#When will this pandemic end

[halorvic]

The danger is clear and present: COVID isn’t merely a respiratory illness; it’s a multi-dimensional threat impacting brain function, attacking almost all of the body’s organs, producing elevated risks of all kinds, and weakening our ability to fight off other diseases. Reinfections are thought to produce cumulative risks, and Long COVID is on the rise. Unfortunately, Long COVID is now being considered a long-term chronic illness — something many people will never fully recover from. Dr. Phillip Alvelda, a former program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office that pioneered the synthetic biology industry and the development of mRNA vaccine technology, is the founder of Medio Labs, a COVID diagnostic testing company. He has stepped forward as a strong critic of government COVID management, accusing health agencies of inadequacy and even deception. Alvelda is pushing for accountability and immediate action to tackle Long COVID and fend off future pandemics with stronger public health strategies. Contrary to public belief, he warns, COVID is not like the flu. New variants evolve much faster, making annual shots inadequate. He believes that if things continue as they are, with new COVID variants emerging and reinfections happening rapidly, the majority of Americans may eventually grapple with some form of Long COVID. Let’s repeat that: At the current rate of infection, most Americans may get Long COVID.

[...]

LP: A recent JAMA study found that US adults with Long COVID are more prone to depression and anxiety – and they’re struggling to afford treatment. Given the virus’s impact on the brain, I guess the link to mental health issues isn’t surprising. PA: There are all kinds of weird things going on that could be related to COVID’s cognitive effects. I’ll give you an example. We’ve noticed since the start of the pandemic that accidents are increasing. A report published by TRIP, a transportation research nonprofit, found that traffic fatalities in California increased by 22% from 2019 to 2022. They also found the likelihood of being killed in a traffic crash increased by 28% over that period. Other data, like studies from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, came to similar conclusions, reporting that traffic fatalities hit a 16-year high across the country in 2021. The TRIP report also looked at traffic fatalities on a national level and found that traffic fatalities increased by 19%. LP: What role might COVID play? PA: Research points to the various ways COVID attacks the brain. Some people who have been infected have suffered motor control damage, and that could be a factor in car crashes. News is beginning to emerge about other ways COVID impacts driving. For example, in Ireland, a driver’s COVID-related brain fog was linked to a crash that killed an elderly couple. Damage from COVID could be affecting people who are flying our planes, too. We’ve had pilots that had to quit because they couldn’t control the airplanes anymore. We know that medical events among U.S. military pilots were shown to have risen over 1,700% from 2019 to 2022, which the Pentagon attributes to the virus.

[...]

LP: You’ve criticized the track record of the CDC and the WHO – particularly their stubborn denial that COVID is airborne. PA: They knew the dangers of airborne transmission but refused to admit it for too long. They were warned repeatedly by scientists who studied aerosols. They instituted protections for themselves and for their kids against airborne transmission, but they didn’t tell the rest of us to do that.

[...]

LP: How would you grade Biden on how he’s handled the pandemic? PA: I’d give him an F. In some ways, he fails worse than Trump because more people have actually died from COVID on his watch than on Trump’s, though blame has to be shared with Republican governors and legislators who picked ideological fights opposing things like responsible masking, testing, vaccination, and ventilation improvements for partisan reasons. Biden’s administration has continued to promote the false idea that the vaccine is all that is needed, perpetuating the notion that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to do anything about it. Biden stopped the funding for surveillance and he stopped the funding for renewing vaccine advancement research. Trump allowed 400,000 people to die unnecessarily. The Biden administration policies have allowed more than 800,000 to 900,000 and counting.

[...]

LP: The situation with bird flu is certainly getting more concerning with the CDC confirming that a third person in the U.S. has tested positive after being exposed to infected cows. PA: Unfortunately, we��re repeating many of the same mistakes because we now know that the bird flu has made the jump to several species. The most important one now, of course, is the dairy cows. The dairy farmers have been refusing to let the government come in and inspect and test the cows. A team from Ohio State tested milk from a supermarket and found that 50% of the milk they tested was positive for bird flu viral particles.

[...]

PA: There’s a serious risk now in allowing the virus to freely evolve within the cow population. Each cow acts as a breeding ground for countless genetic mutations, potentially leading to strains capable of jumping to other species. If any of those countless genetic experiments within each cow prove successful in developing a strain transmissible to humans, we could face another pandemic – only this one could have a 58% death rate. Did you see the movie “Contagion?” It was remarkably accurate in its apocalyptic nature. And that virus only had a 20% death rate. If the bird flu makes the jump to human-to-human transition with even half of its current lethality, that would be disastrous.

[sleepytoycollection]

Me at my food service job when the customer gets mad I won't commit a health code violation for them.

[sleepinglionhearts]

Selections from my Hobonichi Techo so far :)

[palaceoftheprophets]

Saw Glass Onion yesterday and besides needing another five million Benoit Blanc mysteries, I also need to acknowledge Janelle Monae has captivated me since Metropolis and clearly shows no signs of stopping.

[mumblelard]

the end is here or happy friday imaginary constructs

[wangxianficrecs]

When You Wake, 怎能当梦一场 by acertainrogue

When You Wake, 怎能当梦一场

by acertainrogue

T, 39k, Wangxian

Summary: He lay there buried under rabbit ears of wires, warmed by a thin blanket, breathing, breathing, never truly still, but never animated, either. “A-Xian,” Jiang-gugu said with a forced smile. “Your son and husband are here to see you. And your nephew too. He will be coming very soon.” A-Yuan ran up to Baba and held his hand. -- Sizhui grows up in a changing world, but his comatose father can't change with it. His family is determined to give him the love and forgiveness they didn't give Wei Ying. Kay's comments: So, this is definitely the kind of story that keeps you hooked and forces you to finish it in one sitting and even then, it'll still keep you awake for nights. It's just so good and so painful. Phew, so many knives! But, there's a happy ending, so you can definitely look forward to that! It's also actually set in real-world modern China, which is too rare for my liking in the English-writing fanfic community and I really appreciate all that went into this story and am also so grateful for the author for writing a whole thread over on Twitter explaining the cultural nuances one might have missed. As for the story, it's mostly Lan Wangji suffering and raising A-Yuan for thirteen years while Wei Wuxian is a coma. Cue: The Covid19 pandemic and the collapse of the health system and what that means for someone who's been in a coma for thirteen years. Excerpt: He lay there buried under rabbit ears of wires, warmed by a thin blanket, breathing, breathing, never truly still, but never animated, either. “A-Xian,” Jiang-gugu said with a forced smile. “Your son and husband are here to see you. And your nephew too. He will be coming very soon.” A-Yuan ran up to Baba and held his hand. Baba must have slept with Father when he was still awake. A-Yuan did remember being cradled in a cloud that was Father and Baba both, remembered being held between them in bed. There was a time when he had not known how to sleep otherwise. Baba had been cool, cool like the springs of silver dollar water, warm just enough so lotuses could grow. Tem-per-ate, he learned in school for his vocabulary section. But now, Baba was just cold. “Baba,” he squeaked, peaking over the side of the bed, tall enough that he did not have to tiptoe or have Jiang-gugu carry him anymore. “It’s me. It’s A-Yuan. Did you know I’m getting a cousin soon?” He fished in his pocket and found the dried grass butterfly Father had bought him on the roadside, from a man who peddled swallows with tails cut into forks and a green penguin waddling into life. “This can be your cousin too,” he told Baba importantly, nestling that gentle flutter of wing grass into Baba’s cold palm, so he could hold something when A-Yuan, Father, and even Jiang-gugu weren’t around. That was what Jingyi was to A-Yuan when he was at school, away from Father. Everyone needed a cousin, a companion, like the one that was about to be born. When he turned around, Jiang-gugu was crying.

pov lan sizhui, modern setting, modern no powers, pandemics, coma, hospitals, hospitalization, angst with a happy ending, comatose wei wuxian, implied/referenced homophobia, jiang family dynamics, good parent lan wangji, grief/mourning, covid19

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

[harapeveco]

Rei in official stuff that’s not manga/Comic Gene related

1) In Yoruwa Honoka there’s a picture of him that changes into Qta, who’s also on a Yoruwa Honoka promotional art posted on the Zingai app

2) On an actual official knk art released on the Zingai app

3) On Fight Song for one millisecond

4) On the “All about the balloon disease” extras from Insomnia

[sanstropfremir]

ok nana unsubtly kicked me in the ass about this and i realized they were mostly done anyways so here we go! only four months late!

best stylings 2023 - first half

runners' up

rising - triples

there are two good stages with funky athletic wear, but it wasn't enough to bump it up to the overall category. mcountdown 230216, the show 230221

abyss - woodz

didn't promote it which is a shame, but the variety in the costuming for the different versions of himself is well done and it's a beautifully shot bottle mv.

moody - superkind

you got a fake member you gotta make it spooky!!! he's not real that's inherently spooky!!! anyways this is what i wanted them to do right off the bat some i'm glad they finally got my psychic memo.

golden hour - mark

absolutely fucking crazy. fantastic imagery. i think i talked about it earlier in the year but it's such a stupid and hilarious idea to make a whole diss track mv about a several year old meme and then actually make it strange and weird art. obsessed with it still.

sos - kang daniel

i'm also including the wasteland music sequence here because holy shit when this dropped i lost my mind. i'm always surprised by what kang daniel does bc i can never predict it, which over the last few years i'm coming to enjoy. and i absolutely did not expect him to produce basically an entire wild west mad max movie with equal the production value???? literally how did he do this. how. and then everyone paid it dirt??? it's an amazing mv and one of my faves of the year, the only reason it's not bumped up categories is bc although the styling was actually one of the only times tactical gear has been thematically relevant to a cb, its been so overused that it has no punch anymore, which makes me sad bc the tactical gear was good! and a good choice! and i feel bad saying it has no punch bc it should have!

small talk - kim sungkyu

we love when sungkyu acknowledges that he's annoying and a loser. all these outfits were so losercore. i loved this deviation from form for him; he's normally king wailer supreme, but he does smooth upbeat rock very well and it's a nice contrast with the capital y yearning that's in the bsides. it's only here bc he didn't promote much and i'm mad at him for putting dancing in the mv and then not dancing in any of the stages. mcountdown 230629, music core 230708, inkigayo 230709

ay-yo - nct 127

this is just here for taeyong's urchin outfit. well i'm a bit of liar it is actually a really fun early 00s inspired mv, but we all know the urchin outfit stole the show.

stamp on it - got the beat

i will hear NO slander against got the beat in this house, this was a great mv i love hot women planning a heist.

tricky house - xikers

FANTASTIC debut. does a really great job of establishing a character for them as a group and it's got such unique flavour. kq has made great use of their ateez money and also the lessons that they learned with ateez. i'm excited to see where xikers goes in the future, and since i'm writing this section from the future i can say that i do like where they've gone with full confidence. the only reason it didn't make the top list is bc the styling is kinda average for this era of kpop.

best overall

rose blossom - h1 key

i was aware of h1key before this but they hadn't really grabbed me, but damn this cb was so good. the mv is a nice mix of story and dance sections. plus a surreal section in the middle! and by virtue of being like the first cb of the year, they got the jump on this alt girl look that would be the dominating look for ggs this year. and i do think first did it best in this case, all the looks are smart with good group synergy and and a lot of creativity; when you do this type of alt-y punky style it's important that there's a diy element to it, which a lot of groups fail to grasp bc stylists are obsessed with luxury branding. h1key manages to avoid that mostly by being flops, but i'd like to believe its also bc their creative team cared about capturing the true spirit of the style.

stages: music bank 230106, mcountdown 230202, music bank 230203, mcountdown 230119, inkigayo 230108

tic tac - 8turn

honestly i was kinda ready to not like these guys since mnh shat the bed with chungha, but then i remembered that the mnh creative team is very good at their jobs, so here we are. this is one of the few debuts/cbs this year where every single stage was a hit and it was very hard to narrow down to just a few for here; lots of good emphasis on shape and colour and accent pieces with repeated motifs, which was a big part of the fashion in the 00s that they are remixing here. very strong debut especially for so early in the year and i'm looking forward to more.

stages: show champion 230208, mcountdown 230202, music bank 230203, show champion 230222, music core 230211, mcountdown 230223, music core 230225, inkigayo 230226

bonus: this absolutely hysterical 4minute cover (they even got the name bucket hats! not in the stage, but they had them in photos)

sweet juice - purple kiss

i'm not normally a fan of wes anderson or wes anderson inspired aesthetics because i find them too twee and perfect, but this wasn't too direct in it's inspirations and definitely had the spooky purki flavour. i really liked the uniformity of the costuming, both literally using uniform motifs and using the same fabrics; i really do miss the days when kpop costumes were design to actually be costumes with the group image in mind.

stages: mcountdown 230216, inkigayo 230219, music core 230225, music bank 230224, inkigayo 230226, music core 230304, inkigayo 230305

sour & sweet - bambam

bambam again proving that he's one of the few idols that knows his shit in terms of interesting styling. also if anyone knows where he filmed the mv/performance vid please tell me i need to know bc its so beautiful.

stages: mcountdown 230330, music bank 230331, inkigayo 230402, music bank 230407, music core 230408, inkigayo 230409,

bsides: music bank 230331, inkigayo 230409,

macarena - blitzers

i'm so so so glad blitzers got a bit more attention this year bc they deserve it and macarena was so good. perfect culmination of their goofy ass talents and the unusual creativity of their performance + creative directors. i'm even linking the mv teaser here bc its so goofy and offbeat and different. honestly i'd recommend watching as many of the stages as you can find bc they do different intros every time and it's very funny, but unfortunately tumblr has a link limit so i can't link them all.

stages: show champion 230426, music bank 230428, music core 230429, inkigayo 230430, inkigayo 230514, music core 230527

bouncy - ateez

yea yea yea nobody is surprised so sue me. this was a crazy followup to halazia and proved that ateez can deftly switch between serious dramatic performance and comedic but no less dramatic. i'm very happy to see how much work has been going into the main ateez mvs in the last year because it has very clear and striking direction that fits both their performance style and their creative ambition, as well as their growth as a group. also yea i'm not immune to neon cowboy shit.

stages: inkigayo 230618, music bank 230616, the show 230620, mcountdown 230622, music bank 230623, mcountdown 230629, music core 230701, inkigayo 230702

kick it 4 now - tnx

tnx had an absolutely banging 2023 and although kick it 4 now is has superior and more comprehensive production, love or die is also a very good cb, and both of them together have shown that they have a really good grasp on the genre of teen listlessness, from two different directions. kick it 4 now has been i think the most successful cb to actually capture the feel of first gen, and the creative team did a lot of extra work in order to pull that off. from all the graphic design to the goofy lil 90s style music show promos, to the styling, they had a clear goal and achieved it. i think it will be quite difficult for any other group to pull it off this thoroughly.

stages: music bank 230609 (the giant lyrics!!!), music core 230610, show champion 230614 (more giant lyrics!!), music core 230617, mcountdown 230622

shooting star + left right - xg

we all already know that left right was my most listened song this year, but the fact that the mv was b movie sci fi star trek themed? it's like simon made everything about this specifically for me thank you. xg blew everyone out of the water this year on every front; music, styling, choreography, you name it. i said i wanted groups to commit to their bits and i got it. they were completely unafraid to actually commit to the y2k nostalgia AND to harajuku styling; a lot of groups have weakly pawed at it but always back away due to the fact that harajuku and y2k are not actually 'pretty' fashion trends, which leaves their attempts half assed with no real understanding of why and how those trends happened. xg came saw and conquered the current trend in a way that only a japanese gg can do. my only annoyance is that they tone down the stylings when they promote on music shows, and i know why they do it, so it's not an annoyance at them, it's an annoyance at everyone else.

stages: shooting star - mcountdown 230202, con-tour 230217, the show 230221, inkigayo 230212, inkigayo 230205, con-tour 230224

left right - the show 230228, show champion 230222

circle - onew

absolute masterpiece. album of the year in every way. it's a profoundly beautiful unpacking of grief and the sadness that comes with acknowledging that things change, and the way that in that change life and humanity and story is eternal. a circle. the theatre imagery combined with the 60s style children's tv show use their similar but contrasting forms to illustrate the same point: something can be eternal and fleeting at the same time, and that heightens its value rather than diminishing it. the promo campaign was so thought out as well, i love the integration of the theatre imagery into the highlight medley and i highly recommend you watch it if you haven't. one of the best cbs from a solo artist in years.

stages: mcountdown 230309, music core 230311, music bank 230317, inkigayo 230319

--

ignore the fact this was almost five months late even though i started writing in like. november. i'm busy ok. it's planting season and i have to send so much post. the choreos post is the next most finished so that will probably be out before the styling second half one.

[freddyfreeman]

This is just straight up evil

[foxyfexyll]

in the making -> an old comic i made for a project in class about how i experienced covid

[milfygerard]

did she specifically make 34 versions of TTPD because shes 34 years old

[s-trip-tease]

Pandemics in films post 2020 are extremely funny like you want me to believe that governments implemented lock-down procedures and people LISTENED TO THEM.

[lemonhemlock]

it's so frustrating dealing with a friend that seems set on finding imaginary slights against their person and seethes in silence waiting for you to figure out what you did 'wrong' this time 🤦‍♀️

[athenasdragon]

This week I've been allowing myself to be sad when I look back at pictures from college. It's been long enough now that I'm starting to see the girl in the photos as a separate person from my current self and I feel really bad for her. Last week I was putting some pics together for a talk and I found one in my second year of college, coming out of a year of really intense homesickness and anxiety, about a month into what I didn't know yet was a lifelong chronic illness, holding up one of my research samples and smiling because I was still getting a lot of enjoyment out of my research assistant job. And then just weeks later that lab would cease to exist when my first mentor got (justifiably) fired--something I've spent six years stewing over as I've continued my career in their field.

Those years I had some of the best times in my life and met some of my favorite people in the world, and found the career I'm now very happy to be in, and went on to have other better mentors who continue to be there for me, and and and. But looking at pics is like wow, I was so sick here, I was so sick here, I was having panic attacks on this vacation, this is when the barber told me my hair was falling out from stress and malnutrition, this is the first time I had seen this old friend in a while and I cried after because I thought she didn't like me anymore, I was so sick here.

Fortunately the contrast is so stark because I'm really quite happy in my life right now. But yikes. Acknowledging how bad things got was pretty much impossible while I was in it, but I can sure see it in retrospect.

[mumblelard]

memories of my home planet

i started finding these fifty year old mardi gras coins on the side of the path a month or so ago, more than a dozen by now. i picture an old man, walking by the lake, reliving old memories, leaving them behind, one by one

yesterday was such an accumulation of small blessings. i don't know why, but i'll take it

i ate the last cinnamon roll with a little spoon of tart cherry jam in the early afternoon and it was nice

i had such bad dreams last night. it felt like the dreams were trying to eat my bones. i'll try to let them go. this morning i look like a mumblelard half-hollowed by hungry ghosts

later, i'm going to make hamburgers. i don't do this often. a special meal. a treat from me to me

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

Every time Prapai gives Sky medicine, he's narcoleptic inside 5 minutes.