#covidisnotover

[currentbias]

[The Burden of Proof]

The burden of proof has always been on public health as an institution to demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 is a harmless virus to catch over and

[socialismforall]

Weekly COVID-19 Update for 2023-12-24

COVID is still airborne, and COVID still very much isn't over.

Northeastern and Midwestern USA SARS2 virus levels in wastewater are *soaring*, Northeast is currently at 1500 copies/mL (~750 copies indicates a strong surge), and Midwest is at 1300 copies/mL. Southeastern and Western USA are maintaining relatively lower levels between 600 and 700 overall, but both are still climbing. See https://biobot.io/data for county-specific data as results can vary widely between locales.

How to reduce your risk of infection? The SARS2 virus is airborne and can spread like smoke, so #MaskUp with an #N95 or better, avoid superspreader events and locations, and stay up-to-date on your boosters. Do it for yourself, so you don't catch SARS-CoV-2, and for others, so you don't spread SARS-CoV-2. Even if you're fully vaccinated, your risk of developing #LongCOVID following an infection is lower but not zero, and multiple reinfections increase your odds of negative health outcomes. Plan A always should be to prevent an infection from developing by wearing a respirator with a good seal around your mouth and nose (FFP2, FFP3, KN95, N95, N99, P100, etc.).

Holiday tips:

-If someone tells you that COVID is over, you might ask them why, if we didn't consider COVID to be over in 2020 or 2021, when the COVID wastewater levels were lower, why should we consider it over now, when the virus is circulating in even higher amounts?

-"Fewer cases" doesn't mean much when most of the at-home rapid tests don't get counted in official records, and the most accurate PCR tests are neither freely available nor given to everyone getting on a plane or attending classes.

-"Fewer deaths" also means less when you remember that about 1,200,000 of the most vulnerable people already have died from it, COVID-19 remains the #3 cause of death in 2023 (behind heart disease and cancer, the risk of both of which may be increased by COVID), and the risk of a Long COVID/post-acute COVID syndrome (PACS) disability or other potentially life-shortening organ damage (brain, kidney, lung, immune, etc.) isn't measured just by the death count. Also, the USA's life expectancy still hasn't recovered from the drop it experienced following the start of the pandemic.

source: https://biobot.io/data

source: https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20231006/these-are-the-top-10-causes-of-death-in-the-us

source: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/covid-and-the-heart-it-spares-no-one

source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33914346/

source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/11/29/average-us-life-expectancy-increased-not-pre-covid/71738611007/

[imalump]

😑

[not-fun]

don't forget to mask...

the disabled and immuno-comp people in your life (and the grills in your life) see you and judge you for not masking.  wear a mask. especially on trains, planes, cabs and in crowded stores.

[fishelfe]

[advocatinghere]

Hello world, I have not used Tumblr for a few years... but as you know Tweety is dying a tragic death so I am looking for a safe nest to land in. I am: She/Her. Canadian. Living with multiple disabilities. Working as an accessibility consultant. Married to an awesome lady. Living with the cutest dog on earth. Learning Spanish for fun. If you are part of my #family please let me know and/or follow! And to prove the claim about my dog being the cutest on earth, evidence provided.

[watchwhatyounodto]

Big props to the legend #DJBobbito for doing his part to keep the community safe and modeling what someone with their humanity intact looks like! We see you keeping folks safe to @perfectlyclaire! • “We both was wearing masks because the pandemic is not over, and while we're both healthy, we care about those in our community who may not have a strong immune system to defend against infection, sickness and at worst death. I appreciated her thoughttulness and willingness to be covid cautious!” @koolboblove • #ThisIsWhatSolidarityLooksLike #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #sarscov2 #LongCovid #DisabilityJustice #Immunocompromised #Ableism #Eugenics #CovidDenial #CapitalismKills #HipHop #WearAMask https://www.instagram.com/p/CnjK5xtuJLG/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[4yearsofresistance]

Let Them Eat Plague!

The pandemic is not over. It’s much worse than you’ve been led to believe. And unless you’ve spent the past several years reading scientific studies on the subject, it can be hard…

   “When one individual inflicts injury upon another such that death results, we call that manslaughter. When society places hundreds in a position that they inevitably meet early & unnatural death … its deed is murder just as the individual.”

   Friedrich Engels, The Conditions of the Working Class in England

We have been betrayed. For three years, we have been abandoned, misled, shepherded to our dooms. Millions have died. Hundreds of millions have been disabled. All the while, respectable faces with plastered-on grins breathlessly offer hopeful platitudes, assuring us we’ll all be ok. Just trust the system.

...... The cold truth of the matter is that the motive behind COVID minimization is greed and social control. The capitalist system depends on constant growth: constant production, constant consumption, constant expansion of profits. Even brief pauses — such as a month-long stay-at-home order — have disastrous effects on capital. Implementing the mass prevention strategies necessary to slow down transmission (daily rapid testing, contact tracing, guaranteed paid leave for exposed workers, high-quality respirators, etc.) is expensive, and eats into profits. An information campaign explaining why everyone needs to stay home, instead of contributing to “the economy,” eats into profits further. Winding down all non-essential business and keeping it shuttered until the true end of the pandemic would contract the economy down to only what is necessary for society to function. The opportunities for financial capital to invest in new, profitable enterprises would vanish faster than they reemerge.

For capitalism to function, it requires two things: a steady supply of workers producing value and an unending flow of consumption to realize that value as profit for the capitalist. The onset of a pandemic presented a challenge on both of those fronts. Workers getting sick en masse and being forced to stay home for a couple of weeks — or even dying or becoming disabled and exiting the workforce altogether — was only one potential headache for the capitalist class. Far worse was the prospect of workers staying home out of precaution, thereby grinding production to a halt. Consumers staying home and buying only the essentials would prevent the realization of profits across huge swathes of the economy, cutting off the flow of capital necessary to keep the whole system running.