🎭 Long Covid advocates distribute masks at London theatre. 😷 "ED Remains Colored by Despair" 🏥 CDC moved or deleted the webpage but the Wayback Machine remembers
Prioritizing attendance over health and safety on both sides of pond.
Contents:
- Events, Actions, & Campaigns
- Pandemic field notes & “Living with the virus”
- In the News (virus & adjacent media, science, news, and op-eds)
- This is NOT Fine section (gaslighting & other outrages)
- He(a)rd Scuttlebutt (the pandemic grapevine)
USA - Letter Campaign Take action for masks in healthcare settings.
By People’s CDC - call script on instagram
Long Covid safety advocates distributed masks at David Tennant’s Macbeth at London’s Donmar Warehouse theatre
To reduce infections, London theatres are upgrading their ventilation systems. Modelling by aerosol scientists has demonstrated that layered mitigations, such as HEPA filtration and effective masking, are the most effective for protecting people in indoor spaces. Protect the Heart of the Arts has chosen Macbeth for this evening’s mask hand-out because the play was first performed in 1606, when an outbreak of plague closed London theatres for eight months. We advocate for layered mitigations in venues, like clean air and masking, so that performers, crew, venue staff, and patrons can safely attend.
For more information: PROTECT THE HEART OF THE ARTS
I recently tried to make these points about our community theatre here in Scranton Pennsylvania:
The problem is, we’re not post pandemic. 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.” (The theatre owner at least referred to the pandemic in the present tense.) Of course I wrote a Letter to the Editor…
🗞️ In the news
Maryland Dept. of Health says universal masking should start up again in medical facilities WYPR - 88.1 FM Baltimore | By Scott Maucione Published January 3, 2024 “If you get COVID, while you're in the hospital, you're twice as likely to die of it than if you got it somewhere else, or came in with it,” said Roselie Bright, an epidemiologist with COVID Safe Maryland. “That's why we think it's especially important to protect vulnerable people because they are there in the healthcare space.” MDH sent a letter to clinicians on Dec. 28 informing them of the increased numbers. The health department says universal masking should stay in effect until two weeks after the numbers have decreased below 10 hospitalizations per 100,000. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data through December 21 shows the Maryland combined hospitalization rate for the week ending on December 16 was 11.4, in large part to increasing COVID and flu infections,” David McCallister, a spokesperson for MDH told WYPR. “The Department recommends implementing broad facility-wide source control in all patient care areas and patient-facing healthcare settings, including outpatient and long-term care.”
MedPage Today - The ED Remains Colored by Despair — We must hold on to our few sources of hope by Edwin Leap, MD, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today January 1, 2024 Even those with common, everyday problems despair as they wait hours to be treated for pneumonia or fracture, for dehydration or fever, for uncertain chest pain, only to be told to wait yet a little longer as the sickest of the sick continue to arrive via EMS and take up what few precious beds remain open in our departments, which are almost always at capacity. Some of the very sick leave the waiting room out of sheer exhaustion; perhaps it's best to suffer in your own bed rather than a stiff chair with someone coughing, hallucinating, or screaming next to you. A few of those who leave simply die at home because their illnesses were not immediately manifest to the harried triage staff.
Futurism - 17,000 People Died From Taking Hydroxychloroquine, Scientists Estimate Patients were basically guinea pigs. January 5, 2024 / by Sharon Adarlo In news that's sure to kickstart a wave of recriminations, researchers have estimated that almost 17,000 people died in six countries during the first COVID-19 wave due to the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), an anti-malaria medication that gained viral traction as a potential treatment against COVID even after scientific evidence failed to back up its efficacy. A team of researchers from France, Canada and China revealed the findings in a new study published in the science journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy. They arrived at the number after performing statistical analysis on medical and hospital data about excess mortality. "During the first wave of COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was used off-label despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits," the researchers write. "Since then, a meta-analysis of randomised trials showed that HCQ use was associated with an 11 percent increase in the mortality rate."
Marks P, Califf R. Is Vaccination Approaching a Dangerous Tipping Point? JAMA. Published online January 05, 2024. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.27685 Anyone doubting the benefits of vaccination need only look to low-income parts of the world where measles vaccination is inaccessible, and many thousands of children continue to die each year due to preventable disease. Unfortunately, with the success of pediatric vaccination campaigns to date, increasing numbers of people have become complacent and underestimate the actual risk of forgoing vaccination.
This is NOT fine
U.S. and U.K. both prioritize attendance over infectious disease control and the well-being of children.
Not one mention in this blog post about the role of covid, long covid, parents lost to covid, or parents disabled by covid.
What if my child is too ill to go to school? It’s usually safe for parents and carers to send their children to school with mild illnesses, like a minor cough, runny nose or sore throat.
Safe for who?
There’s also no mention of covid at all in a ProPublica article about the privatization of truancy policing in America.
With state and federal governments largely abdicating any role in getting kids back into classrooms, some schools have turned to private companies for a reimagined version of the truant officer.
There’s even what looks like a PR campaign in op-eds for draconian attendance policy up to and including making kids stay at their desks even if there’s maybe a bomb in the classroom.
Lockdown revisionist hysteria taken to its ultimate conclusion. CHLOE HUMBERT DEC 20, 2023
I had difficulty believing my eyes when I saw the Editorial Board op-ed from Oct 22, 2023, “Reconsider automatically closing schools for prank threats” because this is taking anti-lockdown hysteria way too far. The persistent pandemic era and its “Lockdown” Revisionism and associated but widely debunked “learning loss” myths, should not inform public safety response to threats.
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
What are we doing, northeast?
Doctor Who actor “lurgified” following the holidays.
CDC deleted the webpage where in December 2021 they had announced the shortened the isolation time after prompting by Delta Airlines. It’s available still on The Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
“It is our responsibility as a civilization to take care of each other. Please do your part to make indoor spaces safer for everyone. Protect our older adults and marignalized groups. Wear a proper mask indoors.” - Ryan Tennant, Kitchener