David Lynch deserved better public health, as we all do. 🎥 Anti-mask panic is bizarre propaganda. 😷
What to expect by what we already had in a Trump admin CDC.
David Lynch deserved better public health, as we all do.
The lack of strong public health and remote options robbed the rest of us of David Lynch’s last years.
NPR – David Lynch, who directed off-kilter classics, dies at 78 January 16, 20252:07 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered By Kyle Norris Director David Lynch has died. His sinister, surreal vision of America made him a leading counterculture auteur in the 1980s and 1990s, with movies such as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Mulholland Drive, as well as the groundbreaking television series he co-created with Mark Frost, Twin Peaks. Lynch’s family shared the news of his death on Thursday in a Facebook post. He announced in 2024 he would no longer leave his home after a diagnosis of emphysema from a lifetime of smoking, and concerns about catching COVID-19.
Being an ex-smoker puts people at higher risk for and with covid.
David Lynch says he is not retiring after revealing he is too ill to direct films in person – The Twin Peaks creator says he has emphysema caused by smoking and cannot leave the house because of the risk of Covid Andrew Pulver Tue 6 Aug 2024 03.38 EDT In an interview with Sight and Sound magazine, Lynch said: “I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long, and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not. I can’t go out. And I can only walk a short distance before I’m out of oxygen.” He added: “Because of Covid, it would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold. So I would probably be directing from my home … I wouldn’t like that so much. I like to be amongst the thing and get ideas there. But I would try to do [a film] remotely, if it comes to it.” After his comments provoked a strong response from fans, the 78-year-old issued a follow-up statement on X to clarify he would not stop working. “I have now quit smoking for over two years,” he wrote.
Stigma is what makes people think ex-smokers or people with other high risk conditions deserve to be sequestered or suffer or should be ranked in deservingness of help, respect, or consideration.. It’s called stigma. Stigma is also what leads to people not wanting to discuss covid, or to look the other way on public health considerations. Stigma is also likely behind a lot of hostility around the pandemic, including covid contrarianism and covid denial – manifested as anti-mask and anti-vax fixations.
We’d be better off confronting the stigma than letting it drive people apart, whether by precautionary isolation or by death. (People are also still dying of covid and covid complications.)
🗞️ In the news
CIDRAP - H5N1 confirmed in more cats as probe into raw pet food widens - Lisa Schnirring January 14, 2025 With the latest cases noted in an alert to veterinarians yesterday, the LACDPH has now reported seven H5N1 infections in pet cats. (...) In another new development, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed 11 more H5N1 detections in domestic cats, five of them from Los Angeles County, two from California’s Santa Barbara County, and others from Colorado, Minnesota, and South Dakota.
ABC 7 - CDC confirms positive bird flu result in San Francisco child Wednesday, January 15, 2025 5:23PMAn agency spokesperson confirmed this is the second child infected with bird flu in the country. The first case in November was also a child from California with unknown exposure. There are currently 67 confirmed human cases of bird nationally, including one death in an elderly person in Louisiana, CDC data shows.
Los Angeles Times - Valley fever cases surge in California, already way up from recent years By Susanne Rust Staff Writer Dec. 27, 2024 Valley fever is caused by inhaling spores of coccidioides, a fungal pathogen that thrives in the drier and dustier regions of the state. The fungus is released when the dry soil where it grows is disturbed.
Not just one bad apple: FTX's practices were business as usual in crypto Adversary cases from the FTX collapse further expose how crypto companies do business: with secret acquisitions of “grey area” businesses, buying influence, and creative accounting. Molly White Dec 30, 2024 citation needed Another $750,000 went to a newly created company, On Ten Productions, which planned to make a documentary film on the origins of the COVID-19 virus. The debtors state that no film was ever created, although in 2024 On Ten did release a 90-minute film on the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis titled Spiked: The Hunt For The Origin Of Covid-19. Another $1.2 million went to a non-profit effective altruist-led pandemic prevention organization called SecureBio; $680,000 went to The Goodly Institute to “build AI decision-making tools for human utilization”, and $508,000 went to Manifold Markets to fund their “charity markets” — a program where the fake money used in their betting markets could be converted to real money for effective altruist causes.
CBS News - Part-time Orange County actor gets prison time for bogus COVID cure By Julie Sharp January 6, 2025 / 1:25 PM PST / KCAL News He called the cure "QC20," and the treatment "QP20." Middlebrook solicited potential investors in California, Nevada, New York, Texas, and Colorado through text messages, videos and statements posted on YouTube and Instagram about this so-called cure for COVID-19.
MedPage Today - Fauci Facepalms Won't Cut It in the Second Trump Administration — Consider what's at stake when leaders in medicine simply watch from the sidelines by David Oxman, MD December 2, 2024 In RFK Jr., Trump nominated a man who has promoted theories that vaccines are linked to autism, that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, that antidepressants can lead to school shootings, and that fluoride may lower the IQ of American children. He also has ties to a film that suggested that COVID wasn't so spontaneous and might really have been a "plandemic" cooked up as a pretext to take away personal liberties. Commenting on RFK Jr.'s nomination, Peter Lurie, MD, MPH, president of the public advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, pulled no punches: "Nominating an anti-vaxxer like Kennedy to HHS is like putting a flat Earther at the head of NASA."
Important Context - Biden Administration Pandemic Roadmap Reflects Right-Wing Pressure - In touting its public health record, the White House revealed its compromises. Walker Bragman Jan 17, 2025 Business-aligned right-wing dark money groups like the Heritage Foundation, allied media, and Republican politicians, were already working to politicize public health efforts to combat the spread of COVID when Biden took office. Measures like lockdowns and school closures were seen as simply too economically disruptive to justify the benefits. These organizations and individuals worked to muddy the waters around the threat of the virus, downplaying the seriousness of the disease it caused and promoting an untested herd immunity strategy based on mass infection and “natural immunity.”
Paxlovid continues to be shown to be associated with lower risk of severe illness.
Patients given Paxlovid were significantly less likely than comparators to be hospitalized within 30 days of diagnosis (3% vs 8%; adjusted subdistribution hazard ratio [sHR], 0.44) and less likely to die (0% vs 3%). At 1 year, patients taking Paxlovid were at lower risk for hospitalization for MACE (8% vs 17%; adjusted sHR, 0.49) and death (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.37). (...) "Rates of death have improved with the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, but they remain high in patients with advanced kidney disease." These results support its use in patients with CKD and kidney failure whose post-vaccination risks of adverse events and death remain high, in order to decrease short- and long-term adverse health outcomes of COVID-19. They cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistic that under 7% of dialysis patients are current with COVID-19 vaccines, underscoring the need for antiviral treatments to lower the risk of hospitalization and death in patients with CKD and kidney failure.
People with kidney disease have higher risks even with vaccination, but unfortunately most aren’t even current with covid vaccinations.
Anti-mask panic is bizarre propaganda.
The Dark Motivation Behind The New Wave of Mask Bans - SOME MORE NEWS - Some More News Dec 18, 2024 YOUTUBE TRANSCRIPT: “most anti-an laws were a way for states to performatively distance themselves from extreme racist violence in order to make segregation seem more progressive it was a political tactic where they could denounce one racist thing to sell another racist thing because of course lawmakers don't actually care about racists why would they a lot of them are that thing in fact in at least one state i won't name names but it's north of south carolina their newly crafted anti-mask law comes with a loophole where clan members could simply get a permit to wear face coverings from the billet itself there is an exception for quote any person or persons as members or members elect of a society order or organization engaged in any parade ritual initiation ceremony celebration or requirement of such society order or organization and wearing or using any manner of costume paraphernalia disguise facial makeup hood implement or device h they specified hoods so just to really break that down this bill created in 2023 specifically bans masks in public for everyone and in fact removed a part that would have created exceptions for medical issues but still built in an exception for any organization that perhaps needs to wear hoods because that is actually what this is all about”
And Voila, An Anti-Mask Twitter Rando Chloe Humbert · Apr 7, 2023 Tweet from @reubenR80027912 dated 1019 am May 7, 2021 says Main Street is Very simple. Do 3 things PSA campaigns that you won’t die if vaxxed. Remind people kids aren’t a risk. Remove masks everywhere so people don’t constantly live in fear. Voila. Roaring economy. Spending is about freedom from fear. Quote-tweet from same account on February 22, 2021 says There’s something to the Mad Men pilot and covid. Telling people they’re more likely to die in a car accident than covid doesn’t matter. Nor do vax stats. Happiness is freedom from fear, a billboard that screams whatever you’re doing is ok DKThomp
Anti-mask Woke-washing. The moral distortion of social justice. Chloe Humbert Aug 31, 2023 Patrick Fagan is a psychologist who once worked for Cambridge Analytica,12 and was later linked to anti-vax groups in the UK13 via messages revealed in the HARTleaks. In an exchange from 2021 between Tanya Kymenko and Patrick Fagan, reported by Counter Disinformation Project in 2022, Tanya Kymenko asked “So, if the "pro-mask" are particularly concerned about equality then they might in theory be susceptible to a message on raising inequality as a direct result of NPI (lockdown). Is that a reasonable assumption?” and Patrick Fagan replied, “Yes exactly... They are wearing the face mask to be fair to others and to reduce harm... If messaging shows that face masks are unfair and harmful, that would be very powerful.”14 Patrick Fagan’s assertion was that mere messaging would be powerful - if people are made to believe it’s masking that is unfair. Patrick Fagan also had some other weird and wrong ideas, but there was no question that he was engaged in planning deliberate manipulation with propaganda against masking. And Tanya Kymenko was already equating all NPIs (Non Pharmaceutical Interventions) as the same as “lockdown” - which has expanded to include just wearing a mask
(instagram / Pandemic Memes Collection) COVID-19 lockdown revisionism Blake Murdoch, Timothy Caulfield CMAJ Apr 2023, 195 (15) E552-E554; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.221543 https://www.cmaj.ca/content/195/15/E552 Lockdown, as used in public discourse, has expanded to include any public health measure, even if it places little to no restriction on social mobility or interaction. For example, a working literature review and meta-analysis on the effects of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality misleadingly defined lockdowns as “the imposition of at least 1 compulsory non-pharmaceutical intervention.”1 This working paper therefore conflated mandatory isolation for people with confirmed infections and masking policies with heavy-handed limitations on freedom of movement, and since it gained viral fame, it has helped fuel calls for “no more lockdowns.”
What to expect by what we already had in a Trump admin CDC.
The CDC has been subject to corporate influence for as long as I can remember, but I think a lot of people have memory holed just how bad the Trump administration was even before the pandemic.
The Associated Press @AP Health leaders say they are alarmed at a report that CDC officials are being advised to avoid certain words in official budget documents, including "fetus," "transgender" and "science-based." 7:52 PM · Dec 16, 2017
Quote:
“The company's PR experts provide these scientists with contrarian soundbites that play well with reporters who are mired in the trap of believing there must be two sides to every story equally worthy of fair minded consideration.”
— Dr. David Michaels, The Triumph of Doubt 2020