🗓️ Pandemic anniversary 🩺 NNU Air quality guide 🌬️ NYC free masks campaign 😷
Covid contrarianism & AIDS denialism, the Venn diagram is a circle. Two different diseases, same old bigotry.
Contents:
- Events, Actions, & Campaigns
- Pandemic field notes & “Living with the virus”
- In the News (virus & adjacent media, science, news, and op-eds)
- This is NOT Fine section (gaslighting & other outrages)
- He(a)rd Scuttlebutt (the pandemic grapevine)
Pandemic declared by WHO on March 11th 2020, 4 years ago.
What the CDC knew about aerosol transmission
Long Covid Awareness Day March 15th, coverage by The Sick Times
NEW YORK CITY USA Campaign: Urge NYC Council Members to Support the Free Mask Bill
By COVID ADVOCACY NY: “There's an important bill that would provide access to free masks, other PPE, and rapid tests through the mail to New York City residents: Int 0332-2024. We need YOUR help to get this critical bill passed!”
New York State USA - Letter Campaign: Tell Your Reps: Oppose Governor Hochul's Effort to Repeal COVID-19 Sick Leave
By Come Forever Mutual Aid: “Governor Hochul is trying to repeal the 2020 state law that requires paid sick leave for New Yorkers with COVID-19. Without this leave, most New Yorkers will have just the state’s minimum 5 to 7 days of paid sick leave per year - and some will have no leave at all.”
Nurses’ Guide to Improving Indoor Air Quality in Health Care by National Nurses United
🗞️ In the news
CIDRAP - Even mild flu tied to double risk of heart attack, stroke in older patients Mary Van Beusekom, MS February 12, 2024 The study results provide further evidence that while several pathogens are thought to increase cardiovascular risk through systemic infection and inflammation, the flu virus may have a more specific role in direct cardiac infection and endothelial dysfunction, leading to destabilization and rupture of existing atherosclerotic plaques, the authors said.
Why Taylor Swift won't meet with Aussie fans while Down Under EXCLUSIVE: A source has said Taylor could risk 'millions of dollars' if she were to fall sick while touring. Yahoo Lifestyle Team Updated 18 February 2024 On Taylor's previous tours in Australia, she would host backstage meet and greets before each show as she loves interacting with her fans – but since Covid, we're told her team had to “permanently axe these as they pose too much risk”. The source adds that although this may seem strict, even missing one show would cost millions of dollars and could throw Taylor's schedule out for the rest of the year.
Measles' Deadliest Sequelae — How much do you know about its most dire consequences? by Claire Panosian Dunavan, MD, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today February 26, 2024 A wild-type measles virus in the brain develops one or more point mutations in its genome that initially halt the virus's replication and spread, but later cause chronic encephalitis, inflammation, and demyelination. In a typical SSPE patient, the latent period preceding symptoms is 7 to 10 years, but sometimes exceeds two decades. Final clinical findings include a poignant constellation of visual abnormalities, convulsions, myoclonic jerks, and cognitive decline eventually culminating in mutism, spasticity, coma, and death.
NPR - Ebola vaccine cuts death rates in half — even if it's given after infection February 15, 2024 Ari Daniel Among the unvaccinated, mortality was 56%. But for those who'd received the vaccine, that rate was cut in half. And this was true no matter when someone got vaccinated before the onset of symptoms, whether just a couple days (27.3% fatality risk) or more than three weeks (17.5% fatality risk). In addition, those who had been vaccinated had less virus circulating in their bodies than those who hadn't. Coulborn says this may help explain the "lower risk of dying, and it could also have an impact on transmission, reducing the spread of Ebola during an epidemic." "So while getting vaccinated as early as possible is the most beneficial," explains Coulborn, "we now know that vaccination is better late than never."
Norovirus cases continue to climb in the US, especially in the Northeast, CDC data shows By Amanda Sealy, CNN 2 minute read Published 6:04 PM EST, Sat February 24, 2024 The most common symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain. There’s no specific treatment for norovirus, but experts recommend drinking plenty of liquids to avoid dehydration. In order to prevent illness, the CDC recommends washing your hands, rinsing fruits and vegetables and cooking shellfish thoroughly.
This is NOT fine
The covid minimizers now reveal themselves to also push HIV bigoted conspiracy theories, as Bret Weinstein goes on Joe Rogan to spread AIDS denialism.
Joe Rogan Spreads AIDS Denialism To Spotify's Massive Audience - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder Feb 22, 2024 Transcript: 9:20 “it's not just conspiracism because I'm prone to a little bit that myself it won't ever be any type of conspiracism that doesn't also align with say a libertarian billionaire's priorities in public health right like with the AIDS thing it's look at these gay people doing this inappropriate stuff that is getting them in trouble and we all have to act like it's it's our problem when it's really just their problem same thing with Covid it's just fat people and we also we shouldn't have shut down businesses it's I will be shocked if Bret Weinstein ever comes to a conspiracy that suggests that the government should provide healthcare to everybody as a public good”
For those who don’t know who Bret Weinstein is, he made a name for himself splitting the skeptics community in 2017 and revealing many to be alt-right libertarians, when he criticized non-white student activists for asking white people to stand with them as allies and people were outraged that he was criticized for that. He then went on to become more prominent as a covid denier & anti-vaxxer when the pandemic began, and is so extreme right that he was actually featured in TWO episodes of the Nazi-focused podcast, I Don’t Speak German (episode 60 in July 2020, and episode 90 in July 2021). Bret Weinstein’s brother is also famous, also has a podcast, and used to work for Peter Thiel.
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Infectious disease is a national security threat at the White House.
Given what experts know about the dire threat to senior citizens from covid - “older adults remain at high risk” -, whoever made this decision, and or lobbied for it, should be investigated as a potential national security threat.
The White House on Monday lifted its COVID-19 testing requirement for those who plan to be in close contact with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses, bringing to an end the last coronavirus prevention protocol at the White House. The White House said the change aligns its policies with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
At a minimum, people should be scrutinized for their medical incompetence. Nobody can be unaware that President Biden is a senior citizen.
There is also reason to believe the CDC is infiltrated by MAGA, and at the very least right-wing aligned business interests. I was immediately struck by the end of isolation announcement being made by the CDC on Disability Day of Mourning, the day to commemorate disabled people killed by caregivers. It’s like people in the CDC wanted to clearly signal that it’s okay to use covid to knock off vulnerable people someone wants rid of more surreptitiously. There are of course also foreign interests who will be pleased to see more illness outbreaks among high level key decision makers in the U.S. and a hobbled White House. If national security doesn’t look askance at this, one has to consider that those agencies are in fact themselves compromised in some way.
I’ve noticed since the beginning of the pandemic that a lot of independent investigative journalists are pressured or lured to going down the anti-vax or covid denialism conspiracy rabbit holes because that’s where the eyeballs seem to be, and that turns out where the money is. Often it’s indirect, because there’s an entire media & social media ecosystem built with money to promote certain industries, products, politics, and ideas. The big money is against public health. And if you want attention and subscribers and all the botnets to come hit like on all your stuff, it’s not hard to figure out what buzzwords and concepts to slip in to get that sweet sock puppet troll farm action. (All the evidence of this happening is hiding in plain sight, by the way.)
The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War by Mark Galeotti - Feb 2023 Outsourcing goes beyond direct warfare and into non-kinetic contests. This century has also seen the explosion of the gig economy. Individual freelancers and temporary workers sometimes recruited directly, sometimes through online platforms or third party matchmakers. It may seem ridiculous to draw comparisons with the cycle courier that brings you your pizza. But this is less fanciful than might appear in an age when conflicts may be fought through the medium of carefully curated newspaper articles highlighting a grievance or attacking a government. And when online influencers can pivot from hyping a hair product to pushing a political cause.
So in light of this it’s always good to see when journalists directly address this pressure from fans, or who knows what sources, and counter it with factual information.
Going Deep with Russ Baker - Investigating Your Vaccine Concerns - Some think I’ve lost my ability to see “what’s really going on.” - FEB 25, 2024 Because hospitals were so full of COVID-19 patients, ambulances containing people with other life-threatening conditions — heart attacks, auto accidents, illnesses of any kind — had to be turned away. That spiked mortality rates, probably of both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Also those hospitalized with other conditions were sometimes then exposed to COVID-19. By keeping yourself safe from bad COVID-19, you help avoid overloading hospitals.
I particularly appreciate this pro-vaccine requirement point because I am someone who nearly died of a common emergency because a rural hospital was overloaded in my time of need in 2016. I survived sepsis, but with multiple ongoing disabilities.
Overloaded hospitals at or over capacity are still a threat to public safety in many places. And this is a problem that could be mitigated in a number of ways, including getting more people vaccinated. We need a real vaccine campaign to push back this backward and often big money funded anti-science campaign that is literally killing people.
The charismatic leader knows your deepest fear, and allows you to glimpse it, to taste it, to almost touch terrible oblivion, before whisking you away with the promise of escape.
— Molly Worthen, Charismatic Leaders Who Remade America, Published May 19, 2020