🏥 Masks in healthcare campaigns 😷 UK Inquiry covers Long Covid 🤯 Debunked Florida surgeon general debunked 🚩
Vaccines are covered by insurance in the U.S. Let’s refrain from repeating unintentional vaccine misinformation on social media.
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: Call the healthcare system
Illinois USA - Care Not Covid Chicagoland - Outreach to Healthcare Systems, Wednesdays at Noon. Provides sample scripts for Illinois and nationwide in the U.S. https://tinyurl.com/callhospital
Maryland USA - Covid Safe Maryland - This guide has a Sample Script for a phone call or email urging healthcare providers to implement the Maryland Department of Health’s universal mask requirements guidance
Find other local, state, and national groups here: http://bit.ly/covidadvocacygroups.
USA Letter Campaign Ask Your State Officials To Reinstate Mask Requirements in Healthcare
By Pan End It - “Mask requirements are needed in healthcare settings to provide infection control and to ensure that disabled and other high-risk people have equal access to healthcare spaces.”
Vaccines are covered by insurance in the U.S. Let’s refrain from repeating unintentional vaccine misinformation on social media.
Sometimes I see people on social media saying things that may have been true for them or someone they know, once, at some point, months ago, in a particular region, but that is definitely not true for everyone, or not true now. This can be really problematic, because if someone sees those posts, they may assume something is true for them that’s not, and dissuade them from acting appropriately. That could cost lives.
For example, people I know got vaccinated back in the fall with no problems whatsoever getting the vaccine and insurance covering it up front. There were less appointments available compared to in the past, and there were delays in what vaccine you could get where, but generally it has been easy to schedule an appointment and getting it free at the point of service. I live in Pennsylvania which is pretty consumer-friendly and has better than average regulation of health insurance, and I realize that finding a pharmacy and navigating in-network insurance providers may be a headache, especially in a “red state” or in the South. But despite the bumpy rollout back in the fall, the vaccinations are covered by insurance in the U.S. - and if you don’t have insurance, there are options available to get vaccinated for free. So if someone tweets out that someone’s third cousin had a hard time finding an in-network provider for the vaccine or claims wrongly that it’s not covered by insurance anymore, or says their friend had to pay out of pocket — that could lead someone else to not bother to seek out vaccination, even though for that person it might be as easy as going to their local pharmacy with their insurance card today, and voila! We should really want to encourage that, and not inadvertently discourage anyone by re-sharing those off the cuff claims of difficulty.
A lot of this type of misinformation gets shared unwittingly. Social media really incentivizes people saying and repeating inflammatory stuff, often at the expense of useful info. And then things really get easily misinterpreted or misunderstood. But also, sometimes influencers deliberately seek the indirect boosting from anti-vax troll farms and will put out deliberately confusing vaccine information because they know it’ll get that attention. Everyone who uses social media should understand how the social media influence economy ecosystem works and stay alert to it.
The false assertion that insurance isn’t covering vaccines is unfortunately believable because outrageous experiences with American health insurance are common. But often health insurance companies do reject claims that they should pay. If you need some tips on dealing with appeals paperwork — ProPublica made a letter generator to help people to get their records.
🗞️ In the news
COVID Is ‘Still a Pandemic,’ WHO Leader Says World Health Organization expert 'worries' about the ongoing pandemic Published 01/02/24 - Mansur Shaheen “It’s still a global health threat and it’s still a pandemic causing far too many (re)infections, hospitalizations, deaths and long covid when tools exist to prevent them,” she wrote.
Important Context - Fueled By Mystery Donors, COVID Conspiracy Group Grew Budget Last Year. The Brownstone Institute raked in sizable, untraceable donations. WALKER BRAGMAN DEC 14, 2023 Brownstone has also been aligned with Koch’s network on issues like climate change, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) efforts to make corporations more accountable, and of course, public health. Throughout the pandemic, Koch-backed and other right-wing, business-aligned groups worked to reopen businesses and schools without new regulations and defeat mask and vaccine requirements. These groups worked to pressure lawmakers and influence public opinion. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a Koch-funded litigation shop, even filed lawsuits targeting public health efforts.
Pronto soccorso in tilt da Torino a Roma: è emergenza tra influenza, Covid e ferie. “Giorni di attesa per un posto letto e ambulanze in coda” 29 Dicembre 2023 Google Translate Headline: Emergency room in haywire from Turin to Rome: it's an emergency between flu, Covid and holidays. “Days of waiting for a bed and ambulances queuing” - Google Translate Excerpt: In Lombardy 300 patients waiting – A beautiful picture, which risks worsening in January with the reopening of schools which will cause viral circulation to skyrocket. As reported by the Corriere della Sera in the Milanese edition, in the emergency rooms of Lombardy on Thursday there were 300 patients stuck on stretchers in the 99 emergency rooms. There was no bed available for any of them. Hence the decision taken by the Welfare councilor Guido Bertolaso , in agreement with the general directors, to resort to an extraordinary measure: the suspension of hospitalizations from home in structures such as Gaetano Pini , Golgi Redaelli and Trivulzio which deal with rehabilitation therapies. Those beds will be intended for patients already admitted to hospital but on the road to recovery. If Milan cries, Rome doesn't laugh. On the contrary. The situation in the emergency rooms of the capital is disastrous.
PA Reprimanded for Secretly Pushing Ivermectin — Matthew Trom, PA, reportedly prescribed the drug without documentation. by Rachael Robertson, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today December 12, 2023 Ivermectin has proven time and time again to be an ineffective treatment for COVID. While some doctors have been punished for prescribing unproven off-label usages for drugs like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, it's been rare for PAs to get caught doing the same.
ABC - Long COVID will take your health, your wealth — then it will come for your marriage By Hayley Gleeson - December 27, 2023 And suddenly, friends and family members who can't easily interact with you stop interacting with you." Until 2020, Dr Putrino worked mostly with people who had suffered stroke and traumatic brain injury — typically sudden events that result in disability and big shifts in the dynamics of patients' relationships. Now, he sees those same changes rippling through the families who visit his long COVID clinic. The partners of some patients, he says, will acknowledge the difficulty of their situation but "lean in and say, 'I'm committed to you; our relationship hasn't changed, just your circumstances have'." Others, though, "have gone in the other direction, and said, 'Well, I never really signed up for this, this is the end of the relationship'. And unfortunately, the negative reaction is much more common."
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Health department warns of measles cluster among unvaccinated residents that originated with CHOP patient by Abraham Gutman Published Jan. 4, 2024 The city has confirmed four cases of measles. Two additional possible cases are under investigation. The two unconfirmed cases are among people exposed to an infected person who spent time at a day-care center in violation of quarantine orders, the Department of Public Health said.
This is NOT fine
UK Inquiry covers Long Covid in kids
"Any public information campaign would need to be carefully managed to ensure the NHS could manage patient flow."
Is this why developing long covid after "mild" symptoms is often downplayed by government, particularly in regards to children? The government is worried too many people will come forward.
Prevention is possible, it’s a policy choice not to do prevention.
At considerable expense the Houses of Parliament have provided a clean air environment for parliamentarians. The same right to clean air and a lower risk of infection from all airborne pathogens should be extended to schools and other workplaces. Department for Education data show the majority of student absence is due to illness, with Covid still being the most common cause when the last report on ‘ghost children’ was published. There has also been little attention paid to how the UK is becoming an international outlier with primary vaccination withdrawn for anyone who isn’t already vaccinated, including children who never had the opportunity, and a winter vaccine programme which is available only to the over 65s and those with a narrow list of clinical conditions. Compare this to the US where everyone over six months old is eligible for updated vaccines.
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
New York Times headlines are often very problematic. And if you want the scientific explanation about why the Florida surgeon general is WRONG, I recommend Debunk the Funk with Dr. Wilson.
“Claims that Covid is now on a par with flu, even if it were true, should not result in relief, but in concern as another serious disease adds to the burdens of an existing one.”