajectory of his life forever; realizing that she is more important to him than his own life and that he would do anything to keep her safe, no matter what. And with news of a deadly virus spreading throughout the world and killing off 85% of the world's population, along with multiple other threatening organizations and cults running around, the only thing he can do is agree to team up with Akane Kurashiki in her plan to save humanity in hopes that he could make the changes needed to not only save the world itself, but the person most precious to him in it.