🤔 Why hasn’t OSHA come up with indoor air quality rules? 🫣 UN climate change experts to gather for massive superspreader event 👎
Too many prominent people too often fall into the trap of using disinformation buzzwords when talking about the pandemic.
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)
Petition: Urge CDC Director Mandy Cohen to Reject HICPAC’s Draft and Protect Health Care Workers and Patients from Infectious Diseases
By National Nurses United: The CDC is updating infection prevention guidance for health care workers and patients. But the CDC has entrusted its advisory committee, HICPAC, which is dominated by health care industry managers and executives, with drafting updates. HICPAC’s draft would give health care employers free range to prioritize profits over infection prevention protections for health care workers and patients. Now, the CDC has the choice to accept or reject HICPAC’s draft. Urge the CDC to reject HICPAC’s weak draft and create a new one that protects health care workers and their patients!
So why hasn’t OSHA come up with indoor air quality rules for workplaces?
There was a public hearing back in April 2022, where Dr. David Michaels said: “OSHA has a statutory responsibility, statutory requirement to have an open and transparent process like we are having today to just determine what the standard should be.” And so it was a 4 day hearing — with recordings and transcripts.
And yet, here we are, 1-1/2 years later, and I constantly hear about people getting covid at work, people forced to work with actively sick people with no recourse to get them to mask around others, disabled high risk people forced back to the office for in person work, people coerced into unmasking in order to “smile for the customers” or in some cases smile for managers. These are happening in the same workplaces under the constant siege of staffing shortages, often because of multiple people being off sick at any given time with covid, other infectious diseases, Long Covid, or post-covid conditions likely acquired from multiple covid infections.
It’s entirely disgusting that this could be taking place in 2023. For one thing it shows most employers won’t do the right thing because there’s no incentives against short term gain of forcing people back to work.
The NRLB has taken steps in the right direction. It’s time for Joe Biden’s OSHA to make things safe for workers, especially disabled workers.
I have written the White House. And I think it’s a shame that no reporters ever ask about this after all those fancy talks and tours by Ashish Jha and lip service from GG Allin JG Allen.
🗞️ In the news
Axios - Nursing home vaccination rates are low as COVID cases rise - Tina Reed Nov 22, 2023 Nursing homes can be a harbinger of things to come for the general population. And with the federal government taking a more diminished role in the pandemic response, it will largely be up to facility operators to boost vaccination rates and control the spread of infections.
COVID Aid Grifters Waste Billions; Inside Cohen's CDC; Forged Neuro Data? — This past week in healthcare investigations by Rachael Robertson, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today November 15, 2023 However, her most time sensitive public health priority are respiratory viruses, including RSV, COVID, and flu -- all of which she's attacking with gumption that some staff don't view as necessary, the Post reports. CDC senior officials told the Post that Cohen "prompted the agency to activate its second-highest level of emergency status -- just one level down from the agency-wide mobilization at the height of the pandemic."
New York Times - Formulas are being touted online as an extra safeguard against the virus, but they’re not F.D.A. approved and some experts are skeptical. By Dana G. Smith - Sept. 28, 2023 The G.R.A.S. designation means that the ingredients can be included in other products without having to obtain approval for each new use. It does not mean that they can be marketed as having medical benefits. Some nasal spray manufacturers have crossed this line and received warning letters and injunctions from the F.D.A. and Federal Trade Commission for making unverified statements about their sprays’ effectiveness against Covid. There is some research into how these sprays work against Covid, most of it conducted outside of the United States and often sponsored by the manufacturers. But the studies tend to be small and the results not very compelling, said Dr. Eric Topol, the executive vice president of Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif.
8newsnow - ‘Superbug’ cases rising in Nevada over past two months, Las Vegas hospital leads list - by: Greg Haas Posted: Nov 12, 2023 Colonization cases have grown faster than clinical cases, and three long-term care facilities factored into that growth. Kindred Hospital Flamingo (154) and two Horizon Specialty Hospital sites -- one in Henderson (135) and one in Las Vegas (105) -- all had more than 100 colonization cases. Infections are more serious than colonization cases, and those clinical cases occurred most often in hospitals. The balance of colonization vs. clinical cases was notable in hospitals.
CIDRAP - Nebraska confirms TB case at daycare, investigates exposure - News brief - Nov 13 2023 at 1:06 p.m. Lisa Schnirring The DCHD is also notifying parents of children and anyone else who had close contact with the patient, which is focused on extended time spent in the same room with the patient. Children's Nebraska hosted a clinic over the weekend to test children ages 4 and younger who were exposed to the patient over the last 10 weeks.
Government Executive - Overtime, staffing shortages and shutdowns to blame for recent air safety issues, panel finds. A task force is calling on FAA to "urgently" address its staffing issues to avoid further risks to the flying public. NOVEMBER 15, 2023 by Eric Katz The staffing issue at FAA dates back to 1981 when air traffic controllers went on strike and President Reagan fired them en masse. Subsequent hiring created a retirement wave around 2005 that the agency has long struggled to address. FAA has 1,000 fewer air traffic controllers in 2023 than it did in 2012, despite a marked increase in the complexity of its operations, and the agency has put forward only a “limited effort” to address the problem. The situation has been exacerbated by the shutdown and sequestration in 2013, the 2018-2019 shutdown and the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last decade, FAA has overseen no hiring for one year and no training for two years. It also experienced higher-than-expected attrition in 2021 and 2022.
This is NOT fine
Bloomberg reporter Javier Blas says that over 70,000 people are expected at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference in, of all places Dubai.
Very ironic as we’re still in a pandemic, we can expect more infectious disease outbreaks because of climate change. And the people we’re expecting to “solve” this crisis are traveling from all over the world to one of the most extravagant places on earth to have a conference in person with huge amounts of people in one place.
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Too many prominent people too often fall into the trap of using disinformation buzzwords when talking about the pandemic.
I have not listened to the latest Osterholm podcast, but I noticed the title of a recent episode using the word "tsunami" and I feel this is problematic messaging since it invokes the bogus "immunity debt" pseudoscience claims, since tsunamis are caused by an earthquake that pulls out the ocean water so that it comes back with a huge wave. I don't think that is an accurate analogy. Tsunami is ocean water being made into a destructive force. Infectious diseases are bad all the time. Holding them back is a good thing. Having outbreaks unleashed is bad. Nobody really likes being sick at all with anything, and some things are quite risky, like covid.
There is no scientific validity to that term, it was made up during the pandemic as a PR talking point by covid denier interests, and is not a concept that’s ever been floated seriously by scientists prior to the pressure to “go back to normal” for the economy.
I recently saw someone on social media ask about what the focus should be for journalists regarding the pandemic. I said the focus should be on not leading with the lie, or using the minimizer, clout chaser, or anti-vax buzzwords that help boost disinformation. Of course sadly you don’t get much attention unless you do feed the disinformation monster.
“The back peddling of standards has often been justified by the imposed “burden” preventive strategies would place on facilities. However, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services, considers an intervention cost effective, if the cost is less than 9.6 million dollars per life saved. The Office does not measure burden in relationship to C-Suite and CEO salaries, or investor profits, nor should the CDC.”
— Kevin Kavanagh, MD, MS - Health Watch USA public comment at the CDC HICPAC meeting November 2023