DNC ignored CDC guidance & was a superspreader event 🧪 Social Security to finalize rules for permanent phone and video hearings
FDA Could Soon Limit Use of Pemgarda.
Write reps writing prompt:
Large organizations are ignoring CDC guidance to recommend people stay home if sick, or at least recommend people mask if they’re feeling unwell. This is the bare minimum, and inadequate to make events inclusive or protect public safety, however major political party events are ignoring even that when holding large gatherings. An example is the DNC in Chicago. The DNC website erroneously claimed they were following current public health guidelines but failed to at least recommend masking for people who were currently sick, as is recommended on the CDC website and the Illinois Department of Public Health website, and the Chicago city government website also points to the CDC recommendations. The resulting superspreader will likely have repercussions in all 50 states. This is unacceptable and something must be done to require large venues and organizations to act more responsibly with the our health.
Please feel free to repurpose for your own letters to reps.
The DNC was a superspreader event because they failed to adhere to CDC guidance recommending masking — at least for actively sick people!
Brittany Page reported on I Doubt It podcast that she had covid after being at the Democratic National Convention. Page’s partner Jesse Dollemore, a cancer survivor, who also attended, wasn’t sick and wasn’t testing positive and they were in the same room recording their podcast wearing masks. Of course it would’ve made so much more sense for them to have been wearing masks at the DNC. Mary Trump mentioned she drove there instead of flying and was masking in order to avoid covid, but then she got covid nevertheless, because she did not consistently mask - for example, she was seen on The Daily Show unmasked.
3M’s proper respiratory protection instructions that say: “To be effective, a respirator needs to be worn correctly and worn throughout the duration of the hazardous exposure. People using a respirator will need to go to an area with safe air to remove the respirator for any reason, including to eat and drink.”
Almost nobody masked at the DNC and it became a superspreader event. And it was likely because masks were essentially discouraged. If someone read the FAQ on the DNC 2024 website, and saw it said “masks will be allowed if necessary due to a disability” - they would of course assume a blanket ban on masks with rare exception. In most circumstances where you are a guest someplace, you do not need to provide a doctor’s note about your medical condition to request ADA accommodation, but most people don’t know that. When the average person sees “due to a disability” they will assume that it applies only to people “on disability” or disabled in some visible way, or at the least that they would be required to provide a doctor’s note. Most people would hesitate to even ask about it.
In another part of this same FAQ on this same website is also the statement of their COVID policy as: “The 2024 Democratic National Convention Committee adheres to current guidance from relevant public health authorities regarding COVID-19. Masking is not required at convention events, but any participant desiring to wear a mask is welcome to do so.” This makes it clear anyone is welcome to mask, but how many people expanded that question? And the DNC didn’t encourage anyone to mask. They didn’t warn people that they could get covid. The DNC didn’t ask people who were currently sick or testing positive to at least mask! I’m sure people went in unmasked knowing or suspecting they had covid -- this happens all the time. They may have figured they couldn’t mask anyway - or at least didn’t have to, according to “current guidance from relevant public health authorities”!
But the DNC was not actually adhering to current guidance. The CDC mentions that people who are sick should mask up, saying things like: “When worn by a person with an infection, masks reduce the spread of the virus to others.” On the CDC Preventing Spread of Respiratory Viruses When You're Sick page updated March 1, 2024 it says specifically when conducting “normal activities” take precaution with “cleaner air, hygiene, masks, physical distancing, and/or testing when you will be around other people indoors. This is especially important to protect people with factors that increase their risk of severe illness from respiratory viruses.” This event didn’t mention any of this in their so-called COVID policy. The CDC also specifically says: “Organizations can - Advise people to stay home if they are sick.” The Chicago city government website refers to these CDC recommendations too. And the Illinois Department of Public Health guidance says if you’re ill stay home or at least wear a mask when around others.
The DNC event didn’t even bother to link to any of this, or incorporate any of this guidance into their covid protocol. So they were NOT “adhering to current guidance” because wearing a mask when sick is the current guidance. CDC guidance isn’t nearly good enough to be truly inclusive to the disabled but it would’ve been a lot better than nothing.
To be truly disability accommodating, they would’ve had a universal masking requirement and test to enter. That’s just the reality. The pseudoscience idea of “focused protection” was a fantasy by the Great Barrington Declaration which never actually explained how elderly people would be hermetically sealed away from young care workers and the rest of society who are continuously reinfected. It sure seems like the very top tiers of the Democratic Party organizers have been brainwashed by right-wing ad campaigns targeting liberals, and foreign anti-mask propaganda. They should be ashamed of themselves that they couldn’t even bother to look at what the CDC recommends, let alone Chicago or the Illinois state recommendations. They just bluffed it and a lot of people got sick.
🗞️ In the news
FDA Could Soon Limit Use of Only Drug for COVID Prevention — Pemivibart may have reduced activity against growing variant KP.3.1.1, agency warns by Katherine Kahn, Staff Writer, MedPage Today August 27, 2024 Pemivibart (Pemgarda) should only be used for pre-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients when the combined national frequency of SARS-CoV-2 variants with substantially reduced susceptibility to the drug is less than or equal to 90%, the FDA announced on Monday.
Government Executive - Social Security to finalize rules making expanded phone and video hearings permanent When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the agency quickly pivoted toward offering disability determination hearings by phone and video, options that remain popular today. // Erich Wagner August 23, 2024 In a final rule set for publication in the Federal Register Monday, the agency will formalize its current hearing options in its regulations.
NBC NEWS - Federal lawsuit challenges public face covering ban in Nassau County, New York - Plaintiffs say that the Nassau County prohibition violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Aug. 23, 2024, By David K. Li A New York City suburb's ban against public mask wearing was challenged in federal court on Thursday, alleging the law violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and needlessly opens health compromised individuals for ridicule. Nassau County, the bedroom community just east of New York City with nearly 1.4 million residents, last week officially banned wearing face coverings in public in what's believed to be the nation's first such prohibition. "The Mask Ban discriminates against people with disabilities by depriving them of equal access to public life in Nassau County in violation of the United States Constitution, the New York State Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act," according to the complaint.
AP - Health officials in Wisconsin, Illinois report 3 West Nile virus deaths - Updated 3:32 PM EDT, August 29, 2024 West Nile virus is commonly spread through the bite of an infected mosquito. While most people don’t experience symptoms, about 1 in 5 can develop a fever, headache, body aches, vomiting, diarrhea or rash, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 1 out of 150 infected people develop a serious, sometimes fatal, illness.
This is NOT fine
Safety measures are not “penalties” and you can’t go to Friday Night Football if you’re hospitalized or dead.
EEE is transmitted by mosquitos, about 30% of people infected die, and survivors suffer long-term effects.
Second human case of EEE virus confirmed in Massachusetts - WCVB - Updated: 10:10 PM EDT Aug 29, 2024 The town of Plymouth is responding by closing parks at dusk and rescheduling school sports to earlier in the day, moving traditional Friday night football games to a 4 p.m. start. The changes have sparked mixed reactions. "It's a pretty big tradition here on Friday nights," said John Hilliard, who opposes the curfew. "I think the town should leave it to the individual if they want to take the necessary precautions. To penalize everyone as a whole, I just think it's wrong." Eastern equine encephalitis is a rare but potentially deadly disease that can cause long-term physical and mental complications for survivors. There are no vaccines or treatments for EEE. "EEE can cause severe illness and possibly lead to death in any age group; however, people under age 15 and over age 50 are at particular risk," a MassDPH statement said.
Public health isn’t a punishment, it’s a protection.
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Rumble pundits think latest round of covid and other infectious diseases… is “a Deep State plot” of some kind.
Knowledge Fight podcast covered Jimmy Dore who had Alex Jones on his show during the DNC on Rumble and they were both hand wringing about conspiracy fictions and Jimmy Dore asks if Alex Jones has inside info on “the Deep State” trying to “ramp up” covid and “fear” about mpox and bird flu, and whatever. And then of course Alex Jones hit the fan favorite with “the shots”. I don’t know why anyone is asking Alex Jones for “inside information” on anything other than for the inside of an especially trashed up rabbit hole.
I’m always perplexed about why naturally occurring infectious disease outbreaks would seem less likely to some people, when history is filled with accounts of plagues.
Mark Zuckerberg’s insufferable letter on covid censorship.
The enemy of your enemy is not your friend if your gripe is with Jeff Zients, but you’re considering teaming up with Sunetra Gupta. This doesn’t make sense. And neither does hyping the billionaire Facebook CEO because you’re angry that some pro-mask posts and discussion of long covid have been suppressed on social media. Guess what? I am too, and I’ve documented it. But people are still saying that pro-mask and long covid chronic illness topics are suppressed on social media. And I can pretty much guarantee that Mark Zuckerberg is not sad that the anyone downplayed the seriousness of covid. His letter was apparently addressing a period of time that includes late 2020, when for example Joe Biden, who was not yet the president, had someone reach out to Twitter to have apparently politically motivated revenge porn removed that was posted by James Woods, and which violated all sorts of platform policies and probably some laws. The truth is Zuckerberg is doing a mea culpa to signal he’s sorry for removing anti-vax disinformation. He’s certainly NOT saying he wishes he had promoted masks and other NPIs. Mark Zuckerberg is not championing the cause of public health and pro-mask messaging, and there is likely not much common ground to be found with alt-right ivermectin promoting dick-pic posting anti-vaxxers and tycoons yelling about censorship.
I’m not asking everyone to be perfect and recognize every disinformation narrative out there for what it is instantly, but can we at least, for pity’s sake at a bare minimum, at least people with audiences, not reshare dangerous colloidal silver promotion, cite Trump administration doctors, nod to stuff associated with the movie “Plandemic”, and at least ignore the foolishness of right-wing tescreal billionaires whining about having anti-vax misinformation and racist slurs “censored” in public spaces? Mmm?
“In developing regulations the EPA was directed to weigh only one concern: public health. The costs to industry were explicitly deemed irrelevant.”
— Jane Mayer, Dark Money. The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, January 2016