🪧 Activists vs Influencers, there's a difference ⚠️ Tell elected reps: treat the pandemic like the ongoing emergency it is 📝 People's CDC anniversary webinar 🎙️
Dr. Lucky Tran speaks out about manufacturing consent for ignoring essential public health.
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: Tell elected reps: Maintain healthcare coverage , we need robust public health infrastructure.
President Biden and Members of Congress, Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, we need you to treat the pandemic like the ongoing public health emergency it is. We need you to embrace a comprehensive approach to public health based on layers of protection and public policies aimed at protecting the most vulnerable people among us.
by People’s CDC
People's CDC Webinar: Communities Are Our Best Defense
This week marks the first year anniversary of the establishment of the People’s CDC. In order to built a robust response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we need organized and informed communities, using sound science, to pressure governments at all levels while simultaneously taking mutual care of one another.
There’s a difference between an influencer and an activist.
Conspirituality Podcast -136: Virtual Strongmen (w/Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
“They don’t express political aspirations because the industry is narcissistic. It doesn’t really point itself toward any kind of collective action or the difficult work of party politics. None of these people are interested in building coalitions. They want to have affiliate networks, but they’re not going to do deep canvassing and try to convince people to vote. They want people to buy their shit.”
“They’re part of a depoliticization project.”
-- Matthew Remski, Conspirituality Podcast
Bottom line is that community care and cooperative action are the answers to our most pressing problems. Sick burns, bold claims, and time sink think pieces get clicks, but then nothing happens.
🗞️ In the news
📚 Source NM: Clean air in schools could become New Mexico law. Public School Ventilation Act would help keep students, staff and teachers healthy, sponsor says By: Austin Fisher - January 17, 2023 (Even though New Mexico requires public schools to upgrade their heating and air conditioning systems to clean indoor air well enough to remove coronavirus and other harms, people can’t just look up whether their local school district actually meets those standards. A legislative proposal — with backing from unions representing New Mexico teachers and sheet metal workers — seeks to change that. COVID is highlighting the need for action on ventilation systems, said Rep. Christine Chandler. She and Rep. Joy Garratt, a former educator, are sponsoring House Bill 30, which would create the Public School Ventilation Act.)
💊 Medscape: Kaiser Health News - What Older Americans Need to Know About Taking Paxlovid by Judith Graham, January 19, 2023 (What does that mean for people 65 and older catching covid for the first time or those experiencing a repeat infection? The message from infectious disease experts and geriatricians is clear: Seek treatment with antiviral therapy, which remains effective against new covid variants. The therapy of first choice, experts said, is Paxlovid, an antiviral treatment for people with mild to moderate covid at high risk of becoming seriously ill from the virus. All adults 65 and up fall in that category.)
🧐 Important Context: Elon Musk's New Twitter Files Reporter Has Ties to Great Barrington Declaration. The writer at the center of Musk’s latest dump promoted a controversial herd immunity document (As time went on, Zweig’s skepticism of public health measures expanded in scope. Before long, he was writing polemics for New York Magazine not only against school closures but social distancing, remote learning options, and school masking as well. His triumphal return to The Atlantic, after a seven-year absence, came in December 2021 with an article opposing school mask mandates. The next month, Zweig argued against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration approving COVID boosters for children as young as 12 over concerns about the risk of myocarditis. To make his argument, Zweig pointed out that other nations had not made similar recommendations. He also interviewed Dr. Monica Gandhi, a San Francisco-based physician who has become notorious for her wrong predictions about the pandemic.)
This is NOT fine
Problems with airline travel are being papered over with anti-vax disinformation, which clouds real concerning issues of public safety, including people are in airports and on airplanes not wearing masks during an ongoing pandemic.
Stuff: Covid-19: Why are face masks necessary on flights? by Siobhan Downes, Mar 01 2022 (Researchers at Harvard University have been looking at ways to reduce the public health risks of flying during the Covid-19 pandemic. In their first report, released in October 2020, they found the risk of transmission on an aircraft could be reduced to very low levels through a “layered approach”, which included an aircraft’s ventilation system, disinfection and cleaning procedures, and – crucially – passengers wearing face masks. The authors recommended that passengers and airline employees should be required to wear face masks throughout their entire journey, including time spent in the airport, boarding, in-flight, in the toilet, and getting off the plane.)
TheStreet: Southwest Airlines Ignores Another Looming Problem by Daniel Kline (The recent disruption will accelerate our plans to enhance our processes and technology as we continue to focus on adding capabilities to bring rapid improvements for you, our valued customers," he shared. That sounds nice, but with multiple experts and the airline's own pilots' association called the meltdown predictable, accusing it of neglecting technology for over a decade. "Systemwide meltdowns at Southwest Airlines have been increasing in frequency and magnitude over the past 15 years." the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) shared in a letter.)
Forbes: The Perils Of Assuming Everything Is Fine: Normalcy Bias And The Rushed Approval Of Boeing’s New 737 Max 10 Jet by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky (Congress just cleared the Boeing 737Max 10 jet for certification in the omnibus end-of-year spending package without further modifications and safety enhancements. That’s despite significant opposition by those demanding a safety upgrade: from the families of those killed in the 2 deadly crashes in 2019, from the union representing the 15,000 pilots at American Airlines, and from Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chair of the House Transportation Committee that led the key congressional investigation into the MAX crashes, who said the language in the bill was included over his objection. This rushed clearance stemmed from the pressure of lobbying by Boeing and its allies.)
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Media seems saturated with manufacturing consent to not act and for those in leadership and positions of power to escape their responsibility to oppose the right wing anti-vax libertarian push for abandoning civil society and public health.
Tweet from Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran 7:52 PM · Jan 17, 2023
Cycle of disinformation:
White House seeds talking points with handpicked minimizer Twitter docs like Leana Wen
Minimizer docs spread disinfo via priority access to media
Anti-vaxxers amplify minimizer op-ed
Pending: WH uses dissent as excuse to loosen policies
Repeat cycle
Let’s break this cycle in the USA please.
Write your representatives. Write the White House.
“If you are trying to convince people to take the [booster] vaccine and at the same time declaring that the pandemic is over … you can’t then complain that people aren’t taking the vaccine”
— Rob Wallace in CT Insider January 2023