📝 Petition: We need a drug store mask requirement 😷 NNU OSHA Permanent Standard Action Guide 📣 Letter Campaign: Don’t End the COVID-19 National Emergency!
🐻 Smokey Bear says think before spinning the unmasked wheel of misfortune.
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 to Drug Stores: Stop In-Store COVID Exposure & Transmission! WE NEED A DRUG STORE MASK REQUIREMENT!
Current U.S. policies tell immune-compromised folks at high risk and other vulnerable people to go to pharmacies to get vaccines and boosters – at the same time as people contagious with active COVID infections are going there to get Paxlovid and COVID tests, and others who may not yet know they are contagious are simply shopping. ALL WITH NO MASKS! This policy makes no sense. Drug stores are community shopping centers and provide healthcare.
by People’s CDC
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/we-need-a-drug-store-mask-requirement/
USA Campaign: National Nurses United OSHA Permanent Standard Action Guide
OSHA is delaying implementation of a critical measure - the Permanent Standard for Covid-19 - that they promised to make our health care facilities and communities safer. We are calling on OSHA and the Biden Administration to keep their promise and immediately issue a permanent standard for Covid-19 to protect health care workers and patients. Here’s how you can help:
Help deliver our petition virtually by Tweeting at OSHA (or sharing on Facebook). Sign and share our online petition. Write a letter to the editor to your local newspapers. Host a vigil in your community
USA Letter Campaign: Don’t End the COVID-19 National Emergency!
Tell your rep: NO on SJR63 (a joint resolution ENDING the declared National COVID Emergency)! Terminating this declaration could cause up to 15 million people to lose Medicaid/CHIP, reduction in SNAP benefits, and vax access. txt SIGN PKAMFD to 50409
https://resist.bot/petitions/PKAMFD
Smokey says: Before you go out think, choose to wear a mask or spin the wheel…?
🗞️ In the news
🇺🇸 The Oregonian / Oregonlive.com: Bird-flu outbreak hits Oregon; wildlife officials say ‘it’s definitely serious’ By Gosia Wozniacka (An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in both wild birds and backyard flocks has killed thousands of birds throughout the state, Oregon wildlife and agriculture officials say. The disease, typically known as bird flu, has been detected in almost every county in Oregon. Its current strain is especially deadly for wild birds, which are dying in larger numbers than during previous outbreaks.)
🇺🇸 OPB: OHSU shifts to emergency mode amid rise in serious pediatric cases By Amelia Templeton (OHSU says it has no more pediatric ICU beds available and is formally shifting to what’s known as crisis standards of care mode. The move comes amid a surge in the childhood respiratory virus RSV and a statewide nurse staffing shortage. In the past week, Oregon hospitals have transferred some of their sickest pediatric patients to Idaho because of a lack of pediatric ICU beds available in Oregon. “The impetus for making this change is that we were concerned we wouldn’t be able to serve the next child who needed pediatric critical care,” said Dr. Carl Eriksson, a pediatric critical care expert at OHSU.)
🇺🇸 The Hill: Students, staff at DC schools must test negative for COVID-19 to return after Thanksgiving BY JULIA MUELLER (The requirement, which D.C. schools have also used to ease returns to in-person learning after other seasonal breaks, is in practice this Thanksgiving “to support a safe return” after the holiday, according to the mayor’s office.)
🇦🇺 CNN: Cruise ship with 800 Covid-positive passengers docks in Sydney (A cruise ship with hundreds of Covid-positive passengers docked in Sydney, Australia, after being hit by a wave of infections. The Majestic Princess cruise ship was about halfway through a 12-day voyage when an outbreak of cases was noticed, Carnival Australia president Marguerite Fitzgerald told reporters in a media briefing on Saturday.)
💊 medRxiv: Nirmatrelvir and the Risk of Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (Nirmatrelvir was associated with reduced risk of PASC in people who were unvaccinated, vaccinated, and boosted, and in people with primary SARS-CoV-2 infection and reinfection. In sum, our results show that in people with SARS-CoV-2 infection who had at least 1 risk factor for progression to severe COVID-19 illness, treatment with nirmatrelvir within 5 days of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test was associated with reduced risk of PASC regardless of vaccination status and history of prior infection. The totality of findings suggests that treatment with nirmatrelvir during the acute phase of COVID-19 reduces the risk of post-acute adverse health outcomes.)
🌐 Health Policy Watch: Half WHO’s Senior Leadership Team to Leave in Huge Geneva Shake-up by Kerry Cullinan (Despite the low-key internal announcement, this is the biggest single leadership change that Tedros has made since 2019, two years after he took office, when he made a set of sweeping changes as part of his “Transformation” agenda for the organization. It has been anticipated for months by Geneva insiders who say the Director-General has been itching to shake up his team since being re-elected for a second term. Additionally, there have been pressures from large donors for Tedros to streamline his senior team, which was unprecedentedly large, and some said, top-heavy.)
🇺🇸 ARS TECHNICA: Measles outbreak jumps to 7 Ohio daycares, 1 school—all with unvaccinated kids by Beth Mole (As of Wednesday morning, there have been 18 confirmed cases from seven childcare facilities and one school. All of the cases are in unvaccinated children, and at least 15 cases are in children under the age of 4. At least six have required hospitalization, Kelli Newman, spokesperson for Columbus Public Health, told Ars. Health officials are now working to curb the outbreak, including conducting contact tracing at affected facilities, coordinating with local health care providers on measles awareness efforts, and reaching out to families to educate them about and encourage vaccination with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.)
This is NOT fine
😷🧯😷
After a long and successful career, Smokey Bear is retiring in Revelstoke in an effort to change the way people think about fire. Stefan Hood of the BC Wildfire Service says they are trying to shift people’s focus away from how to suppress fire toward how to live with it. They are visualizing that change through the retirement of Smokey Bear and the introduction of their new mascot: Ember the Fox.
When the neighborhood is burning down, you don’t say shut off the sirens and let’s go into the burning house and calmly center ourselves in meditation among the flames. You put the fire out.
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
I’ve never seen so many examples of straw man arguments as I have in the past couple of weeks. It’s the basis of many pointless feuds and disingenuous arguments that have been drummed up lately by straw-manning and sea lioning. People are really really reaching these days. I wonder why!
I’m hearing that standard water cooler conversation is about who has a relative or friend hospitalized with a respiratory illness. While coworkers sound hoarse and maybe are even coughing.
Katelyn Jetelina, paid communicator for the CDC, practically promised you in her newsletter, with a “friendly reminder” (does she think she’s your boss?) - that your Thanksgiving gatherings would not result you, your family, friends, or neighbors being subjected to overflowing hospitals as long as you masked for 4 days before Thanksgiving and don’t go to the gathering if you’re sick or test positive. There’s a flaw in that plan, can anyone spot it? Oh right, when you’re at a gathering you have no idea or control over what everyone else at the gathering did the prior 4 days. But what do we expect from a science communicator who doesn’t even know about the truth sandwich.
“I don’t know any country in the world that doesn’t have a zero fire policy. If there’s a fire, you put it out. You don’t let it burn from house to house to house.” — Yaneer Bar-Yam