✒️ Petition & Letter Campaign to In-N-Out Burger to reverse mask ban 😷 Air virus detection monitor, not yet for sale, and we still need layers of protection 😷
Retroactive ending of the pandemic, the latest iteration of "covid is over"
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 Petition: Reverse Dangerous and Discriminatory PPE Policy at In-N-Out Burger
by Gwen Bishop: With no cure for Long Covid, masking and COVID-19 safety are crucial workers' rights concerns. Businesses must not jeopardize employees' lives. We implore In-N-Out to reconsider and prioritize employee and customer health. Let us create an inclusive, safe environment where health and livelihood are not in conflict.
USA Letter Campaign: Weigh in on In-N-Out Burger’s mask ban policy
By People’s CDC: Support In-N-Out workers contacting In-N-Out to let them know you are opposed to this kind of discriminatory, deadly policy.
A postcard to Joe Biden from Chloe in Scranton, the People’s CDC External Review of the CDC recommendation #3
I sent postcards but one can also send these messages through the White House Contact Page.
🗞️ In the news
🇯🇵 日テレNEWS - A quarter of all students are absent due to corona and fever Schools will be closed from 18th to 21st Closing ceremony will be postponed. Fukuoka | July 18, 2023 16:06 福岡市教育委員会によりますと、18日現在、福岡市西区の福岡西陵高校では、全校生徒939人の4分の1にあたる238人の生徒が欠席しています。このうち39人については新型コロナウイルスの陽性が確認されていて、そのほかの199人は発熱などの症状があるということです。福岡西陵高校では感染の拡大を防ぐため、18日から21日までの休校を決めました。/ English Translation via Gooogle Translate: “According to the Fukuoka City Board of Education, as of the 18th, at Fukuoka Seiryo High School in Nishi Ward, Fukuoka City, 238 students, a quarter of the total 939 students, are absent. Of these, 39 have been confirmed to be positive for the new coronavirus, and the other 199 have symptoms such as fever. Fukuoka Seiryo High School decided to close from the 18th to the 21st to prevent the spread of infection.”
🇺🇸 Fierce Pharma - Pfizer's massive North Carolina plant heavily damaged by tornado, prompting new US drug supply fears. By Fraiser Kansteiner, Jul 20, 2023 The Rocky Mount plant employs about 4,500 staffers and produces around a quarter of all sterile injectables used in U.S. hospitals, according to the drugmaker’s website. The plant houses 1.4 million square feet of manufacturing space and is "one of the largest sterile injectable facilities in the world," Pfizer says. The damage at the plant will likely cause "long-term shortages," University of Utah Health senior pharmacy director Erin Fox told The Associated Press. An image from ABC affiliate WTVD, posted by Reuters, shows severe damage to the structure's roof. Pfizer acquired the plant in its 2015 buyout of Hospira worth $17 billion. The tornado traveled some 16.5 miles on the ground, lasting for about 30 minutes with wind speeds up to 150 miles per hour, CNN reported, citing the National Weather Service.
🇺🇸 YnetNews.com - Members of Herzog's delegation barred from White House due to COVID-19. Several Israeli delegation members refrained from participating in the meeting, including President Isaac Herzog's brother, who is Israel's ambassador to Washington and who received an inconclusive coronavirus test result. By Itamar Eichner, July 18 2023 The whole incident raised a panic in the White House, as the journalists and photographers present were asked to wear masks. Israeli journalists, who have long abandoned the habit of wearing masks, had to find a quick solution. One reporter, who happened to have a few masks in his bag, shared them with his colleagues. However, the American request wasn't strictly enforced, and many journalists attended without masks.
🇺🇸 Bedbugs: What travelers need to know this summer. While bedbug infestations can happen in all types of places, hotels and other lodging are a major spreading spot, experts say. By Forrest Brown, CNN, Published Jul 7, 2023 What Quinn started grappling with this past winter might portend problems during this summer of rip-roarin’ travel. “It’s hard to predict this sort of thing, but the scenario of record increases in travel and staff shortages in the hospitality industry is concerning in respect to bedbugs,” said Michael F. Potter, professor emeritus in the Department of Entomology at the University of Kentucky. While bedbug infestations can happen in all types of places, hotels and other lodging are a major spreading spot, Potter said. “The staff shortage issue is concerning because the best way for hotels to prevent infestations from escalating within their hotels is staying vigilant. And the biggest way they can do that is by performing regular inspections of their rooms … by the housekeepers who need to be trained and educated to spot infestations at their initial stages.” The worse the staffing shortage, the harder it becomes to stay on top of the situation, Potter said.
🇺🇸 ABC News - Dozens of beaches across Northeast closed for swimming due to high levels of bacteria in water. Heavy rainfall may have led to fecal contamination of beachwater. By Mary Kekatos, July 10, 2023 Numerous beaches in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island were closed by public health officials due to unsafe water quality. "When the water quality is unsafe, the beach is required to be 'posted' with a sign that indicates swimming is unsafe and may cause illness," the Massachusetts Department of Public Health wrote on its website. More than 60 beaches were closed for swimming in Massachusetts after high levels of fecal bacteria were detected in the water, according to the department. Heavy rainfall from recent storms that hit the Northeastern states may be one reason behind the high levels of human waste, experts said.
🇺🇸 Stateline - Workers lack protections when wildfire smoke makes the air dangerous. Only three states have developed enforceable standards on worker safety and wildfire smoke. BY: CAITLIN DEWEY - JULY 18, 2023 Rules could require employers to monitor air pollution and provide protective equipment such as N95 masks on days when air quality levels fall below certain thresholds. But regulations are not common in much of the country, where wildfire smoke and the health damage it wreaks are both relatively new concerns. And even supporters of regulations say states with rules have had some difficulty with implementation. Cities across the Northeast and Midwest broke longtime records for air pollution last month, prompting a wide range of employer reactions. In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the U.S. Postal Service pulled some mail carriers from their routes as conditions worsened. In Minneapolis, construction workers finished out their shifts even after reporting fatigue and asthma symptoms. In New York City, William Medina — a delivery worker for Uber and several other apps — donned his own mask and drove his moped through a thick gray haze that made it difficult to breathe. The state labor department had encouraged employers to limit or suspend outdoor work, but compliance was voluntary.
This is NOT fine
The End of The Pandemic - Declared Retroactively???
Dane Co. health officials drop pandemic-era public gathering fines against dance studio. By Jaymes Langrehr, July 6 2023 They also dispute WILL's claims that they gave up trying to collect the fines because they did not want to continue to defend the merits of its health orders, saying the fines against A Leap Above were the last pending enforcement action still on their list from the pandemic era. "With the end of the COVID pandemic it was simply decided that it was not in the public interest to continue further litigation," Finke said. "It’s unfortunate that after losing the major point of the litigation, WILL had to put a final inaccurate spin on it."
With the end of the pandemic declared, will murders committed in 2020 through 2023 will be waived as legal as well? What is even going on with the logic here?
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Air virus detection monitor - this is NOT yet for sale
The Washington University team is now working to commercialize the air quality monitor.
I’m interested in this and think there are definitely many good uses for something that can directly detect covid and other pathogens in the air.
HOWEVER,
This is not yet for sale anywhere - anything you see for sale now being promoted on social media - it’s not this. BUYER BEWARE any devices or products promoted on social media who, as Steven Novella explains, might deceptively use clinical research to assert “specific unsupported clinical claims” that are not real.
Detecting is only useful if someone deploys this, and then acts upon the results, for example with contact tracing, or immediately clearing the area and advising people to quarantine who were exposed… etc. Will any business deploy this without it being mandated? Why would they want the knowledge if then they have the liability and must act on it? It will have to be mandated.
When you’re out in public, and someone comes near you coughing, at that point you should put on a mask but it’s pretty late at that point and you may have already been exposed. Better to have the mask on from the get-go. The same issue applies with this air detection monitor. By the time the alarm goes off, there’s enough virus in the enclosed space to have infected somebody else. Definitely time to leave, but not great if you had no other layer of precautions.
And that’s that. We still need LAYERED protections.
This is the truth of infectious disease public health in a society. There is no “get out of covid free” card, and some ideas are nowhere near ready for prime time. Various ideas are being marketed as hopium “silver bullets” and promoted on social media, basically to push this stuff (sometimes snake oil that isn’t even effective) as the ticket to get people to unmask - for The Economy!
Wear a mask, get vaccinated, stay home if you’re sick, write your representatives and demand real public health & paid sick leave.
And if you must gather, make it safer:
“The science of n95 respirators is well established and based on physical properties, engineered filter materials, and our scientific understanding of how airborne transmission works, not clinical trials.”
Kaitlin Sundling MD PHD - Public comment at the CDC HICPAC Meeting on June 8th 2023