#ongoing Covid

[thoughtlessarse]

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to sicken millions of people, with a growing surge driven by the newly evolved KP.2 and KP.3 variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The surge impacts multiple countries, including the US, Australia and the UK. In Australia, COVID is surging along with two winter respiratory viruses, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Surveillance data show increases in the numbers of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, nursing home outbreaks, and healthcare provider absences due to illness, as well as increased levels of the virus in wastewater. In the United Kingdom, hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are up 24 percent in the past week. In addition, the percentage of COVID-19 tests that are positive has risen from 8.4 to 10 percent. According to Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, “This is a wakeup call. The virus hasn’t gone away and is certainly not a seasonal infection.” In the United States, there are 15 states seeing high or very high levels of the virus in sewage, according to the CDC. The CDC maintains a map of current virus levels, shown below, which it updates on a regular basis.

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[jeraliey]

It's still not just a cold.

"This study showing that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus directly infects coronary artery plaques, producing inflammatory substances, really joins the dots and helps our understanding on why we're seeing so much heart disease in COVID patients," Peter Hotez, MD, professor of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told Medscape.

Oh, also?

CDC predicts respiratory disease season will be similar to last year

"The CDC said it expects a similar number of respiratory disease cases this year as last year, with 15 to 25 new weekly hospitalizations per 100,000 people."

"As of Friday, nearly 12 million people have gotten the new Covid-19 vaccine since they were authorized last month, according to HHS. That’s millions more than the week prior, but still less than 4% of the US population."

No one is protecting themselves. And no one else will protect you.

Even if you're not worried for yourself....don't be one of the people that carries it to someone else. We're all responsible for the most vulnerable people in our society. (That could be you, by the way.....)

WEAR. YOUR. MASK.

[halorvic]

[reachouttouchfaith]

i honestly hope the whole “something’s coming!” vibe from dnp rn is a big psyop and the secret event is actually something to raise funds for palestine/congo/sudan/haiti etc or a similar initiative. would be really cool to see. or maybe it can be both, where they’re like “we’ll admit we’re gay for each other at 100k!” lol

[pipzeroes]

I like fun unreality mass pretenses, like Goncharov, and not those unfun unreality mass pretenses, like pretending COVID is over and/or "mild".

[reasonsforhope]

Determined to use her skills to fight inequality, South African computer scientist Raesetje Sefala set to work to build algorithms flagging poverty hotspots - developing datasets she hopes will help target aid, new housing, or clinics.

From crop analysis to medical diagnostics, artificial intelligence (AI) is already used in essential tasks worldwide, but Sefala and a growing number of fellow African developers are pioneering it to tackle their continent's particular challenges.

Local knowledge is vital for designing AI-driven solutions that work, Sefala said.

"If you don't have people with diverse experiences doing the research, it's easy to interpret the data in ways that will marginalise others," the 26-year old said from her home in Johannesburg.

Africa is the world's youngest and fastest-growing continent, and tech experts say young, home-grown AI developers have a vital role to play in designing applications to address local problems.

"For Africa to get out of poverty, it will take innovation and this can be revolutionary, because it's Africans doing things for Africa on their own," said Cina Lawson, Togo's minister of digital economy and transformation.

"We need to use cutting-edge solutions to our problems, because you don't solve problems in 2022 using methods of 20 years ago," Lawson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a video interview from the West African country.

Digital rights groups warn about AI's use in surveillance and the risk of discrimination, but Sefala said it can also be used to "serve the people behind the data points". ...

'Delivering Health'

As COVID-19 spread around the world in early 2020, government officials in Togo realized urgent action was needed to support informal workers who account for about 80% of the country's workforce, Lawson said.

"If you decide that everybody stays home, it means that this particular person isn't going to eat that day, it's as simple as that," she said.

In 10 days, the government built a mobile payment platform - called Novissi - to distribute cash to the vulnerable.

The government paired up with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) think tank and the University of California, Berkeley, to build a poverty map of Togo using satellite imagery.

Using algorithms with the support of GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that uses AI to distribute cash transfers, the recipients earning less than $1.25 per day and living in the poorest districts were identified for a direct cash transfer.

"We texted them saying if you need financial help, please register," Lawson said, adding that beneficiaries' consent and data privacy had been prioritized.

The entire program reached 920,000 beneficiaries in need.

"Machine learning has the advantage of reaching so many people in a very short time and delivering help when people need it most," said Caroline Teti, a Kenya-based GiveDirectly director.

'Zero Representation'

Aiming to boost discussion about AI in Africa, computer scientists Benjamin Rosman and Ulrich Paquet co-founded the Deep Learning Indaba - a week-long gathering that started in South Africa - together with other colleagues in 2017.

"You used to get to the top AI conferences and there was zero representation from Africa, both in terms of papers and people, so we're all about finding cost effective ways to build a community," Paquet said in a video call.

In 2019, 27 smaller Indabas - called IndabaX - were rolled out across the continent, with some events hosting as many as 300 participants.

One of these offshoots was IndabaX Uganda, where founder Bruno Ssekiwere said participants shared information on using AI for social issues such as improving agriculture and treating malaria.

Another outcome from the South African Indaba was Masakhane - an organization that uses open-source, machine learning to translate African languages not typically found in online programs such as Google Translate.

On their site, the founders speak about the South African philosophy of "Ubuntu" - a term generally meaning "humanity" - as part of their organization's values.

"This philosophy calls for collaboration and participation and community," reads their site, a philosophy that Ssekiwere, Paquet, and Rosman said has now become the driving value for AI research in Africa.

Inclusion

Now that Sefala has built a dataset of South Africa's suburbs and townships, she plans to collaborate with domain experts and communities to refine it, deepen inequality research and improve the algorithms.

"Making datasets easily available opens the door for new mechanisms and techniques for policy-making around desegregation, housing, and access to economic opportunity," she said.

African AI leaders say building more complete datasets will also help tackle biases baked into algorithms.

"Imagine rolling out Novissi in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast ... then the algorithm will be trained with understanding poverty in West Africa," Lawson said.

"If there are ever ways to fight bias in tech, it's by increasing diverse datasets ... we need to contribute more," she said.

But contributing more will require increased funding for African projects and wider access to computer science education and technology in general, Sefala said.

Despite such obstacles, Lawson said "technology will be Africa's savior".

"Let's use what is cutting edge and apply it straight away or as a continent we will never get out of poverty," she said. "It's really as simple as that."

-via Good Good Good, February 16, 2022

[i-amusemyself]

[playingplayer2]

You know that audio that's all like "and remember kids, the next time somebody tells you, 'the government wouldn't do that.' oh yes they would."

Apply that to the idea of covid being "over."

Because it isn't. It never ended and it isn't mild. It's not a cold, it's not the flu. It fucks your immune system over permanently and that's just the tip of the fucking iceberg. Get your fucking heads out of the gods damned sand if you haven't already. Wear a fucking mask, don't go out if you're sick, and don't "work through it" that'll just fuck you up more.

[critter-of-habit]

Hello would you be comfy showing us your hot toys collection? 🥺 I just bought my first ever (clone wars Ahsoka) <3

Ohh yes I would, anon! Ahsoka is a fantastic first figure! She looks so good!

I have... A lot. Some are new and some are second hand . I just really like them?? And they make such good art refs

[bearforceone3]

kon & bart redraw with my designs… for fun

og panels:

[theprogressivesadist]

just a reminder that we're all still in an ongoing pandemic

[jeraliey]

Oh, look, everyone's talking about how they're getting COVID and they're so surprised about it. Again.

It's almost like we're still in an uncontrolled pandemic, and no one is doing their part to control it.

It's kind of interesting, though, in a ghoulish way, to notice the threshold of circulating virus that causes people to start talking about it again. My rough, non-scientific, kluged-together estimate of where it happens is right about here, at the straight horizontal black line that I added myself:

(Chart is from the CDC Wastewater tracking site, straight horizontal black line added by me.)

Also notice that when people start wearing masks again because COVID has passed the Notice Threshold, there's often a sharp dropoff. Until people just decide they're done and stop again. Whereupon the levels recover.

Anyway, please get your updated vaccine (which is active against the primary circulating variants), please keep masking up, and don't stop masking until we're actually done with the pandemic (instead of mass-delusion-pretend-done) and please make sure the people you care about do the same. There were apparently at least 4,000 COVID deaths in the US in the month of October, and that's almost certainly a gross underestimate given the tenacity of the mass delusion everyone is reinforcing.

Every single person can influence the spread of this disease by their own personal behaviors. This is only continuing because we are all collectively choosing to continue it.

Thanksgiving cometh.

[thistransient]

Have you visited latin america, or would you like to? Love your photography so much btw, have a nice day 🙏❤️

Thank you!! I have been and I will definitely go back in the future. I was an exchange student in Puerto Rico for a semester in uni and fell in love (even though my Spanish left much to be desired at the time), then between two trips in 2014 + 2016 I spent a few months in the provinces and countries between Mexico City and Bogotá. Now I like to stare wistfully at the rest of the map and dream...

[icewindandboringhorror]

More misc. daily life pictures and such

[pipzeroes]

Source.

Transcription: User eniko on instance peoplemaking.games makes the following three posts:

One of the things that has made me most disappointed in humanity is finding out that a large majority of people is too afraid to do what they think is right if nobody else is doing it, even if the thing they think is right is as innocuous as wearing a mask - Apr 26, 2023, 02:38

Just put on the damn mask if you think it's the right thing to do. Who gives a shit what random people on the street think when you have a decent shot at permanently lowering your quality of life through long covid if you get infected? And if you know mask wearing is the right thing to do you probably also know that by not doing so you could get someone killed. Do you care less about being responsible for that than fitting in? - Apr 26, 2023, 02:52

Sorry if I seem angry. It's the anger, you see - Apr 26, 2023, 02:54

[saaski]

Something I read in Dr. Laura Anderson's book "When Religion Hurts You" is that healing - from any kind of trauma - involves returning to a felt sense of safety.

I don't know how return to a felt sense of safety when we're in the 5th year of a pandemic, witnessing multiple genocides, living under capitalism and colonialism, as the planet is burning.

I keep reading posts about how the solution to despair is organizing and getting in community, but I don't feel safe in my community. How could I feel safe when the virus that disabled me with ME/CFS is still spreading unchecked, I have a suppressed immune system, most people's vaccines aren't up to date, and almost no one is masking anymore?

"Build community." As a traumatized autistic person, who has lost my community multiple times before? As an immunocompromised person, who is at risk in all public spaces? As a chronically ill person, who can barely do anything most days?

How do you build community when people ignore your access needs? How do you build community when people don't like or understand the way you communicate? How do you build community when no one around you shares your values, and you find it nearly impossible to maintain online connections?

My whole life has been me trying to reach out and build community, fucking it up or getting hurt, and winding up alone again and again.