Journalist thinks covid is no longer political — just “trusts” right-wing covid denial.
Journalist thinks covid is no longer political — just “trusts” right-wing covid denial.
When the satire is the reality, and all else falls under the laws of Poe and Brandolini.
I found out about this writer and this op-ed because someone posted in a forum saying “This is one of the most infuriating articles I’ve read in a while, from a writer I usually like. Thought you all might like to read it and be mad with me.” And wow, the author of this April 2nd, 2024 op-ed is a senior citizen with a substack who lives in the posh Poconos region town of Milford PA (about an hour from Scranton, where I live - but he’s obviously in another world), and he said this in Salon about ditching masking and not staying up to date on vaccinations: “COVID isn’t a political issue anymore, or I wouldn’t have had to go looking on Google to find mention of it. Out in public, we’re trusting each other to do what we and our friends have done: we stayed home for five days or until symptoms have passed, and then we went on with our lives.”1
This is the perfect example of a high risk elderly privileged person tragically unaware. Someone else in the forum where the article was hate posted, remarked that he doesn’t even know about the report2 that a study3 found that 75% of people were found to tend to hide that they have a contagious illness while around others4 - so that trust of his may be extremely unfounded. People have gotten covid from the doctor’s office.5 And some have told their doctor they don’t want to test, so they can just go about their business recklessly exposing their own family and friends!6 Also, this isn’t solely about trust. Much spread of covid is asymptomatic. People’s CDC just reported a study which showed “that the risk of developing symptomatic illness within 14 days was 5 times greater when contacts were exposed to an asymptomatic [COVID]-positive child in their household.”7 It’s always been pretty obvious that asymptomatic school children are a source of spread. We’re lucky that Pennsylvania doesn’t calculate school funding by attendance like California,8 - though that’s not the only place where they encourage kids to go to school sick9 - even though prominent doctors like Jeremy Faust10 and Noha Aboelata11 have said they’re likely to spread it even without or before symptoms if the infection is turning up positive on tests. The Los Angeles School District Superintendent tried to use mental health woke-washing12 and wellness hand waving, to claim it was good for kids’ mental health to attend school while physically sick or contagious, but in the end he totally admitted it was really about the financial funding of the schools.13
And some people are taking themselves and their kids openly to restaurants while sick, there are YouTubers flaunting it on their channels openly!14 It seems more wise to assume everyone’s contagious all the time. But not just because there are thoughtless reckless people, but because the whole system is set up to force people into being reckless. Even if someone stays home once they have symptoms, what about before? We’ve always known that people with infectious diseases are often contagious before symptoms develop, I don’t know how that became forgotten knowledge about viruses, but apparently it has been memory holed by a lot of people.
And do the workers at the grocery store checkout counting your honey crisp apples even get paid sick leave? Market 32 (aka Price Chopper) doesn’t appear to have sick leave, just vacation and personal, and only for full-timers.15 (Glassdoor reports confirm: no benefits for part-time workers.) This is not unusual since many low wage “essential” workers get no sick leave,16 or even if they do, they are pressured to work sick,17 so they just pump up with cold medicine and push through hoping nobody notices that they’re infecting everyone, because often, even if they’d like to mask, some employers don’t even allow masks.18 And there are now no CDC guidelines for good people to point to in order to isolate at all - they ended that19 (despite that most experts I know say it should’ve never been reduced to 5 just to please Delta Airlines20 never mind).
The op-ed author also doesn’t realize that making sure there’s hospital capacity for people like him, or me, at the local hospitals, will no longer be a thing - they’re stopping tracking of hospital admissions next month,21 so who knows what will happen with the hospitals in the next surge. Will you even know until you turn up at an ER and are triaged in the parking lot? The NIH is also ending the test to treat program this month22 - a program that working poor, anyone uninsured, or without a primary care doctor, might be depending on for testing and treatment.
And how can anyone be so unaware that MAGA right-wingers are trying to take away even vaccines - eventually from everyone, for every disease. The Republicans are trying to ban lettuce in Tennessee over vaccines!23 (Yes, good gravy, that's a real sentence I had to write!) And I keep hearing about various places banning masks including banks24 and gas stations.25 This is not a “you do you” scenario - they demand that they don’t even want to see masks on anyone else.26 Why would anyone think they won’t ban vaccines when the Florida Surgeon General is telling doctors to recommend against the vaccines,27 and when vaccine protesters have been linked to the January 6th Insurrection,28 and some tried to stop people getting vaccinated right at the get-go in 2021.29 We know this isn’t just about passports or workplace mandates, and that’s bad enough. We need a real vaccination campaign. Instead we got the trucker convoy people who were protesting “restrictions” even after they were gone30 - hardly a sign they intend to stop at any point. We already know where this is going. It’s like how people say Republicans couldn’t possibly want to make birth control illegal, but there’s whole lists of Republicans who do,31 and they keep changing what’s on their websites, and are absolutely talking about banning birth control.32
How many more issues do we need to see this happen with before the people with platforms and microphones wake up and smell the coffee and stop trying to bullshit themselves?
This frustration with willfully ignorant people with voice and power is why there are immunocompromised people posting on social media and in forums wondering: “If Trump becomes president again, maybe at least some of the liberals will care about me again?” It’s so tragic. It’s why there are so many angry Long Covid patients demanding investigations.33 Because nothing makes sense. The author doesn’t even mention Long Covid - the fellow may not even know it exists - because people don’t say the c-word34 - (because of stigma).
Right-wing libertarian Koch money was against public health right from the start.35 MAGA Republican dark money funded advertising openly targeted liberals with right-wing propaganda to join them in covid denial,36 and some Democrats fell for it hook, line, and sinker. This does NOT bode well for climate catastrophe.
Milford Pennsylvania is an affluent conservative area - so anyone living there probably has considerable right-wing peer pressure from peers in the surroundings. Milford is within a 15-20 mile radius of both the Rod of Iron’s gun warehouse37 and a retreat compound of Falun Gong.38 But this is no excuse for throwing social justice under the bus. Pretending covid is over just to “get back to normal” or “fit in” and act like you “trust” other people is going to lead people to invite the MAGA in, because they figure the leopards haven’t eaten their faces yet!
The worst part is the idea that covid is no longer political. The assertion that the pandemic is no longer political is the most dipshit assertion I’ve heard this year so far!
Maybe ever.
And that’s really saying something because the same day I saw this covid is over we trust each other bullshit op-ed I actually heard on Jared Yates-Sexton’s podcast that apparently Matt Taibbi claimed Transhumanists are liberals!39 I didn’t think anything could get more bizarre. The idea of someone not knowing the tescreal40 people are right-wingers41 for sure I thought was going to be the most outrageously ridiculous thing I heard - that day at least. At the least someone would just say they’re not familiar with Transhumanism, that would be believable. The firehose of bullshit is on full power, and yet, this covid minimizer op-ed managed to take the cake with the most clueless bad take.
That the pandemic is no longer political cannot possibly be taken seriously.
Also, everything is political, once more, this time with feeling!
The lack of paid sick leave is political, and it continues. That guy in Florida who killed his own father because he got vaccinated, of course he was listening to right-wing vaccine conspiracies-- that was in February 2024, this year.42 Sums of public (politically allocated) money to support a theatre in Scranton that’s still suffering from low attendance in the continuing pandemic — that was just 6 months ago.43 Covid denial, the musical — by the same filmmaker of “Plandemic” - that was last month.44 HOW RECENT IS NOW? The pandemic is not over, and what the op-ed author said about masks and vaccines — that trust is all you need now - nobody sensible would ever say these things about giving up antibiotics, seat belts, child car seats, or sewage treatment plants45 for pity’s sake.
There are so many people, especially young workers, crying out for mitigation and sick leave relief.46 The People’s CDC, and many groups are are organized47 around these issues, with people yelling to politicians for better protections and needed mitigations and public health provisions, in campaign after campaign after campaign after campaign after campaign after campaign after campaign after campaign after campaign after campaign after campaign after campaign. In fact, I keep a tally of campaigns I come across, you may notice. And the media largely ignores all this, in favour of publishing “This is fine — seriously trust me” op-eds.
But sure, just ignore and go to your county fair and get your “just the bird flu”48 I guess, because joining the anti-mask bandwagon will fuel that too!
I guess I have to keep repeating that SEO has nerfed the topic. So part of the problem might be that this writer was done wrong by Google as well. Although I would expect more from a reporter. But it is true that the shadowbanning is why many people don’t hear about the pandemic and often don’t find the rest of us on the internet. I have repeatedly talked about this SEO issue, but precious few listen. I have recently posted documentation of the shadowbanning of Nicolas Smit.49 You can go down a whole ‘nother road with the CDC aerosol transmission timeline,50 and how the Trump administration eschewed elastomerics so nurses would have to reuse N95s in 2020, and that meant some company would get the contracts to clean them51 — and what’s more, they shipped N95s off to other countries52 ensuring a shortage would continue! Then after the shortage was no more, and hospitals had stockpiles of N95s, they were still rationing them and keeping them from nurses.53 And then the Biden administration continued to prohibit advertising of N95s long after shortages were over. It took until June 2023, for Nicolas Smit to get anywhere with the Biden administration, in lifting this advertising ban and Google announcing they’d stop censoring mask manufacturers already!54 And then Nicolas Smit was shadowbanned on Twitter. There were loads of people yelling about this stuff. Into a void with little coverage. And yet, strangely, you don’t hear about this from Matt Taiibbi. Nor anyone else much really.
And if a lot more people knew all about this — they’d be pissed. But most people don’t know about any of it. But many still feel confident to talk as if they do and show they know nothing about it. And about once or twice a month I fill someone in on lots of stuff like this, or someone reads something I’ve written, and responds to me really incensed. It’s one at a time. Let’s hope that weak ties really are enough. Because we are in deadly silos, with people completely out of touch with the needs of others, or even themselves.
It’s been obvious for 4 years that public health itself has been shadowbanned by ALL the platforms. Some reporting is there, but it’s lost in a thwarted throng of noise, and it seems like nobody’s interested, but that’s because almost nobody’s seeing it because all the companies nerf the topic of covid and mitigations in their algorithms somehow, and all associated words. Ironically - EXCEPT for anti-vax buzzwords, of course. The right-wing complains about censorship but many of the right-wing disinformation narrative buzzwords are actually very SEO friendly and are almost guaranteed to get you boosted by strangers and botnets on social media.
PR interests put the thumb on the scale to get minimizer op-eds prioritized. It’s pretty damn obvious because I know public health experts with credentials out the wazoo who repeatedly pitch op-eds, promoting public health and science, to outlets like Salon (or actually Salon) and get turned down. People with actual public health and medical credentials who could talk about the pandemic, and even medical things with authority. But instead Salon publishes a tragically uninformed covid denial take from someone who is talking fantasyland. In this op-ed the writer says covid is “like having a bad cold or the flu” as the MAGA people say. And then he cites immunity from natural infection, this is a concept from anti-vax proponents, because there is no indication that infection reduces the need for vaccination as any immunity from infection wanes rapidly.55 He cited vaccination rates seemingly based on the original series perhaps. Is he even aware that there have been more updates since then and that he’s not up to date on his vaccines? Or is he saying he’s abandoning vaccination like an anti-vaxxer? (There are born again anti-vaxxers — they’re actively recruiting sadly.) He says he stopped getting vaccinated since 2022, and that’s way overdue for his age group. He falsely asserted that 67% of Americans are vaccinated, with more than 80% over 65, but the true numbers for being up to date with the latest vaccinations are 22.6% for adults and 42.1% of 65+.56 He says he looked up statistics on the CDC website, and then decided that the numbers didn’t matter. Yet, he felt compelled to include inaccurate statistics anyway, and Salon didn’t even fact check it. Because trusting the plan is “deeper” than vaccination status, facts, or science.
The focus on trust as a central point involved in navigating a pandemic just doubles down on a stigma of infectious diseases. It imbues the human victims of a contagious virus as having some kind of moral certainty. That you’re a bad person if you get or spread covid — but where if you mask to try to not do so, you’re “not trusting” enough. And it’s insulting somehow? That’s a position of Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute, and he’s anti-vax, he’s right-wing, and he wants to bring back child labor and youth smoking.57 And he thinks if you mask around him you’re being rude and calling him gross. It’s the worst kind of woke-washing. Accusing others of “not being trusting enough” - demonizing other people for trying to protect themselves, especially if they’re high risk and disabled - this is truly an ugly, ugly stigma to promote.
And anyway, if you’re so over covid and moved on - why all the stigma and the aversion to masks and vaccines? Frankly, I care about other people, and myself. And that’s only right. I wouldn’t trust someone who doesn’t know there’s a more recent vaccine than 2022. I wouldn’t trust someone who says fuck the science on the CDC’s website I’m doing my own research. I don’t trust someone who doesn’t know that people are being told to not isolate anymore and then not testing and not mentioning it. I don't’ trust someone who memory holed the knowledge that people can be contagious while presymptomatic or asymptomatic. I don’t trust someone who doesn’t know that natural herd immunity is a Trumpy idea, and doesn’t know that immunity wanes from the vaccines, and wanes rapidly after a covid infection. And I don’t trust someone who doesn’t follow the science. I do not trust Lucian K. Trustcott IV on health matters, and neither should anyone else, because he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. He just so happens to have the right connections to platform some gibberish “trust the plan” Qanon nonsense and medical misinformation that might hurt people if they buy it.
Public health and social justice voices are up against all the dark money and the Internet of Fakes.58 And there’s a bunch of people who aren’t savvy, getting taken, and it may shorten their lives or those they infect. I am disheartened about the people who claimed to care in 2020, and now don’t even care about themselves anymore.
That’s why we can’t wait for everybody.59 We need to demand and push through regulations to stop all these threats to public health, like small groups of people have done in the past, to be embraced and loved by the majority later.
The only other alternative is hoping they make a dramatization of people with LC suffering due to government failures, starring Toby Jones, to rile people into an incandescent movement caring about the health of the vulnerable.60 But maybe that wouldn’t even move some people out of their bubbles. If they are real bubbles, and not just views born out of incentives from bunk PR consultancies.61 Such as the likes of that bonkers “Impact Research” letter62 where they went the elite panic63 route: just tell “the little people” anything at all and pretend! I don’t know what this guy’s gig is, but I don’t think I could’ve made this up for a joke. I’m left wondering if any of that was even written in good faith. Who is this op-ed for? I know Trump voting Republicans who are more up to date on their vaccinations than this guy is! In fact, I know Trump voting Republicans who use N95 masks. And I don’t personally know any completely unvaccinated Republicans. I wonder if he’s even talked to anyone about it — (certainly not anyone that’s filled him in that he’s not fully vaccinated & up to date).
But I keep seeing headlines and articles that say things like that covid has “a silver lining”64 - (something that should never be uttered about a disease that’s killed so many loved ones). Or that there’s “good news” — that attitudes about science actually improved under Trump — (spoiler alert, there’s certainly more to that story).65 Or even planting the idea that children with long covid, chronic illness, maybe cancer, or who do not attend in person school, or can’t - are likely to become violent66 — (more demonizing of the disabled as a danger to fear). Or just making disabled people possibly seem like they need to compromise more, like the NPR complaining spouse piece — (nobody would suggest someone with a chronic immune illness be forced to sit in a restaurant with second hand smoke, but they’re just supposed to get a virus that could kill them immediately).67
The gaslighting PR ad campaigns are underway, to convince us - with the mere exposure effect68 of repetition, rather than with any logic or veracity — like the ad campaign to convince liberals to be anti-maskers.69 Only this time they’re trying to convince Democratic ticket voters that Trump is probably fine actually, and that anti-vax is in the right! That we can relax and trust that it’ll be fine! That we should just agree with right-wing ideas and then everybody’s happy! (Except disabled people, they’re dangerously unreasonable right?) Just get the Democratic voters on the anti-mask, anti-vax, Qanon Trump train, and “voila, roaring economy,”70 no division — all national problems solved! Relax!
But that's not how real life works. Reality doesn’t care what you believe or who you choose to trust or why. You can’t fake safety. And you can’t fake democracy either.
References:
In the absence of American unity, we return to trust There is at least one positive post-COVID development By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV Columnist PUBLISHED APRIL 2, 2024 9:00AM (EDT) And as I recently pushed a cart through the new Market 32 supermarket in search of luxuriously large Honeycrisp apples, I asked myself why I wasn’t wearing a mask, and neither were any of the people around me, including employees who had contact with customers all day long.
CIDRAP - Three fourths of adults have hidden infectious illness to work, travel, or socialize, surveys suggest - Stephanie Soucheray, MA - January 30, 2024 The authors found that healthy participants reported being more likely to conceal when the potential harm of their imagined illness was low than when it was high, as did currently sick participants.
Merrell, W. N., Choi, S., & Ackerman, J. M. (2024). When and Why People Conceal Infectious Disease. Psychological Science, 35(3), 215-225. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976231221990
People are inclined to hide a contagious illness while around others, research shows Date: January 29, 2024 Source: Association for Psychological Science Summary: A startling number of people conceal an infectious illness to avoid missing work, travel, or social events, new research suggests. A startling number of people conceal an infectious illness to avoid missing work, travel, or social events, new research at the University of Michigan suggests. The findings are reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Across a series of studies involving healthy and sick adults, 75% of the 4,110 participants said they had either hidden an infectious illness from others at least once or might do so in the future. Many participants reported boarding planes, going on dates, and engaging in other social interactions while secretly sick. More than 61% of healthcare workers participating in the study also said they had concealed an infectious illness.
Hello - Sharon Stone reveals unlucky outcome following doctor's visit as she catches Covid The Basic Instinct star opened up on social media 20 NOV 2022 The Basic Instinct star took to Instagram to tell her followers online that she had tested positive for Covid after catching the virus from a nurse.
Tawaifeddiediaz January 2, 2024 - you know what boils my blood. over the last 2 weeks, i've seen countless patients walk into my urgent care center, symptomatic for so many things, refusing to get tested for covid and flu, citing that they don't want to knowingly bring it to their holiday tables. i had a patient tell me, verbatim, "i don't want to test for covid, because i don't want to be the asshole who brings it on a plane." i understand that - i understand that holidays are times where people look forward to meeting loved ones that they might only see once a year, or where they get a break from the hectic back and forth of their lives. but here's the thing - whether they get tested or not, they will bring whatever they have to their holiday tables. it's pure recklessness to know that you're sick, and walk into someone else's house spreading the disease. today, january 2, i saw 91 patients, many of them who have tested positive for covid and flu. many of these patients are the same ones who didn't want testing 3 days ago, until their events were over, and now, they will have to reach out to everyone they know to let them know that they were positive because they were showing symptoms well before their event.
People’s CDC April 1, 2024, COVID-19 Weather Report A study in Clinical Infectious Diseases reported “that the risk of developing symptomatic illness within 14 days was 5 times greater when contacts were exposed to an asymptomatic [COVID]-positive child in their household.” Nearly 11% of household contacts developed symptoms within 14 days of exposure. The study also found, during a 3-month follow-up, that 6 out of 77 asymptomatic children developed Long COVID. The likelihood of developing symptoms from asymptomatic exposure is higher than we might expect. Continue to spread awareness of asymptomatic spread and advocate for increased infection control measures at your local schools.
KRON 4 - Oakland schools allow COVID-positive students to attend class by: Amy Larson Posted: Jan 15, 2024 In a turnaround from 2020’s strict stay-at-home protocols, students can now go to class even if they test positive for the virus, according to a message from the OUSD COVID Response Team. COVID-positive students no longer have to stay home, as long as they do not have any symptoms, according to district officials. Asymptomatic, COVID-positive students should wear a mask at school while indoors, the response team added.
OldFashionedAnne @oldfshndanne 6:56 PM · Jan 9, 2024 Moms' Group (again) [facepalm emoji] This makes me so furious. Screenshot of a message reads: My son has missed 8 days of school. We had a new baby in 2023. She's had RSV, Covid, and both times I kept him home as he was symptomatic as well and just to play it safe so he didn't get anyone else sick. I kept him home today because he has had diarrhea all evening last night leading into the morning. He's been in bed all day so I know he legitimately does not feel good. We got an email stating his attendance is a concern along with ways we can basically be better parents. Am I wrong for keeping him home? We have had such a shit year with illnesses and you name it, it's been in our house. Is anyone else getting hit with illnesses left and right? Do you just send your kids to school if a sibling has been diagnosed? Both times she had RSV and covid, he had a nasty cough as well.
The Real COVID Isolation Headline That Nobody Is Picking Up On — Hint: It relates to you, California healthcare worker by Jeremy Faust, MD, MS, MA, Editor-in-Chief, MedPage Today January 25, 2024 Presymptomatic COVID-19, however, poses a real problem. This is my biggest issue with California's guidance. "You may have no symptoms until day three or four, and by that time your viral loads are off the charts, and you're a super spreader," I told the Globe. The problem is that California lets people who tested positive for COVID-19 but are not yet symptomatic roam free, albeit in a mask. That may be fine at first. But some will have their viral loads enter an exponential growth phase (i.e., go from not contagious to extremely contagious in a short period) just as symptoms may be starting to appear. These are preventable super spreaders that the new guidance does nothing about, and could make worse.
CAL MATTERS - California ends COVID isolation rule for asymptomatic cases as winter infections climb by Kristen Hwang and Carolyn Jones January 19, 2024 “We still believe that if there’s enough to detect (on a test), there’s enough to infect,” Aboelata said. “So I would recommend people test negative before going around others.” The state’s new strategy also seeks to minimize disruptions in school where long periods of quarantine and virtual instruction adversely impacted student learning and led to widespread mental health challenges for young people.
Anti-mask Woke-washing. The moral distortion of social justice. CHLOE HUMBERT AUG 31, 2023 A hostile anti-mask letter from a condo association to the person who posted it on social media has a lot to unpack. The report comes from the tenant who has been wisely masking in the common areas of the high rise where they live. The letter first accuses the masked person of creating an “atmosphere of fear within the building” but later in the letter the authors ironically accuse the mask wearer of being anxious and even suggest he needs mental health intervention for his masking.42 The letter also falsely claims the WHO declared the pandemic over which is not actually true, and in fact WHO’s director-general said the message that should be sent is that covid is still something to worry about.43 But if the authors of the letter believed it was no longer a worry, why are they so frightened to see someone wearing a mask?
LA Times - Got a cold, runny nose, the sniffles? No worries! Come to school, LAUSD says. By Howard Blume Aug. 12, 2023 His listed the mental-health harms of being out of school that have been cited by authorities, including U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: “Anxiety, depression, social-emotional stressors, suicidal ideation.” The superintendent also noted a financial impact. If the current 90% daily attendance rate rose to 95% — which it was pre-pandemic — the result, he said, would be $300 million more in state funding, which is largely based on attendance.
Brother Jev @BrotherJev 10:11 PM · Mar 3, 2024 Watching RV couple on YouTube. They are all sick. Fever of 101. Toddler coming off fever of 103. Coughing. Can barely talk. Decide to eat IN a restaurant. It would have been so easy to get it to-go and eat in the RV and not expose everyone to whatever they’ve got.
Price Chopper - WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS? Along with earned vacation (plus 6 paid holidays AND your birthday), Price Chopper/Market 32 also offers full-time teammates the opportunity to purchase up to three extra weeks of vacation per year. If you purchase vacation and decide not to use it, you simply sell it back. We also offer personal time to our teammates.
EPI - Paid sick leave access has expanded as states enacted new laws, but many low-wage workers still lack access - Press Releases • November 2, 2023 “Low-wage workers are the least likely to have paid sick days and the least likely to have room in their budget to take unpaid sick time. We shouldn’t make workers choose between going to work sick or going without pay. Expanding access to paid sick days will mean stronger, healthier families and communities,” said Elise Gould, EPI senior economist and co-author of the report.
Reddit - r/COVID19positive How does isolating work now? Changes? So confused goldrush__roseblush March 4, 2024 Tested Positive - Me - The laws where I live don’t require isolation with positive tests, but strongly recommend staying home until symptoms have improved, or if necessary to go out wear a mask. My workplace follows this. I’m day 3 (since +). Except my area of work is super busy right now and it seems like my boss is pressuring me to return to work to ease the burden from my team. If I went to work right now I’d be exposing my colleagues, plus a thousand others we work with in our space. Not to mention how unwell I am!! I doubt I could make the drive to work, let alone physically do my job. I feel so guilty though. Not once has she even thrown in a “feel better!”, just flat messages about my absence and the team. Sorry everyone is inconvenienced by this - I think it would be worse if they all got sick?
Forbes - In-N-Out Burger’s New Masking Policy Threatens Their Employees’ Health - Judy Stone Jul 17, 2023 The policy, confirmed in a call this morning, was introduced to “emphasize the importance of customer service and the ability to show our Associates’ smiles and other facial features.” It continues by stating that this will help "balance two things that In-N-Out is known for – exceptional customer service and unmatched standards for health, safety, and quality.” Those employees who refuse will be disciplined “up to and including termination of employment.”
Anti-Science MAGA CDC: "It's like the flu" - Infiltrated by anti-science, pro-industry, and burrowed-in MAGA Trumpers, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promotes spread of contagious disease instead of preventing it. CHLOE HUMBERT MAR 02, 2024 The guidance announced today (March 1st 2024) by the CDC will give cover not only for people unconcerned about exposing others to a virus that’s still risky, especially for elderly and disabled people, but also for anyone, with the looming dice roll for long covid and post covid complications.12 In fact, it will also give cover for people who actually want to spread a dangerous deadly virus to someone else — on purpose. Today is Disability Day of Mourning, the day to commemorate disabled people killed by caregivers.13 Yes, this is a thing that happens. It shouldn’t. But it does.
CDC made medical guidelines please Delta Airlines, and now lots of people work sick and contagious in every industry - Chloe Humbert · Jan 10, 2024 Delta Airlines sent a letter to the CDC on December 21, 2021 complaining that the 10 day isolation guidelines were interfering with their operations because of people being off sick too often. Instead of better infection control, stopping the spread among staff, or hiring more staff to cover the “new normal” of everyone getting covid on the job all the time, they instead asked the CDC to reduce the isolation time recommended. On December 27, 2021, the CDC complied with Delta Airlines request and reduced the guideline for isolation down to 5 days.
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.
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.
Tennessee Moves to Classify 'Vaccine Lettuce' as a Drug Published Apr 01, 2024 at 10:02 AM EDT A bill that would classify as a drug certain foods with vaccine materials added to them was passed by the Tennessee Senate and now awaits Governor Bill Lee's signature into law amid concerns about research on putting immunity boosters into lettuce. The proposed law, HB 1894, was passed in a 23-6 Senate vote last Thursday after getting the House's green light in a 73-22 vote in early March.
Noa @naraki355 3:20 PM · Jan 24, 2024 My bank told me I had to remove my respirator today in order to make a transaction. The ridiculous part was I wasn't even withdrawing cash, just depositing. Why is it necessary for a person who's *giving* the bank more money to show their face? That doesn't make sense to me...
kareem @brainflorist 9:10 PM · Mar 16, 2024 gas station near my house now has a no masks allowed sign :/
Tweet posted by: Masks are bad, actually @ Rando8715401 4:58 PM · Dec 17, 2022 “All that is needed…” As if stopping people from living their best lives isn’t a big deal. If a mask mandate returned, I’d probably become suicidal. I can’t bear to be in places with high rates of masking. I have a mask phobia. I’m just being honest. I find masks to be deeply alienating and dehumanizing. But I’d gladly put one on to protect others if there was evidence that they actually did that in the real world. Alas, they do not.
Florida surgeon general wants to halt COVID-19 mRNA vaccines; FDA calls his claims "misleading" healthwatch By Sara Moniuszko Edited By Paula Cohen Updated on: January 4, 2024 / 3:07 PM EST / CBS News Florida's state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, is calling for doctors to stop recommending mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, citing alleged health risks promoted by anti-vaccine activists that federal health officials have already refuted as "implausible" and "misleading."
The Washington Post - Anti-vaccine activists march in D.C. — a city that mandates coronavirus vaccination — to protest mandates By Katie Mettler, Lizzie Johnson , Justin Wm. Moyer , Jessica Contrera , Emily Davies , Ellie Silverman , Peter Hermann and Peter Jamison Updated January 24, 2022 at 11:35 a.m. EST|Published January 23, 2022 at 10:08 a.m. EST Later, about 10 men wearing the insignia of the Proud Boys, an extremist group involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, lingered on the Lincoln side of the Reflecting Pool. They briefly engaged in a shouting match with a small group of counterprotesters at the edge of the rally, then walked away. The marchers carried posters and flags that included false statements such as “Vaccines are mass kill bio weapons” and “Trump won.”
Los Angeles Times - Dodger Stadium’s COVID-19 vaccination site temporarily shut down after protesters gather at entrance Jan. 30, 2021 By Marisa Gerber, Irfan Khan The demonstrators included members of anti-vaccine and far-right groups. While some carried signs decrying the COVID-19 vaccine and shouting for people not to get the shots, there were no incidents of violence. “This is completely wrong,” said German Jaquez, who drove from his home in La Verne and had been waiting an hour for his vaccination when the stadium’s gates were closed. He said some of the protesters were telling people in line that the coronavirus was not real and that the vaccination was dangerous.
Meet the Pennsylvania trucking business owner who plans to block DC Beltway by Kevin Lewis, Montgomery County Reporter (7News) Tue, February 22nd 2022 at 4:47 AM Updated Wed, February 23rd 2022 at 1:12 PM A Scranton, Pennsylvania trucking business owner plans to block the D.C. beltway on Wednesday afternoon to protest federal COVID-19 mandates, inflation, and illegal immigration. "Ultimately, it may be the whole Beltway that's blocked down," Bob Bolus told 7News Monday. "We're making a statement for you people."
Rolling Stone - J.D. Vance Said Republicans Aren’t Trying to Limit Birth Control Access. Here’s a List. Number one is GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson December 10, 2023 “Look, obviously, people need to be able to make those decisions,” Vance said. “I don’t think that I know any Republican, at least not a Republican with a brain, that’s trying to take those rights away from people.” In response, Jake Tapper said, “I mean, I could provide a list for you if you want it.” “Well, OK. Not anybody I talk to, Jake,” Vance said. So here’s a list.
Independent - Republicans are taking aim on contraception — and they’d rather you didn’t know Despite recent claims from many Republicans that they are trying to protect contraceptive access, their legislative votes say otherwise Kelly Rissman New York Monday 12 February 2024 19:27 GMT We previously reported that Republicans standing for re-election this year keep changing what they say about abortion on their public websites. Many would rather the public didn’t bring up their voting records on contraception, either. Despite prominent Republicans’ claims to the contrary, “Republicans have a long history of attacking contraception,” says Dana Singiser, cofounder of the nonprofit Contraceptive Access Initiative. And since the Dobbs decision, “it is getting harder and harder for Republicans to actually hide their long-standing opposition to contraception.” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion on Dobbs that the court “should reconsider” its long-standing rulings, including the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which granted married couples the right to use contraceptives without government oversight. (The Eisenstadt v. Baird decision seven years later granted unmarried couples the same right.) “If that’s not a direct threat, I don’t know what is,” Ms Singiser says. In the wake of Justice Thomas’ opinion, Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn called the Griswold decision on contraception “constitutionally unsound” and Republican Sen. Mike Braun voiced his opinion that the issue of contraceptive access should be left to the states.
We Call for a Congressional Hearing & Criminal Investigation of CDC - LONG COVID ACTION PROJECT (LCAP) The initial CDC guidelines were set at 10 days but changed to 5 days in December 2021 after Delta airlines complained it was impacting their bottom-line. In an ongoing pandemic, public health decisions influenced by corporate interest instead of science demand action from Congress. Public health data collected by CDC from the last four years of the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that all SARS-CoV-2 infections pose not only a lethal threat but also a compounding risk for developing Long Covid. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Judy Stone wrote in Forbes that “as of early February, there were still 2,000 deaths per week and almost 20,000 people needing hospitalization,” amounting to one COVID death every five minutes. Long Covid is a multi-systemic disease that damages organs, neurological, gastrointestinal, and vascular systems and causes AIDS-like immune dysregulation, with research pointing to SARS-CoV-2 viral persistence as the leading cause.
r/Covidlonghaulers - Little kids and long COVID. You don't hear much. Feb 29, 2024 We do hear about it all the time - they just don't use the C-word. They talk about learning deficits, high absence rates, poor test scores, increased flu, measles outbreaks, language loss, etc. All of these are long covid without saying long covid. I work in education and I see it every day. Kids in the 8th grade who have the reading level of toddlers. Teachers and parents are blaming it on the 6 months of zoom school 4 years ago and the masks. But a few months of zoom school would not explain learning deficits of 5+ years. Kids wouldn't be sick all the time if they hadn't incurred immune damage. I believe it is a deliberate choice by the media to avoid attaching any of these phemona to long covid. It fits in better with the covid denialism narrative to blame it on masks/lockdowns.
CMD - How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On Covid By Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch | December 22nd, 2021 Lockdown measures drove down cases in the U.S. and likely saved millions of lives globally. But the decline of in-person shopping and work, combined with factory shutdowns in places like China, disrupted the economy. A 2020 report from the corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found the hardest-hit industries would take years to recover. One sector in particular that took a big hit was the fossil fuel industry. Oil demand fell sharply in 2020, placing the global economy on uncertain footing. Before long, business-aligned groups — particularly those connected to fossil fuels — began targeting the public health measures threatening their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world. The war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020, when Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, issued a press release calling on states to remain open.
Anti-mask was always a dark money campaign. wat3rm370n - tumblr Mar 28th, 2024 Dark money from big corporations funded a right-wing think tank to do a deliberate advertising propaganda campaign to convince liberal Democrats that masks are bad.
Bucks County Beacon - Rod of Iron Festival in Pennsylvania Shows How Dangerous and Deranged This MAGA Cult Is - The festival, a two-day carnival of MAGA dripping madness, offered an unfiltered look at the Republican Party's present and future. by Zach D. Roberts | October 13, 2023 The Rod of Iron Festival in the woods of Greeley, Pennsylvania, sure knows how to put on a show: a 50 person choir flown in from Japan, firearm giveaways, and a bonfire. Too bad it’s all organized by a cult that “worships” guns and was started by one of the sons of Reverend Moon, the founder of the Unification Church who claims to be a messiah. Since 2020, the Pennsylvania Sanctuary Church, a sect of the Unification Church (aka The Moonies), has held a festival in October celebrating firearms, the 2nd Amendment, and of course former President Donald Trump. The former President has never attended, but they have been able to pull in conservative names like Dana Loesch, Alan Gottlieb, Steve Bannon, and this year Sebastian Gorka and Jack Posobiec.
How the conspiracy-fueled Epoch Times went mainstream and made millions The conservative news outlet has amassed a fortune, growing its revenue by 685% in two years, according to tax documents. Oct. 13, 2023 By Brandy Zadrozny Anti-vaccine activist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calls The Epoch Times a daily read, among his most trusted news sources. “They have a real bias against China, but on other reporting, they’re very courageous and it’s real journalism,” Kennedy said in an interview with NBC News this summer. In July, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., recited the history of The Epoch Times into the congressional record. “This is all about one word: freedom,” Norman said. The Epoch Times has yet to throw its weight behind a candidate for 2024, but heading into the election cycle, it is moving into new and bigger office spaces and production studios in California, hiring mainstream news veterans who are not affiliated with Falun Gong, and revving up an ad-buying blitz. “They achieved the goal,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based Republican strategist hired by The Epoch Times in 2018 to open doors to conservative politicians and players.
Biden vs Trump Just Got A Lot More Interesting The Muckrake Political Podcast April 2, 2024 Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman comment on the new horse race as the media loves when these things get close, despite more and more erratic behavior from Donald Trump. They then discuss how far Matt Taibbi has fallen and what the cause of his about face was, before analyzing an op-ed in defense of John Eastman written by none other than... his kids.
The Washington Spectator - The Wide Angle: Understanding TESCREAL — the Weird Ideologies Behind Silicon Valley’s Rightward Turn by Dave Troy May 1, 2023 If all of that sounds outlandish and orthogonal to solving the debt ceiling crisis, dealing with Earth’s climate problems, or otherwise improving conditions here on this planet, that’s because it is. TESCREAL proponents have an authoritarian “ends justify the means” mindset rooted in the idea that if we do not submit to their urgent demands, we will extinguish billions of potential future intelligent beings. Surely we must not allow that to happen! Eliezer Yudkowski, a self-described AI theorist, believes that AI is likely to wipe out humanity and that we should bomb data centers to stop its advance. Max Tegmark, an AI researcher at MIT, has also called for halting AI development in order to seek “alignment” — the idea that machine intelligence should work with humanity rather than against it. Such alarmist arguments, which originate in science fiction and are quite common in the TESCREAL world, are rooted in a hierarchical and zero-sum view of intelligence. The notion is that if we develop machine superintelligence, it may decide to wipe out less intelligent beings — like all of humanity. However, there is no empirical evidence to suggest these fears have any basis in reality. Some suggest that these arguments mirror ideas found in discredited movements like race science and Eugenics, even as others reject such charges.
The New Republic - The Dystopians The Tech Plutocrats Dreaming of a Right-Wing San Francisco A rogue’s gallery of big tech edgelords and their reactionary hangers-on have a plan to remake the city by the bay in their own weirdo image. Gil Duran February 12, 2024 So, there’s no debate about whether this ideology exists. The question is what to call it, and how to describe its political orientation. For clarity, it helps to briefly examine some of the intertwined characters trying to circle-jerk this parallel world into being. Let’s start with Bowles. Her celebrated article echoed the arguments in Michael Shellenberger’s “San Fransicko: How Progressives Ruin Cities” book and even featured the exact same anti-S.F. critics. Shellenberger, a former leftist P.R. expert who worked for socialist Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez before pivoting to right-wing causes, now serves as chair of politics, censorship and free speech at the newly formed University of Austin. This effort at a parallel academic institution was co-founded by The New York Times’ former conservative columnist Bari Weiss, Bowles’s wife. In 2022, after Musk put Weiss in charge of writing “The Twitter Files,” she recruited Shellenberger to help. Shellenberger, who now poses as a journalist (with an incisive interest in demonizing fact-checkers and renewable energy), has become a Musk favorite. His error-riddled and conspiratorial writings—parallel journalism, a.k.a. disinformation—regularly go viral on X, earning him regular appearances in right-wing outlets like Fox, News Nation, the One America News Network, and the Epoch Times. In 2022, before completing his public turn to the fever-swamp right, Shellenberger ran for governor of California as—drum roll—a moderate. He portrayed San Francisco’s ills as the natural result of Democratic governance. Altman, Tan’s predecessor at Y Combinator, donated the maximum of $32,400 to Shellenberger’s stunt campaign. Altman’s longtime mentor, Republican megadonor Peter Thiel, co-founded Palantir Technologies with Joe Lonsdale (founding trustee and chairman of the University of Austin).
911 caller: Florida man accused of killing father over vaccination is a ‘delusional conspiracy theorist' - WESH Updated: 1:52 PM EST Feb 7, 2024 Averi Kremposky The 911 caller claimed to have known the family for years and described the suspect as a "delusional conspiracy theorist." The caller said he was angry at his father for getting vaccinated recently.
The problem is, we’re not post pandemic. Once more this time with feeling: stop saying "back during covid" (My unpublished Letter to the Editor.) CHLOE HUMBERT DEC 23, 2023 There was an article in my local newspaper, The Times-Tribune in Scranton Pennsylvania, about how Mayor Cognetti is allocating funds to a local community theatre operation that is still struggling to recover from the pandemic, in what the reporter describes as “what most would consider a post-pandemic world.” Said about the children’s performances: “people just are not coming out.”2 (The theatre owner at least referred to the pandemic in the present tense.)
NewsGuard's Reality Check A report on how misinformation online is undermining trust—and who’s behind it. Produced by co-CEOs Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard Team. COVID deniers now have their own musical PLUS: Trump’s AI-generated fans and the latest false claim about election fraud MAR 08, 2024 The maker of the viral “Plandemic” documentary is capping off his misinformation series with a musical film premiering on March 9 in Las Vegas.
Moving forward, forever - community adaptation Those staying stuck in denial trying to force normal, longing for a gone pre-pandemic time, that’s who is being left behind, morally sabotaged to endure and inflict unnecessary suffering. CHLOE HUMBERT JAN 01, 2023 Nobody could take any of these statements seriously: “We can’t wear seatbelts in cars forever.” “We can’t wear steel toe boots at the factory forever.” “We can’t use child car seats forever.” “We can’t keep brushing our teeth every night forever.” “We can’t stop people smoking indoors in public forever.” “We can’t filter water at the sewage treatment plants forever.”
Reddit - r/COVID19positive How does isolating work now? Changes? So confused Celticquestful March 4, 2024 My workplace is in the middle of a brutal outbreak of Covid AND Flu. People coming in, sick, because they need the money or they feel pressured to do so & as a result, 2 weeks later, we have scores of them off sick & I'm at home, hacking up a lung because I never got rid of my post Covid cough (tested positive for the first time back on December 5th of last year) & am apparently susceptible to EVERY strain of any form of Ick now. I mask, every day, but so few do & I'm tired & frustrated & I want off this ridiculous roundabout of illness. WHY can't companies/institutions understand, logically, that if you do nothing (or next to nothing) to mitigate AND apply pressure to people that they need to come in whilst ill, that you are going to have more employees get sick & LOSS in revenue? I'm just EXHAUSTED by it all (mind you, that's in large part due to the increased inflammation in my lungs & a decreased O2 sat, but still!).
PBS News Hour - Texas patient diagnosed with bird flu after contact with cows presumed to be infected Health Apr 1, 2024 4:19 PM EDT By — Mike Stobbe, Associated Press Last week, dairy cows in Texas and Kansas were reported to be infected with bird flu — and federal agriculture officials later confirmed infections in a Michigan dairy herd that had recently received cows from Texas. Since 2020, the bird flu virus has been spreading among more animal species – including dogs, cats, skunks, bears and even seals and porpoises – in scores of countries. However, the detection is U.S. livestock is an “unexpected and problematic twist,” said Dr. Ali Khan, a former CDC outbreak investigator who is now dean of the University of Nebraska’s public health college.
The Shadowbanning of Nicolas Smit Chloe Humbert Mar 26, 2024 This is from a DM group chat on twitter when it was discovered among participants that Nicolas Smit was not showing up in Twitter searches.
Letter to Stephen Hahn Administrator Food and Drug Administration from KATIE PORTER Member of Congress, May 26, 2020 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the system on March 28, 2020, enabling hospitals, health systems, and states to use the system to decontaminate and reuse PPE.1 Unfortunately, this system may not work as advertised, and recent reporting calls into question whether the FDA succumbed to political pressure in extending the EUA. Millions of taxpayer dollars and the lives of an untold number of frontline healthcare workers are potentially at risk if the CCDS does not perform as expected. The CCDS is manufactured by Battelle Memorial Institute based in Columbus, Ohio. The company claims their system “can decontaminate thousands of N95 respirators using concentrated, vapor phase hydrogen peroxide.”2 The system can allegedly “decontaminate the same respirator multiple times without degrading N95 respirator performance.”3 The company submitted a request for an EUA to the FDA, with strong and public support from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, President Donald Trump, and multiple members of the Ohio Congressional Delegation.
CNN - FEMA okayed export of N95 masks as workers cried for more. By Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News Updated 7:00 PM EST, Fri February 19, 2021 In the midst of a national shortage of N95 masks, the U.S. government quietly granted an exception to its export ban on protective gear, allowing as many as 5 million of the masks per month to be shipped overseas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency issued the waiver in the final moments of Donald Trump’s presidency last month, allowing a Texas company to export its products after it failed to secure U.S. customers, according to the FEMA letter obtained by KHN. National Nurses United president Zenei Triunfo-Cortez called the export waiver “unconscionable” and said N95s remain under lock and key in many hospitals. She said she still has to “beg” for a new N95 if hers gets soiled during a shift caring for covid-19 patients.
AP News - Hospitals still ration medical N95 masks as stockpiles swell. By JASON DEAREN, JULIET LINDERMAN and MARTHA MENDOZA. February 16, 2021 Internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press show there were deliberate decisions to withhold vital information about new mask manufacturers and availability. Exclusive trade data and interviews with manufacturers, hospital procurement officials and frontline medical workers reveal a communication breakdown — not an actual shortage — that is depriving doctors, nurses, paramedics and other people risking exposure to COVID-19 of first-rate protection. Before the pandemic, medical providers followed manufacturer and government guidelines that called for N95s to be discarded after each use, largely to protect doctors and nurses from catching infectious diseases themselves. As N95s ran short, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention modified those guidelines to allow for extended use and reuse only if supplies are “depleted,” a term left undefined. Hospitals have responded in a variety of ways, the AP has found. Some are back to pre-COVID-19, one-use-per-patient N95 protocols, but most are doling out one mask a day or fewer to each employee. Many hospital procurement officers say they are relying on CDC guidelines for depleted supplies, even if their own stockpiles are robust.
Nicolas Smit @PPEtoheros 9:52 AM · Jun 10, 2023 Google announced they will finally stop censoring mask manufacturers this month. Will Facebook & others follow suit so the public can be able to easily find masks that will give them RELIABLE protection from wildfire smoke & Covid? @TaylorLorenz can you ask the tech industry giants to explain what the benefits were to leaving outdated censorship policies in place that actively prevented the public from being able to find the tools that would’ve kept them properly protected from getting infected & saved the lives of 100,000s of people around the world years after the N95 shortage was declared over. I still don’t understand the reasoning behind actively preventing the public from finding or learning about the importance N95s & elastomeric respirators with the explanation by Facebook and others that it was needed to ensue masks made it to frontline workers. If the goal was to ensure masks made it to frontline workers, then why continue to censor posts mentioning masks when the N95 shortage was over years ago & manufactures starting laying off 10,000s of workers since the censorship meant they couldn’t get their masks to those that needed them & were looking for them including frontline workers. Since the N95 shortage was declared over in April 2021, 4/5 mask manufacturers closed down & were are at a tipping point of not being able to have enough masks if another major waves occurs & masks are once again needed. Thanks to @emilyakopp ’s January 2022 coverage of my White House meeting & our discussion of the harm the censorship had on the mask industry & the public’s ability to find masks they searched for, Facebook removed a small amount of censorship hours later. It would be nice to have it all removed so if someone wanted to find tips on Facebook on how to use an N95 to protect themself from Covid or wildfire smoke, they find helpful resources instead of a censorship warning that says they can’t see that information due to Facebook censorship policies.
COVID-19: Disease-induced (natural) immunity, vaccination or hybrid immunity? April 14, 2023 “We should not let down our guard yet,” adds Dr. Rupp. “If you are at higher risk for more serious illness, keep up to date with vaccine boosters and take a few steps to minimize your risk.” Study findings indicate that the protection offered by a previous infection does not abolish the need for vaccination. Infection-induced immunity wanes rapidly, and vaccination increases the durability of protection.
CDC - Respiratory Illness - Vaccination Trends The percent of the population reporting receipt of the updated 2023-24 COVID-19 vaccine is 14.1% (95% confidence interval: 13.4-14.9) for children and 22.6% (22.1-23.0) for adults 18+, including 42.1% (40.8-43.3) among adults age 65+.
Jeffrey Tucker, covid contrarian and right-wing propagandist - wat3rm370n - tumblr - Mar 25th, 2024 This is the guy now infamous for leaked emails revealing he supports child labor and youths smoking cigarettes from the anti-public health PR outlet, Brownstone Institute, handsomely funded by dark money and platforming anti-vaxxers like Robert Malone and Naomi Wolf, I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s doing. And now Jeffrey Tucker was at some right-wing anti-vax rally outside the Supreme Court.
Don’t wait for everybody before speaking up. We don’t need to convince everyone before moving forward, and we may already have more on board than it appears anyway. We won’t know until we try. CHLOE HUMBERT AUG 08, 2023 Everything is impossible or unpopular until a few people say “hey wait a minute we should do this” and then press for it until others get on board. We can have a better world without convincing the whole world first. Don’t listen to doomsayers who say it can’t happen, or won't, or that nobody cares, and don’t waste time arguing and drawing attention to contrarians in flame wars, it really doesn’t go anywhere.44 It just takes a few. We don’t need to wait for most people to agree with us, we just need those who do, to speak up and push forward. More people want the same things we want than most of us realize.
Social Warming by Charles Arthur - The right kind of outrage - Plus the trouble with TikTok (which is the trouble with us) CHARLES ARTHUR JAN 19, 2024 But what I wanted to know was: why were my friends so exercised about this now? The answer is known to anyone in the UK: over the Christmas break, the main commercial channel, ITV, broadcast a four-part dramatisation of the events in the case: the wrongful prosecutions and then how bit by bit, one of the postmasters called Alan Bates (played in the TV series by the actor Toby Jones) managed to resist and turn back the juggernaut, in part by getting others to understand that they were not alone, and that the problems they were seeing—with huge amounts of cash apparently going missing from the accounts they were running—were common to many, rather than being unique to them. And yes, my friends had seen the series. It was why they were so furious.
Toxic Sludge is Good for You, 2002 documentary - “Currently according to some estimates, more than 50% of what we think is news is actually instigated by the public relations industry. PR professionals measure their success in terms of how well they can insert their clients’ messages into the continuous flow of news and information while their own activities remain out of view.”
The Wrong Impact Research Chloe Humbert · Jun 25, 2023 “IMPACT RESEARCH” is some kind of PR firm that seems to be guiding Democratic party elected representatives on the pandemic issues to prioritize business and industry over human health. They basically suggest Democrats stick to messaging it’s no biggie, and nothing substantive, when it comes to distinguishing themselves from covid contrarian Republicans. If this is representative of the kind of advice and guidance from Democratic Party consultants, I think it’s evidence the current consultant base has been infiltrated by a lot of fossil fuel industry advocates and libertarians aligned with corporate forces against public health. And that would explain a lot about the abandonment of public health I guess.
Elite Panic. Big shots have different goals than the rest of us. Politicians should be representatives, businesses shouldn’t lead, even billionaires can’t seem to buy common sense, and tech won’t save us. CHLOE HUMBERT JUL 13, 2023 The people in high places and big positions will never panic over the right things - they do elite panic. Left to their own devices, people in charge panic over the wrong things & try to fix things other than the actual crisis because they’re often more concerned with their own position within the status quo, and are more concerned about the upheaval of the status quo, than the damage that upheaval is causing. Ordinary people tend to respond with the appropriate alarm and an impulse to do a practical emergency response to protect oneself and one’s community, but are often at odds with the status quo in doing so, and are often stymied by the very people who should be providing support and leadership. Recognizing this phenomenon is vital in determining strategies to overcome it.
STAT NEWS - Covid’s scientific silver lining: A chance to watch the human immune system respond in real time Helen Branswell By Helen Branswell March 28, 2024 Alessandro Sette, a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, said there is good evidence that people who had had a recent exposure to one of the common cold coronaviruses fared better when they contracted Covid. But immunity to the common cold coronaviruses is fleeting — which is why we can be infected with them so frequently.
The New York Times - Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere The pandemic changed families’ lives and the culture of education: “Our relationship with school became optional.” By Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris Sarah Mervosh reports on K-12 education, and Francesca Paris is a data reporter. March 29, 2024 “If kids are not here, they are not forming relationships,” he said. “If they are not forming relationships, we should expect there will be behavior and discipline issues. If they are not here, they will not be academically learning and they will struggle. If they struggle with their coursework, you can expect violent behaviors.”
The Economy First Model. Manufacturing consent to normalized harm. Chloe Humbert · Mar 12, 2024 The real damaging and disturbing propaganda is characterizing avoiding illness as “fear of covid” when nobody would say that about cancer, second hand smoke, or about allowing a toddler to run loose near the edge of a cliff. If someone was pointing a gun you wouldn’t say you’re “dealing with fear of guns” after all.
The Decision Lab: Why do we prefer things that we are familiar with? The mere exposure effect can result in suboptimal decision-making. Good decisions are made by evaluating all possible courses of actions based on their effectiveness, not their familiarity. When deciding between alternatives, we shouldn’t be choosing the familiar option, we should be choosing the best option. This is because sometimes the best option is not the most familiar one. Sometimes the most effective course of action is the one that is unfamiliar to us. Moreover, sticking with what we know limits our exposure to new things, ideas, and viewpoints. This limits the range of choices we are able and willing to consider when making future decisions, and narrows the perspective from which we make them.
Twitter from @theSGLF: State Government Leadership Foundation (SGLF) Feb 9, 2022 Our latest ad is making an impact and liberals are now agreeing with what conservatives have been saying all along: mask mandates do more harm than good.
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.
Man, this is so weird. Because I am 65, I remember when Lucian Truscott IV wrote for the mostly liberal, often left wing Village Voice. He came from a storied military family and grew rich from his writing (military thrillers). But he was also a Jefferson descendant who invited the Jefferson descendants born from the rape of the enslaved Sally Hemings to Monticello--on the Oprah Winfrey show no less. He acknowledged the racism that infected the Jeffersonian myth. Truscott's current wife, artist Tracy Harris, lost her first husband, Dan Flavin, to diabetes when he was only 63. I shouldn't be surprised anymore when someone who used to have some common sense (and was a REPORTER) decides to give in to the fantasy. But there we are.