#covid conscious

[covidsafehotties]

"Buying HEPA filters and maintaining them is *too hard.* how about you just get sick all the time instead? It's good for you, actually!"

[frances-m-art]

Continuing this series of protest graphics

[gentlemanbutch]

the way that no one wears a mask at my local LGBTQ clinic, and in fact comments on my mask like it's just this hilarious little idiosyncrasy that I still wear one and not because I'm immunocompromised and we're in the middle of a pandemic ... as if there isn't an airborne virus that literally fucks up your immune system ... as if we didn't lose a generation of queer people to another virus that fucks up your immune system ...

[intersectionalpraxis]

"If a pig catches both a human influenza A virus and an avian influenza A virus at the same time, it can spark a process known as viral reassortment — a genetic exchange in which flu viruses swap gene segments." "Those swaps can introduce dramatic changes, producing a new virus with certain properties of a non-human strain coupled with the capacity to infect and spread between people." "The death rate in humans may be upwards of 50 per cent, World Health Organization data suggests, though it's possible that milder infections are getting missed, skewing the case fatality ratio. Still, in a population that's never been exposed, the global impacts could be dire." "More human cases could also be happening under the radar among farm workers who've moved to the U.S. from abroad, don't speak English as their first language, and may be hesitant to seek medical help, he added." "So I think there's probably underreporting on both sides," Armstrong said." "If [H5N1] gets into a population where there's constantly animals going in and out … it might not ever leave."

I've been watching this develop for the past several days, and apart from being terrified most people will not take this seriously (I've seen a handful of people already shout conspiracy on social media and it's alarming to see, as always). What I wanted to point out is that pandemics are going to continue to be our 'normal.' I watched a great video on YouTube a while ago (I believe it was by Vice?) that touched base on how this is going to become our new reality because of multiple factors (such as our proximity to animals, and environments/etc). It was when Covid hit and they did a piece debunking some of the misinformation floating on the internet. If I can find it I will post it here because it was informative and relevant to pretty much any world crisis we will see around any virus that spreads among a human population.

This post isn't trying to fear monger anyone, I just hope more people are aware of what is happening because this is important to talk about. There are already cases (of cows getting this bird flu) in the US, and I won't be surprised if there will be instances in more countries around the world. As usual, keep washing your hands/keeping good hygiene practices, masking up (and if you aren't I hope you consider it), and taking precautions if you do happen to visit/work or go near a pig or poultry farm too:

I'll keep track of this here of course, but please stay informed folks. And also FU to any governments who will try to minimize this or try to diminish the severity until it's too late and community spread happens like Covid because their actions are influenced by capitalistic interests.

Update (April 7th, 2024, 9:32pm EST): to anyone wondering where some of the source information originates from -here is a link to the CDC. They are tracking documented avian virus outbreaks in the US and the public can access it here:

[autismserenity]

know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)

[king-sappho]

The pandemic is not over. I’m immunocompromised and so is my girlfriend. We are in our 20s. We wear masks every time we go out, which is usually to a doctor. I’ve noticed that so many people in the US want to act like the pandemic never happened and the visual of a person wearing a mask makes them recoil. There are people who go so far to discriminate against us because we try to keep safe and that makes them uncomfortable (in a blue state even).

Yesterday at the dentist an old man coughed at us. When I was retrieving my stolen car at a compound the person who had my car told me to not wear my mask. The first day I moved here someone drove up to me in my apartment parking and coughed on me as well.

Before my girlfriend and I moved we were living at her parents in a red state. It was a bad situation and her parents lied to us when they had Covid. We both got it right before we had to leave. We’re still feeling the long term affects in our chronic illnesses.

What we face as disabled people is an onslaught of aggression for our existence because able bodied people are scared to be like us. They tell us we are crazy so they can go about their lives like we don’t exist or the dangers that threaten our well-being don’t exist.

What I’m saying is that I won’t compromise my safety for other’s comfort. I don’t wear masks to shame other people or to make a political statement, I just don’t want to get sick. That’s my business and my right. The world would be safer for disabled people if everyone wore KN95 masks too, and if you decide to wear it I’m grateful. But at the very least I just want people to stop stifling us and the truth. We are still in a pandemic and thousands of people are still dying from Covid. I’m still wearing a mask even if it isolates me socially from others. I have to.

[stigmatamama]

Order your tests when you can.

Wear a respirator, support your community, contact your government officials. Spread the word not the disease.

[metach]

People have gotten way too comfortable risking serious disability just because they feel they have the right to selfish.

Do you want to kill your parents?

Do you want to disable your partner?

Do you want your friends to lie in bed wishing for death?

Wear a fucking mask.

[hammercarexplosion]

Covid minimzers be like "where's the wealth of evidence that covid is getting worse" while being completely ignorant of the absolute wealth of covid studies being published each day, none of them saying "covid is like the flu now."

[noirhimbo]

Home Depot sells KN95 masks in a 10 pack for 2 bucks. I bought a hundred for 20 dollars. They've got them in white, black, and a pretty pastel pink. I've linked them so that they are easy to find. KN95's aren't the best but they are better than nothing, and definitely better than the floppy blue things people always wear.

[covidsafehotties]

[damnyousubdermalirritants]

Hey everyone - if you live in or are near the US , you're over the age of 12, and it's been +2 months since your last jab you're eligible for a covid booster and Novavax is finally being rolled out! It's not an mRNA vaccine and has been shown to possibly be more effective against new variants than mRNA vaccines. It doesn't have the crappy side effects the day after either! It's the safest vaccine for anyone who has had adverse effects from the covid shot before. Here's a solid compilation of studies and news on it if you want to learn more

https://www.okdoomer.io/a-little-bit-of-good-news/

It'll be more widely available in a few weeks but many CVSs, RiteAids, and Costcos are carrying it nationwide. Costco doesn't require a membership. If you call your local pharmacy and ask them if/when they'll have it that might get them to sooner. Most of these have Novavax availability on their appointment scheduler websites but it's still worth calling to check or checking in person in case they're out of date. You can also search for it on vaccines.gov. Happy to help folks look locally where y'all are if you want. Important to check if the location will take your insurance because boosters are now >$100 out of pocket if you go out of network 🙃 If you don't have insurance there is also the Bridge Access Program. To be clear, the mRNA vaccines are still very good and getting boosted before the holiday season spike is the best thing to do regardless. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/bridge/index.html

[intersectionalpraxis]

I will never stop masking in public spaces, or taking precautions wherever I go. It also baffles me how little we still know about how Covid will impact the body because it's only almost 5 years old (I recently read a post about what we know about long covid and the information is just jarring). Stay safe and keep masking folks!

[1000punks]

reblog for a bigger sample size!!!

[bruhmityblight]

Ok obviously like I mask for all the COVID reasons but also I can't believe that we had a collective chance to bring back the era of cool face coverings and ppl don't wanna wear them. Like I feel like Arthur Morgan whenever I put on my mask, idk it's kinda a fun accessory I genuinely don't get why ppl are so weird about them