Big thank you to everyone who wears masks at Outer Space, and HUGE shoutout to @maskbloceastbay for donating 100 kn95 masks this month so we can provide them for free. Mutual aid is the future! Wearing a mask helps keep our events accessible to everyone! We encourage you to support @maskbloceastbay or your local mask bloc if you can.
I think we can all agree our government and the capitalist healthcare industry has failed us, so here’s a little info to help bridge the public health education gap so you can understand why we still highly encourage wearing a high quality respirator (n95, kn95, kf94, ect.)
Every time you are infected with covid, even if you only have mild symptoms, it damages your immune system, and can infect cells in many parts of the body besides the lungs including the heart, brain and blood vessels. So while immunocompromised people are more at risk of long covid from one infection, even the most healthy individuals, if they get repeat infections over the years, will almost certainly end up with a damaged immune system, long covid, heart disease, brain damage, ect.
While there’s a lot of things about covid we still don’t know, these things are almost certain:
Everyone is at risk.
Respirator masks (not surgical or cloth!) are very effective at preventing transmission. Asymptotic spread is very common, you can be contagious even if you don’t feel sick. Covid aerosols travel in the air like smoke and can linger for hours. Even better is using multiple layers of protection like getting the most updated vaccine, improving air quality, and testing regularly.
You can still get eight free rapid tests a month with most insurance plans. If you need help accessing free rapid tests, free masks, or have any other questions please reach out to us or your local mask bloc. You can find a great directory at maskbloc.org and lots more info on the science of covid and reality of where we are in the pandemic at peoplescdc.org.
Covid justice is disability justice, all our struggles are connected, when the systems fail it’s up to us to protect each other! 😷💉💖
