Long Covid misconceptions, RFKJr use of quack buzzword 3 May 2025
Conspiracy theories about immigrant truck drivers based on the MCMIS database similar to VAERS database anti-vax conspiracy fictions.
Long Covid is not rare even though you don't actually know of a lot of people with Long Covid.
A misconception is that Long Covid can't possibly be THAT common because if it is something like 6 percent (estimates vary)... if it was that many people, wouldn't that percentage of people you know have Long Covid now? There are reasons that easily and rationally explain why that many people you know aren't suffering bed bound from Long Covid, and maybe you don’t even know many people who’ve had Long Covid.
The most severe cases are obviously the most obvious and more often talked about, but they're not the most common. Not everyone with Long Covid is unable to get out of bed, and not everyone with Long Covid is unable to work at all. So that's one misunderstanding.
Another thing is that people often recover from Long Covid – in fact a large portion of people who get Long Covid recover to some degree eventually. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem predictable at this point. But it does mean that someone who had long covid for 6 months in 2022 isn't currently suffering from Long Covid because it's 2025. Even though back in 2022 they were in the % of people who got Long Covid after covid, time has moved on and they fortunately got better. Unfortunately that's not the story for everybody though – but it does explain the numbers.
The other thing people don't seem to realize is that many people hide disabilities because society isn't so disability friendly. If it's your coworker, perhaps you don't know how many sick days they've taken in the past year because it doesn't affect your job and you're not a busy body. People often don't tell relatives or even friends about things like post exertional malaise because people with "chronic fatigue" typically get called "lazy" by unthinking and uninformed people (or just rude people), so people with chronic illnesses often stop telling people things, just to avoid that offense and stay on friendly terms with people. And this applies to a lot of other post-infection conditions that people get after covid or other infections, which sometimes are not common, are not well known, or don't garner the type of sympathy that a broken leg or a heart attack would. So people don't talk about it.
So that's why you don't know a lot of people with Long Covid even though Long Covid is sadly not a rare thing after covid. It's not that anyone's making it up to "fear monger" or that there's some conspiracy. There's no mystery, it's all easily explained as you see, with math and sociology.
And it's unfortunate for people who suffer from covid and long covid whether it be weeks, months, or hopefully not years, but for some it is. And that it's not everybody is an awfully low bar when it is actually preventable illness. The less people catch covid, the less people get Long Covid, that’s the math.
🗞️ In the news
Important Context NIH Autism Research Grants in Hands of COVID Vaccine Doubters - The NIH director has teamed up with an old colleague who previously worked at an anti-vaccine group. Walker Bragman Apr 29, 2025 The biostatistician is a longtime collaborator of Bhattacharya’s. The pair co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, calling for the abandonment of COVID lockdowns in favor of pursuing herd immunity through widespread infection of the healthy population. Kulldorff too has waded into anti-vaccine territory over the years, questioning the necessity and safety of COVID vaccines. He and Bhattacharya have even advocated against the jabs together. Previously at Harvard Medical School for over a decade, Kulldorff lost his job over his refusal to get vaccinated against COVID at the height of the pandemic. He claimed to have natural immunity from prior infection and a genetic condition that put him at risk from the shot. For years, Kulldorff was listed as “on leave” on Harvard’s website in the lead-up to his departure. He did, however, he find a cushy landing as scientific director of the Brownstone Institute, an anti-vaccine dark money group founded by one of the organizers of the Great Barrington Declaration to prevent the return of lockdowns.
Nobody likes these governors like Gavin Newsom forcing state workers back to the office.
Norbert @norbertmadao.bsky.social THIS ASSHOLE SIGNED AN EXECUTIVE ORDER TO END WORK FROM HOME FOR STATE EMPLOYEES! I ALREADY DON'T GET TO WORK FROM HOME BUT NOW MY COMMUTE'S GONNA BE EVEN LONGER BECAUSE OF THE THOUSANDS OF NEW CARS ON THE ROAD! April 29, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Reinstating military personnel who refused orders to get vaccinated for the health of their mission.
Eurasia Review - US Defense Secretary Orders Additional Remedies, More Clarity On COVID-19 Reinstatements April 24, 2025 By C. Todd Lopez “It hasn’t been perfect, and we know that,” Hegseth said. “We’re having an ongoing conversation with you to get it right. [We’re] working with the White House as well. We want anyone impacted by that vaccine mandate back into the military — people of conscience, warriors of conscience — back in our formations.” The memorandum directs the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness to provide additional guidance to the boards responsible for reviewing the cases of service members discharged under DOD’s now-rescinded COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
There's something really Orwellian about referring to these ex-soldiers "people of conscience" for refusing vaccination in the middle of a surging pandemic.
The upside here is that there will be less unstable science denying propaganda pilled ex-military anti-vaxxers to be deputized for death squads or just harassing people on shitlists in livestreams with the anti-vax retiree interahamwe that Ivan Raiklin has talked about when he’s not talking about wanting show trials.
Conspiracy theories about immigrant truck drivers based on the MCMIS database similar to VAERS database anti-vax conspiracy fictions.
No, millions of foreign truck drivers aren’t flooding into the U.S. (American Trucking Associations) Mar 12, 2025 A smattering of media reports has advanced a dubious claim that millions of foreign truck drivers have flooded into the U.S. in recent years, displacing American workers and jeopardizing highway safety. The basis for the claim is an analysis of federal data that purports to show 1.68 million commercial driver's license (CDL) holders added to the U.S. driver pool between 2016 and 2024. While the originators of the claim do not explicitly source their data, all indications are it comes from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS). This analysis is deeply flawed on two levels. First, the CDL data in the MCMIS database includes more than just Class A CDL holders operating heavy-duty tractor-trailers. It also includes Class B CDL holders for vehicles like buses, limos, and various utility vans used by cable, plumbing, and construction companies (many of which require employees to obtain CDLs for safety and insurance purposes, even though not required by law). To claim or insinuate the additional CDLs added over the last decade are all for the tractor-trailer driver market is incorrect. But even more to the point, a glaring problem with the MCMIS database is that it is self-reported and subject to massive data entry errors.
This story is about a right-wing conspiracy about CDLs based on misinterpreting things on the MCMIS database. and it really reminds me of how anti-vax conspiracy fictions use the VAERS database to mix up data that doesn't show anything like what they say.
You're using VAERS wrong Debunk the Funk with Dr. Wilson Premiered Dec 21, 2021 Dr. Wilson: "This is a system that anybody can report adverse events to, and while doctors are required to report serious adverse events following vaccination to this system anybody can report anything to it. Even if the event clearly had nothing to do with the vaccine or didn't happen at all. For example, events reported to and documented by the VAERS database have in the past included things like getting a bald spot, getting a nosebleed, being turned homosexual, and even being turned into the Incredible Hulk."
And now Trump plans to make federal policy based on the trucker conspiracy theory, while RFKJr is making federal policy based on anti-vax bullshit.
The New Republic - Malcolm Ferguson / April 28, 2025 Trump Prepares to Sign Order Inspired by MAGA Conspiracy Theory Donald Trump’s next order will hit the trucking industry. “Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society.”
This sounds creepy and we all know what it sounds like, what doesn't make sense is why conservative Republicans are ok with it.
RFKJr called chronic illness "injuries" to invoke what has become a conspiracy anti-vax right-wing buzzword term.
RFK has never seen an adult with "full blown" autism - David Pakman Show Apr 27, 2025
David Pakman played a clip of RFKJr making inappropriate statements as usual, and noted the word "injury" being used being odd, but didn't spell out why he used that word, when it's obvious to anyone paying attention anti-vax misinformation and the online milieu of anti-vax activists. "Vaccine injury" is a buzzword term used in these social media circles.
The Daily Show - Pizzagate: Are Democrats Harvesting Children’s Blood? - Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy Jul 10, 2023 Elise Wang: that's what really struck me about pizzagate it was the first time that i really saw this where you could see there was already this this theory about a pedophile ring being run by the clintons and it was kind of a theory in need of specifics and so they went out seeking specifics and they decided basically randomly that comet ping pong was going to be the place and then it started this sort of multimedia propaganda campaign where people they got people to call and harass as matt was saying um they got people to flood the the yelp reviews and the google reviews and people to go and harass the proprietor and then this sort of culminated in the guy who drove up from north carolina to self-investigate but that wasn't really the the story the story was that then people talked about it that then it was in the national media for like 48 hours like a whole week and it was not only in the media their theory was in the media and i went back to the message boards afterwards and they were just beside themselves with joy over this like it was not a it's not at all about oh our guy was arrested whoops or huh he didn't really seem to find anything um it was not about that it was about the media exposure and then there were sort of further suggestions well how can we get them to keep denying it so they keep saying it so people keep googling it and when i was seeing that i was like oh this is something else this is this is a kind of savvy media campaign that i think most of us at that point were not totally familiar with now we know if you mention something you have to be very careful what what sort of buzzwords you mentioned because it will sort of feed the conspiracy theory monster
It drives engagement, probably because there's some money sloshing around anti-vax misinformation. Content creators learn what words to use (and not to use) in order to engage the attention of an audience which sometimes includes the troll farms which are paid to boost certain topics.
Axios - The global business of professional trolling. By Sara Fischer, Apr 13, 2021 Professional political trolling is still a thriving underground industry around the world, despite crackdowns from the biggest tech firms. Why it matters: Coordinated online disinformation efforts offer governments and political actors a fast, cheap way to get under rivals' skin. They also offer a paycheck to people who are eager for work, typically in developing countries. "It's a more sophisticated means of disinformation to weaken your advisories," said Todd Carroll, CISO and VP of Cyber Operations at CybelAngel.
At any rate there's a reason RFKJr doesn't remember people with autism from back in his day, and PA state Rep Abigail Salisbury explained that:
Salisbury: Defending Those on the Spectrum - Pa. House Video Apr 23, 2025 Auto-transcript: Rep. Abigail Salisbury: "He spoke recently and he said he's never met someone his age who has, quote, full-blown autism. I'm not sure what full-blown autism is, never seen that in the DSM-5 as a diagnostic criteria, but presumably he means someone who has more of a life impact than I have. Well, sir, there's a reason why you didn't see them when you were growing up. Because you're closer to the age that my father was, if he were still alive today. than you are to my age. There's a reason you didn't see them. It's because they were placed in institutions and chained to radiators. They were not allowed to go to public school. You wouldn't have seen them in the schools that Kennedys went to. And we all know how that family resolved someone who had a neurological difference, and they ended up in such a facility for the rest of their lives. You wouldn't have seen people with quote, full blown autism in public because they were deemed disappointments to their family and they were hidden away. They were taken away at a young age and they were placed in institutions. so that people didn't have to interact with them. So I'm sorry you didn't see them in your day-to-day life, but they were there and they were suffering in cold, miserable places because people didn't think that they were good enough to get services or to be allowed to stay with their families who you say that they destroyed."
Signs it's a scam.
FTC - Consumer Alert - What are the signs of a scam? By BCP Staff March 13, 2025
Scammers contact you unexpectedly. Don’t respond to unexpected calls, emails, texts, or social media messages that ask for money or personal information. If you’re not sure if a call or message is real, reach out to the business, organization, or person — even if they’re claiming to be a friend or relative — using contact information you looked up yourself and know to be true.
Scammers tell you to hurry. They don’t want you to have time to think or to check out their story. So slow down. Talk to someone you trust.
Scammers tell you to pay — and HOW to pay. Don’t pay anyone who contacts you out of the blue and insists you can only pay with cash, a gift card, a wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or a payment app. Scammers want you to pay these ways because once you do, it’s hard to track and hard to get your money back.
Quote:
"The botshit in our search-results, our social media feeds, and our in-boxes isn't making money for the enshittifiers who send it – rather, they are being hustled by someone who's selling them the "picks and shovels" for the AI gold rush."