😷#KeepMasksInHealthcare campaigns in New Jersey & Washington State 🏥 We need permanent Covid-19 protections for health care workers 🚫 NYC mayor is an anti-mask extremist 👎
The unpleasant truth about Long Covid: even young people like Physics Girl can get Long Covid. And an effective way to prevent Long Covid is to avoid infection.
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)
Washington State USA Letter Campaign: Governor Inslee & WA Dept of Health: Keep Masks in Healthcare, Long-term Care, and Prisons!
by Seattle Still Cares: This is an attack on everyone who seeks medical care, resides in long-term care, and is incarcerated– and the hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians who work in these settings. Ending this mask mandate is unacceptable and will create more spread, more death, and more disablement making it even harder for Washingtonians to safely access health care, for people in long term facilities to be safe, and for incarcerated people to be safer from Covid.
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/governor-inslee-keep-masks-in-washington
New Jersey USA Petition & Call Campaign - NJ: Retain Masking in Healthcare Facilities
Please call the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) Commissioner’s Office to say you support the mask mandate in healthcare settings and don’t want it to end. NJDOH Commissioner’s Office: 609-292-7837
https://chng.it/YfZzKGJbP9
Global Petition to: Moderna: Share the Science to Ensure Global Vaccine Access
By Justice is Global: The US government invested billions in Moderna’s vaccine technology, but Moderna has not shared the benefits with the public. The company raked in almost $18 billion in profits in 2022 alone, while multiple shareholders, including CEO Stéphane Bancel, have become billionaires. Meanwhile, it has stonewalled all efforts to share its publicly funded technology with the world or license out production to other manufacturers.
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/moderna-share-the-science-with-the-who-backed-hub-and-ensure-global-vaccine-access
Unpleasant physical reality: 3 years of pandemic and there is still no cure for Long Covid, there are no known effective treatments at present for a condition that has existed since SARS-COV-1 which was 20 years ago.
I was a bit upset to hear Simone Giertz claim that there are new treatments coming out all the time for Long Covid, when talking about “Physics Girl” — her colleague’s disabling ME/CFS from Long Covid. The truth is, there are no proven effective treatments for Long Covid or ME/CFS. There is no cure. And so far limited published about potential treatments. Reducing risk in the first place might be possible with Paxlovid, vaccination, and there are studies being done on metformin. But any discussion about Long Covid should start with emphasizing that the best way to prevent Long Covid is to NOT GET COVID.
I understand the urge someone might have to put on a happy face and hope for the best regarding “Physics Girl” Dianna Cowern. It’s very upsetting to think that her condition might be even more prolonged. But sugar coating this is doing a disservice to all their young viewers who are having big weddings and traveling and not wearing masks, not getting booster vaccinations, not even asking for Paxlovid when they test positive… because they’ve bought into “mild propaganda” to get them “back out there” maskless & spending money… and so thinking it won’t happen to them — and that if it does, well surely there’s treatments right?
This is not the reality. Even young healthy people need to prevent infection.
In fact the reality is even far worse than that there are no proven treatments yet. This condition has existed since SARS-CoV-1. So doctors and scientists have known about this condition (ME/CFS) all this time for 20 years, and still haven’t a cure for it. It can happen after EBV and other viruses, after Lyme Disease, and post-sepsis. And so the condition goes back many decades. And I’m sorry to say that the news is even worse than that. The medical community focus has too often been on chalking it up to psychosomatic causes rather than the physical effects of having had a serious viral infection, despite known lung damage, neurological sequelae, and an increase in post-infection cardiac conditions, and despite that the brain is a physical organ.
In the US, the NIH has been planning to spend what little money was left for Long Covid research on already debunked pseudoscience treatments that were already attempted to be pushed in the UK because they fit well into the austerity and demonizing of disabled people, but these treatments have been revealed for the right-wing scams they are — a way to try to deny decent people any real help and victim-blame people who are suffering.
I’m worried about Physics Girl, I’ve watched her show on occasion, and I hope she recovers soon. Unfortunately she’s not alone and there are no guarantees.
I think best way we can help Dianna Cowern, and others in her terrible position, is most likely by demanding the NIH actually study useful science-based treatments, demand the White House tell the truth about Long Covid so people are warned that this could happen, and to prevent more covid infections with mask mandates in healthcare settings and mask requirements in all essential services, and really anywhere crowded or indoors.
More covid infections are not going to fix the Long Covid emergency.
🗞️ In the news
🇨🇦 CBC: COVID-19 misinformation cost at least 2,800 lives and $300M, new report says. Report examines how vaccine hesitancy affected COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Darren Major - Jan 26, 2023 ("It's pretty clear that tens of thousands of hospitalizations did occur because of misinformation," Himelfarb told reporters. "We are confident that those are conservative estimates." Himelfarb also said the $300 million estimate covers only hospital costs — the study didn't include indirect costs associated with factors such as delayed elective surgeries and lost wages. A number of studies have found that getting vaccinated can reduce the risk of COVID infection and hospitalization. But only 80 per cent of Canadians have been fully vaccinated, according to the latest data from Health Canada.)
🇺🇸 Boston Globe: COVID is still killing people every day. But its main victims have changed. Since the end of the first Omicron wave last March, death disparities have reversed, with white people in Massachusetts more likely to die from COVID than Black or Hispanic people, according to a new analysis conducted for the Globe by researchers at Boston University’s School of Public Health. By Kay Lazar Globe Staff, February 20, 2023 (archive link) (A year ago, young families of color in Massachusetts were suffering a heavy toll from COVID-19, with Black and Latino people in the prime of their lives dying at rates up to three times higher than white people. Now, the pendulum appears to be swinging the other way. Since the end of the first Omicron wave last March, death disparities have reversed, with white people in Massachusetts more likely to die from COVID than Black or Hispanic people, although there is some variation across age groups, according to a new analysis conducted for the Globe by researchers at Boston University’s School of Public Health.)
This is NOT fine
Eric Adams is criminalizing masks in a pandemic as mayor of NYC, doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state but chosen as an adviser to Democratic President Joe Biden.
This isn’t centrism - the guy is a right-wing religious extremist anti-masker who puts profits over people and human life. So is this infiltration, co-option, or controlled opposition?
Or is the Democratic Party just sleepwalking us into fascism while according to Data For Progress poll of likely voters, 82% of Democrats want mask requirements in public indoor spaces — so this shouldn’t even be a question that they would support people wearing masks to protect ourselves!
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Some people die with the first infection, or get Long Covid, and there are still people out there who haven’t been infected yet who might not survive to reinfection. I just think we need to insert that detail into every discussion about getting "protection" from reinfection from the first infection, because it's inherently based in eugenics to see any reinfection protection as good because it assumes first infections, which are still killing people, not to mention that reinfections kill people too.
This idea seems to be persisting that people listen to the school principal’s dictates when they or their children have a serious novel virus that's killed so many people. As I have said before, that defies any sense or reason. If you test positive for covid, you should be calling the doctor to ask for the best possible treatment you can get. There is evidence that Paxlovid is helpful, including in potentially reducing the risk of Long Covid.
It’s an inconvenient truth that Covid is associated with an excess of heart attacks and strokes beyond the first month of infection. That can no longer be ignored or refuted. The positive outlook is that these studies zoomed in on patients infected in the pre-vaccine era, and subsequently we’ve seen that vaccinations were linked with halving the adverse outcomes. But even with vaccination the rate isn’t zero.