⏰ Lowering life expectancy & raising the retirement age makes zero sense 👎 relationships during the covid era, a twitter spaces event 🐦 Enfrentando los Retos del COVID-19 (webinar en español)
Government failure is terrible. Knowingly adding to it is problematic. Using it as an excuse proves you know better. And if you’re in a government leadership role, you have no excuse.
Contents:
- Events, Actions, & Campaigns
- Pandemic field notes & “Living with the virus”
- In the News (virus & adjacent media, science, news, essays, and op-eds)
- This is NOT Fine section (gaslighting & other outrages)
- He(a)rd Scuttlebutt (the pandemic grapevine)
Webinar en español: Enfrentando los Retos del COVID-19: El estado actual de la pandemia
This event will be completely in Spanish. / Este evento será completamente en español.
El equipo del NIH Florida Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities en Mayo Clinic está colaborando con Health and Human Services (HHS) Partnership Center, AltaMed Health Services, y otras organizaciones para organizar un evento de panel centrado en el estado actual de la pandemia.
Estará pregrabado y se puede ver en https://connect.mayoclinic.org/blog/health-equity-research/ o en la página de FLCEAL en Facebook a partir del 2 de noviembre.
Twitter Spaces: relationships during the covid era
Thursday 3 November 2022 @ 2pm US Eastern Time / 11am US Pacific
by Stanley Lee @stanigator
NYC Council Hearing on "Oversight - COVID-19 in NYC: Evaluating the Present Challenges."
Tuesday, Nov 1st at 10am EST
The hearing is being held by the Committee on Health and the Subcommittee on COVID Recovery and Resilience.
Anyone in the public is able to testify virtually or in person at the hearing and/or you can submit written testimony up to 72 hours after hearing has been adjourned (ie by Friday, Nov 4th around 11am/12pm EST). Masks are required at City Hall.
USA Petition: Require masking in all healthcare settings
The CDC revised its infection control guidelines regarding mask-wearing in healthcare settings, from hospitals and clinics to home care providers and nursing homes. This change is dangerous, unethical and based on flawed data.
By the People’s CDC
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/require-masking-in-all-healthcare-settings/
Some politicians (Republicans of course) are talking about raising the Social Security retirement age in the U.S. at the same time that life expectancy has dropped sharply.
It used to be a truism that no elected officeholders would dare to tamper with Social Security if they wished to keep their jobs. That must not be true any longer, judging from the surge in threats to the revered program coming from the GOP lately. In its latest manifestation, four Republicans angling to become chair of the House Budget Committee in a Republican House talked openly about holding the federal debt ceiling hostage to an agreement on “entitlements” — that is, Social Security and Medicare — plainly aimed at cutting benefits.
Many more people won’t make it into retirement.
Stat News: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline by Kate Sheridan
“It’s a ridiculous decline,” Anderson said. “When I saw a 6.6 year decline over two years, my jaw dropped. … I made my staff re-run the numbers to make sure.” Life expectancy isn’t really a prediction for a single individual. It’s more like a check engine light — an indicator for the health of society as a whole. When more people die than would be expected, or when they die at younger ages than expected, then life expectancy will decline.)
And at the same time those who survive and can keep working face age discrimination pushing them out of the labor market, and to very few options.
Polls suggest that age discrimination is very common in the workplace, and it appears to be especially prevalent in the technology and finance industries. In a survey conducted by the American Association of Retired Persons in 2018, 61% of workers 45 and older reported seeing or experiencing it. A study by the Urban Institute and ProPublica published that same year found that 56% of workers 50 or older were pushed out of longtime jobs before they chose to retire. Research suggests that discrimination against elderly job applicants is pervasive. When researchers have submitted to employers fictitious resumes designed to be as identical as possible except for age, older applicants received fewer callbacks than younger ones.
🗞️ In the news
👻 Miami Herald: Lying about COVID? Many Americans did so to feel ‘normal’ amid pandemic, study finds By Julia Marnin (archive link) (Study participants responded to a list of nine COVID-19 related behaviors they may have lied to others about. About 4 in 10 of those surveyed — 721 participants — said they had misled others about at least one of the listed behaviors, the research found. “Some individuals may think if they fib about their COVID-19 status once or twice, it’s not a big deal,” Dr. Angela Fagerlin, senior study author from University of Utah Health, said in a news release. “But if, as our study suggests, nearly half of us are doing it, that’s a significant problem that contributes to prolonging the pandemic,” Fagerlin added. COVID behaviors people lied about The most common COVID-19 lies included whether a person was actually following virus safety measures or breaking quarantine rules, according to the research.)
🕰️ ABC WLS-TV Chicago: If you had COVID, several of your organs could be aging 3-4 years faster: Study By Luz Pena (article + video) (All pointing to multiple human organs aging faster after COVID. The majority happening among people who were hospitalized but also some with mild COVID symptoms. "Almost by three to four years in the span of just one," said Dr. Al-Aly and added, "What we have seen is that people are losing about three to four percent kidney function in the year that follows that infection. That usually happens with aging. Three to four years of aging.")
🇩🇪 DW: German hospital association wants masks indoors again (In about half of the hospitals in Germany, Gass said, "scheduled operations and treatments are already being postponed, beds are being closed due to a lack of staff, and hospitals have to temporarily withdraw from emergency care." "State governments should work with their regional health departments to see where mandatory masks are appropriate indoors, including in large crowds," Gass added.)
🇨🇦 Ottawa Citizen: CHEO forced to cancel surgeries to cope with 'perfect storm' of severe viral season by Elizabeth Payne (Record-high levels of the RSV illness plus new cases of COVID-19 and the flu are all driving an unprecedented surge in demand at CHEO that has forced the hospital to cancel some heart, brain and spinal surgeries and is leaving families waiting 15 hours or more in its emergency department.)
🇺🇸 The Washington Post: Oklahoma GOP ties hospital’s covid funds to end of gender-affirming care By Kimberly Kindy (Oklahoma Republicans, who were pushed into action through a campaign led by a pair of conservative podcasters, hailed the move as necessary to restrict the type of medical care for young transgender patients that has riled the party’s base this year.)
🇺🇸 CNN: Assailant tried to tie up Paul Pelosi in home attack and shouted, ‘Where is Nancy?’ sources say By Jamie Gangel, Clare Foran, Whitney Wild and John Miller (The man who allegedly attacked Paul Pelosi early Friday posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6 attack, and an acquaintance told CNN that he seemed “out of touch with reality.”)
🛳️ The Washington Post: All major cruise lines will soon allow unvaccinated travelers By James Bikales (archive) (Travel agents and cruise companies have seen a spike in bookings in recent weeks after vaccine requirements were lifted, though company executives said they expect that most passengers will still be vaccinated. The recovery is a boon for the industry after a 15-month shutdown, but covid remains a concern, as experts have warned the close quarters of ships are particularly conducive to the virus’s spread.)
This is NOT fine
A lot of prestigious & prominent people in our society have been masks off, and I wish they’d put masks on, and not just for Halloween.
Government officials in public health leadership and even some doctors in our neighborhoods have come out against disabled people. If a doctor says they don’t want patients with disabilities — what do they think should happen to those disabled patients exactly?
Doctors say the virus will only hurt at risk people, then many refuse to take simple hygienic precautions such as masking around at risk people. Instead, some even attend super spreader events.
Government officials tell us it's about individual personal responsibility. Then elite shills tell us we can never blame individual government officials.
Government failure is to blame for a lot of misunderstandings and a lot of bad behaviour. Sometimes average people are pressured to unmask at work, or people are dependent on a family that has been tricked into pandemic denial. There are also people who know better, people who vocally claim they want better — but refuse to walk the walk and won’t even at least do a public show of solidarity mask wearing.
Government failure is terrible. Knowingly adding to it is problematic. Using it as an excuse proves you know better. And if you’re in a government leadership role, you have no excuse.
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Some news outlets are tsk-tsk-ing about “alarm” again. Some of these news outlets with reporters who are more concerned about alarm than dangerous alarming things should really be inspected by OSHA, the fire department, and whoever does the building codes in their area, because there’s bound to be some problems.
In a recent newsletter, Katelyn Jetelina asks: “Why is booster uptake suboptimal?” This is sure rich coming from someone who in a previous newsletter issue she posted decided to lead with the lie and basically helped spread vaccine disinformation that probably contributed to suboptimal booster uptake among her own readership! And now, instead of maybe just laying out the facts on the boosters, or at least starting out by pointing to something that does that, she instead chose to do a whole newsletter post almost exclusively devoted to a laundry list of explanations justifying suboptimal bivalent booster uptake, leading with the propaganda line people keep repeating that you should feel tired of protecting yourself from danger. If Jetelina started her newsletter by referencing “child car safety seat fatigue” — would you take her seriously?
The people shaming twitter-doctors are being unreasonable. It's unfair to critique doctors who brag on social media about not washing their hands before surgery. We can't expect surgeons to live up to the high standards we expect from fast food line cooks and 3 year old toddlers. /end sarcasm. Note to uppity doctors on twitter: you don’t have to wave your prestigious letters after your name at us and punch down. If you don’t like the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Stop putting your credentials in your twitter name and bio and maybe people won’t hold you to that higher standard as a prestigious person in public with fancy credentials. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have people adoring you and respecting you and following your twitter account because of your credentials — but then say you don’t want to be held to a standard based on those credentials. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
“Unlike the broad-chested heroes of proletarian novels or Eisenstein films, rousing their workmates to rebellion with a single fiery speech, the classical rank-and-file organizer was more like a patient gardener constantly weeding daily plant life of its inevitable dissensions and jealousies.”
— Mike Davis