📣 Letter Campaign to keep Test2Treat 📃 Normalize disclosing product endorsements 👏 Mt Everest clinic prepares for season, doesn't mention c-word
"Scientists caution about CDC guidance on over-the-counter drugs." - A potentially serious illness should prompt seeking personal medical advice.
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)
USA Letter Campaign - Test to Treat Program for COVID and Flu Saves Lives. Let’s fight for it.
By MASK TOGETHER AMERICA “First the free home COVID-19 test program suspended March 8. Now, on April 16, our government is ending the Home Test to Treat COVID program that targeted the at-risk populations. This wonderful program provides people who are uninsured or have Medicaid, Medicare, or Indian Health Service or VA coverage with FREE tests, telehealth and treatment for COVID and flu. Enrollees are initially mailed at-home rapid tests for both COVID and flu (LUCIRA® by Pfizer COVID-19 & Flu Home Test), and they can receive antiviral treatments if eligible.”
Normalize asking people if they’re being paid to promote products and services! 👏👏👏
It’s great when more people join in promoting public health or personal precautions. But it’s not so great if the only reason they’re joining in is to target the already cautious with junk marketing. What’s happening sometimes is that these influencers are saying things we want to hear to get us as an audience, so then they can sell us something. Often influencers and social media professionals build up an audience in a particular niche and then either sell their social media account as having a certain audience built, or then are in a position to advertise that they can reach a certain audience.
That’s NOT to say anyone who is interested in any item or a topic is up to a sales con. But the bad actors are going to make it easy to smear the decent real people just trying to help other people online. For example, there are well established things that are effective in preventing infectious disease spread, like N95 masks. But someone actually showed me a post on social media where someone was hand wringing and claiming that people promoting caution around virus spread supposedly must have investments in N95 companies. Wow. Nicolas Smit has articulated quite openly how trying to promote and advocate for elastomeric respirators was not very successful for him - he was shadowbanned on social media after raising issues about how advertising of respirators, including N95s, was prohibited and censored long after there were no more shortages.
Sometimes the most obvious explanation is that an immuncompromised person wants to stay alive, or that maybe someone doesn’t have any sick time and can’t afford to be off work sick all the damn time, and that’s why they wish other people would join them and put on a mask.
The bottom line is that promoting a product isn’t in itself the problem. I object to promoting products that are not science-based and proven, or potentially dangerous. But what I’m talking about here is that the biggest problem on social media particularly is when that product promotion is done dishonestly, and disguised as a “personal testimony” when it’s really a paid product placement. The way to solve this is making disclosure mandatory… It already is legally in the U.S. — all social media influencers and bloggers are supposed to disclose if they’re receiving payment for product mentions. But I mean we should also create a culture where it’s socially mandatory. Because the problem is that most of the time you don’t even know where the influencer really lives or what laws apply. And sure, people can lie anyway. But we could normalize asking and expecting disclosure one way or another, because it’s one thing for someone to not disclose compensation for promoting something when they’re supposed to by law — it’s another level if they actually have to proactively lie about it.
So I just thought I'd proactively "disclose" my "incentives" and my reasoning. The only way I've "invested in" N95s is for my health, in that I wear them, whenever or wherever the need arises, to avoid virus exposure, wildfire smoke pollution, allergens, etc. I have no financial investment in PPE stock or whatnot. And I have not taken money to advertise anything. I’ve never even been approached to advertise PPE.
🗞️ In the news
Three candidates file for Sarasota Public Hospital Board on a 'medical freedom' slate - Sarasota Memorial Hospital is one of only two public hospitals in Florida overseen by an elected board - by Earle Kimel Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Published 4:04 a.m. ET March 29, 2024 Three candidates for the Sarasota County Public Hospital Board – including one of the most outspoken critics of Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a sister of former National Security advisor Michael Flynn – have filed to run as a "medical freedom" slate. The recent filings mean the campaign for at least one of the four seats up for election this year will feature a closed Republican primary on Aug. 20, with the winner facing a Democrat in November, while two of the seats may be decided via open primaries in which all voters participate.
MedPage Today - How Often Should Immunocompromised People Get a COVID Booster? — Experts say about every 6 months, but that should be individualized by Katherine Kahn, Staff Writer, MedPage Today March 18, 2024 "We know that immunity drifts down, wanes over time," said Camille Kotton, MD, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "So it seems like a good idea to keep boosting [every 6 months] and keep immunity as high as possible. Unfortunately, vaccines are still not as protective against severe disease as we would like in the immunocompromised, but it's certainly much better to be vaccinated than not."
ABC Action News WFTS Tampa Bay - New research shows long COVID causes variety of symptoms and can affect children By: Larissa Scott Posted at 10:22 AM, Feb 26, 2024 “There’s been so many pathology studies showing that we can get real data that shows that there are inflammation responses occurring months later to the COVID antigens,” said Roberts. According to the CDC, one in nine adults in the United States who’ve had a COVID-19 infection continues to experience long COVID, and the symptoms are wide-ranging, affecting all different parts of the body that vary from person to person. “All of these things that seem unrelated in terms of the different disease manifestations are actually caused by the same thing,” said Dr. Thomas Unnasch, public health expert and researcher. Some of the symptoms include shortness of breath, brain fog, depression, anxiety and fatigue. A new study also shows that insomnia could be linked to long COVID, too.
CIDRAP - Probe links COVID spread to schoolbus riders from sick driver - Mary Van Beusekom, MS - March 21, 2024 Because no other common factors were identified among infected participants, the first cohort study estimated that 74% of student case-patients were exposed to the virus on the bus. In the second cohort study, 45 of the 61 students (74%) who rode the bus from September 9 to 17 tested positive for COVID-19. "Most likely, at the time of arrival in Germany, the virus spread from the air travelers to the bus driver, who during the following days may have transmitted the virus to the bus-riding schoolchildren and other passengers," the study authors wrote.
CIDRAP - CDC continues to receive reports of MIS-C in kids following COVID infections - March 14, 2024 - Lisa Schnirring "COVID-19 vaccination remains important for preventing MIS-C," the CDC said. Incidence of the condition peaked in late 2020 and early 2021. The condition typically occurs 2 to 6 weeks after COVID infection.
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus: Identification of Human Infection and Recommendations for Investigations and Response Distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network April 05, 2024, 01:30 PM ET CDCHAN-00506 A farm worker on a commercial dairy farm in Texas developed conjunctivitis on approximately March 27, 2024, and subsequently tested positive for HPAI A(H5N1) virus infection. HPAI A(H5N1) viruses have been reported in the area’s dairy cattle and wild birds. There have been no previous reports of the spread of HPAI viruses from cows to humans. The patient reported conjunctivitis with no other symptoms, was not hospitalized, and is recovering. The patient was recommended to isolate and received antiviral treatment with oseltamivir. Illness has not been identified in the patient’s household members, who received oseltamivir for post-exposure prophylaxis per CDC Recommendations for Influenza Antiviral Treatment and Chemoprophylaxis. No additional cases of human infection with HPAI A(H5N1) virus associated with the current infections in dairy cattle and birds in the United States, and no human-to-human transmission of HPAI A(H5N1) virus have been identified.
This is NOT fine
The CDC will no longer require hospitals to report data on covid admissions.
CDC - End of the Federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) Declaration Updated Sept. 12, 2023 COVID-19 hospital admissions. All hospitals are required to report data through the end of April 2024.
Highly suggest keeping in touch with people who work at the hospitals. Because what this means is that nobody in charge is going to be paying attention and tell you what’s going on until it’s too late come the next surge.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Preventing poop pollution at Everest now, but are they preventing covid at the camps?
I saw an article about the Everest Emergency Clinic preparing for the Everest season. It talks about the importance of prevention, but they don’t say anything about covid or viral infections, though the article does show a photo labeled last week with a doctor wearing a surgical mask in some type of exam room indoors. Not much has been reported in the news about covid precautions while climbing in the Himalayas since the big outbreak in 2021 at Everest Base Camp. But at least all the climbers are now responsible for taking their poop with them.
A potentially serious illness should prompt seeking personal medical advice.
I’ve long been concerned about how the authorities and doctor pundits saying “covid is usually mild” has led people to just completely not even think about calling their doctor even when they’re so sick with covid they’re unable to walk or eat. So I’m glad at least some doctors are coming out to assertively say that people should not just wing it at home with OTC cold remedies for a virus that most certainly is not a cold, and not like the flu either. But that people with covid should be seeking individual medical advice when they contract this illness.
CIDRAP - Scientists caution about CDC guidance on over-the-counter drugs for COVID-19 News brief March 22, 2024 Mary Van Beusekom, MS We believe that health care providers should make individual clinical judgments for each of his or her patients in the selection of OTC drugs to treat symptoms of COVID-19. - Charles Hennekens, MD, DrPH
I’ve seen numerous examples on social media over the years of people posting that they’re short of breath and needing random strangers to encourage them to go to the ER with what’s clear to everyone else is a potential emergency. Part of the problem is that actively sick people with fever sometimes aren’t thinking clearly, but also they’ve been told erroneously so many times that it’s mild when it can be deadly serious. Go ahead and call your doctor if you’re sick, and get medical advice specific to you. That’s what we should all be telling each other.
“Imagine, to begin with, a community completely partitioned into cliques, such that each person is tied to every other in his clique and to none outside. Community organization would be severely inhibited. Leafletting, radio announcements,or other methods could insure that everyone was aware of some nascent organization; but studies of diffusion and mass communication have shown that people rarely act on mass-media information unless it is also transmitted through personal ties (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Rogers 1962)”
— Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. doi:10.1086/225469