"This study showing that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus directly infects coronary artery plaques, producing inflammatory substances, really joins the dots and helps our understanding on why we're seeing so much heart disease in COVID patients," Peter Hotez, MD, professor of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told Medscape.
Evidence showing the SARS-CoV-2 virus directly infects coronary atherosclerotic plaques, causing a persistent inflammatory response, may lea
Oh, also?
CDC predicts respiratory disease season will be similar to last year
"The CDC said it expects a similar number of respiratory disease cases this year as last year, with 15 to 25 new weekly hospitalizations per 100,000 people."
"As of Friday, nearly 12 million people have gotten the new Covid-19 vaccine since they were authorized last month, according to HHS. That’s millions more than the week prior, but still less than 4% of the US population."
No one is protecting themselves. And no one else will protect you.
Even if you're not worried for yourself....don't be one of the people that carries it to someone else. We're all responsible for the most vulnerable people in our society. (That could be you, by the way.....)
POC at home and abroad are being slaughtered and have been. And not enough people are aware or want to care. Even when it hurts them too.
The pandemic is still happening, right now.
Starvation, dehydration, environmental pollution, police violence and spayings, medical discrimination, abuse, gaslighting and bias, microaggressions, systemic institutional bigotry, human trafficking, stress, policing, incaracetion and prison pipelines, adoption / foster system, medical apartheid, land theft, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, war on drugs, weaponization of disease -- I could go on, can't people realize we're being killed, and we're dying?
21/03/2026
Doctor Beverly Crusher
@SpaceDocMom
Incoming Transmission…
Disability and chronic illness can happen to anyone. Even the health-privileged and abled may one day become disabled and/or chronically ill, especially in your ongoing pandemic and with other diseases circulating. Protect yourselves and others. emojis: black heart, blue heart, masked x5, spoon
This text is not perfect and not necessarily finished, as the brainfog (aka brain damage) I have due to covid often makes it difficult for me to think. (The fear of being even more restricted in my rights and of being declared insane in the future if I write this down is something I'm putting to the side for the moment). -Many thanks to my dear flatmate for reading over this and the ones who helped me translate this into english too.
The text itself also scared me, because it's about an uncomfortable, invidious topic, but I think it's important and my impression is that there's not so much about it in German, so here's a summary from me.
I think many people think (when I manage to leave the house/roll out) that I'm wearing a mask because I'm ill. That's true, but I'm not acutely ill, I'm chronically ill. I have ME-CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis-Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), a pretty crappy disease that affects about 250,000 people in Germany, measured before the pandemic. Worldwide, the figure is around 17-24 million.
(This is more than MS (multiple sclerosis) but with less research funding and quality of life. It’s not me saying that, some studies are, and MS is just one example.)
ME-CFS is a disease in which any type of overloading can potentially lead to permanent deterioration of the health condition and can be caused by Covid, among other things.
Not all cases of Long Covid fall under the ME-CFS diagnosis, but many do. The number of Long Covid cases in Germany is estimated to be in the six-figure range and around 400 million worldwide.
During the peak phases of the pandemic and the lockdowns, many of us were deprived of our social lives. Many would describe this experience as violent.
Now that time is over and almost everyone is vaccinated and therefore protected. But protected from what exactly? From reinfection? Or transmissibility? From long-term consequences? And did everybody still get their booster shot?
The fact is, Covid-19 is still spreading just like before. Immunocompromised and other high-risk patients are still particularly at risk in the event of infection. Even after several ‘mild’ cases of Covid-19, it is still possible to get Long Covid, which also affects young, previously healthy people and children to a great extent.
Covid is not only dangerous for old, disabled or already chronically ill people. And if it were, the discriminatory thought patterns behind it should be scrutinized.
Wherever we are not wearing masks, wherever we forget the ongoing pandemic, we are prepared to deny people access. These people have to isolate themselves or are left even more isolated and alone.
In a pharmacy near us, they stopped selling rapid tests at some point due to low demand and the belief that they couldn't detect new mutations anyway. This is not true, even old (non-expired tests) can still successfully detect Covid-19.
How many of us (in my perception at the time, all of us) stopped wearing masks when our government told us the corona pandemic was over and we could and should go back to living our lives as before? It took me some time to put them back on.
As a person who is at least sceptical about the state, the question arises, why? It's not hard to work out that they don't care much about protecting disabled and immunocompromised people and that their interest lies instead in getting the economy going again as quickly as possible, come what may.
I still sometimes find it difficult to fully assess situations and don't necessarily make the best decisions. It's not about behaving perfectly and not being allowed to make mistakes.
It is courageous if we can face up to it, learn from it and change our behaviour.
And simultaneously I am upset with myself for how long it took for me to understand.
As a person affected by post-Covid symptoms (and for longer than I realized), I want to avoid being infected again at all costs and I am so scared of the possibility. But I'm not the only one who has the power to ensure this, and it's not just about me, but about all of us. Every re-infection increases the risk of getting Long Covid, no matter how healthy the person was before infection. Furthermore, Covid-19 attacks organs such as the heart, lungs, brain, gastrointestinal tract and immune system every time and the exact long-term consequences are still unclear.
For so many people, a Covid infection is (life) threatening.
Every week, the WHO still receives reports of thousands of deaths caused by Covid-19, and only from those countries that are still willing to report. In Germany, wastewater monitoring, which provides reliable information on infections, is now to be discontinued. What (un)reasonable reason can there be for this?
As long as people don't know any better, no one can be blamed, but as soon as the information has been shared and recorded and nothing changes in society, in the private sphere and in the so-called left, I feel anxious, angry and sad.
When people know that wearing masks and testing themselves can prevent death, illness, disability, organ damage, etc., when people know how the capitalist and healthcare system deals with the sick and disabled, with BIPoC and queer and multiply marginalized people who are particularly affected and neglected, and yet decide to put their own pleasure and comfort above it... then they are not friends or comrades, as hard as that sounds. Then they are actively hurting me and many others, including themselves, and contributing to the fact that the world is not safe for us.
I understand and empathize with the fact that wearing masks can demand a certain sacrifice.
But it's nothing compared to what you or the people around you will have to sacrifice or have already sacrificed.
It can cost you and will cost someone else a lot more.
When people take to the streets and organize and show solidarity with indigenous people and people in Congo, Sudan, Tigray, Palestine, Kurdistan and all other regions of oppression, genocide and resistance, where, among other things, infectious diseases are used as a weapon, people are affected by the withholding of medical care, especially in relation to the Covid pandemic, and where excessive numbers of people are (made) disabled; or with women in Afghanistan, who are now being denied medical training and at the same time are being denied medical treatment in the absence of a male companion, or against borders and for the right to freedom of movement for all; and when people are building other worlds from the ground up, or are aware of the climate catastrophe, which is also increasingly affecting indigenous and marginalized and disabled people, and do not know where to start - then the first step can be to put on a mask. For your fellow human beings, to protect yourself and the most vulnerable and to show that they are not forgotten and to take a stand against eugenics.
At the same time, we can no longer do much against oppression or for a different world if we are all completely knocked out by Covid.
Spreading pathogens was and is a tool of colonialism and so, anti-colonialism is always also a disability justice issue and as a consequence must include prevention and breaking chains of infection.
In California, the forests are burning and ash is raining down on the people. Now it is the masc blocs, the self-organized mutual aid groups, which are mainly led by a few disabled and chronically ill people that have taken on the task of handing out masks and air purifiers. The state itself relies on the work of these self-organized groups. – On the group of people who are most forgotten and abandoned in crises and during evacuations, after their efforts to care for their fellow human beings and, for example, to equip schools with air purifiers, masks and tests were met with rejection or even violence. And even now there are still many who refuse to put on a mask for their own health and claim there are no dangers.
Covid is a mass disabling event and dealing with it is scary, at least for me, and I don't just want to spread fear, but I don't think pretending that everything is okay is the solution.
And if we protect ourselves, we also have less to fear.
As far as I know, there is no other virus apart from HIV that attacks the immune system and organs as much as Covid-19. And that is not the only parallel between the two pandemics and how they and those affected are and have been dealt with.
We may now also be facing an avian flu pandemic, governments are already doing their best to brush this under the carpet and portray every serious case as not counting because people were either already ill or old, just like at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
And if we do get off lightly, then we have lost nothing, but wouldn't we rather be prepared to protect ourselves and our communities?
Judith Butler said: ‘Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you're operating within a fascist logic’.
And that is exactly what is happening. The vulnerable are forgotten and sacrificed, they are deliberately harmed.
The so-called shift to the right that we can observe is also not unusual in connection with a pandemic. About a hundred years ago, for example, there was a war and a pandemic of the so-called Spanish flu. There were economic crises and high unemployment in Europe and the USA.
Efforts to curb the spread of the virus were minimal and much was trivialised, despite the masses of deaths and (chronically) ill people.
In Italy and Germany, there was one party, one man, who understood the frustration and fears in society, validated their anger and offered them scapegoats, which was welcomed with open arms.
In the USA, too, migrants, African-Americans and Jews were blamed and attacked.
In many countries today, there is also an increasing push towards euthanasia programs, such as in Canada or the UK. Instead of people being cared for, treated medically and respected, they are being pressured into euthanasia - an important option for a self-determined death in serious illness. But this cannot be the only option on offer and for so many it is not a free choice under capitalism.
We should recognize all of this and fight against it, and that starts with putting on a mask. If possible.
I think I’m writing all this not to accuse and condemn, but out of love for my fellow human beings, for currently healthy, or not affected by ME-CFS and Long Covid, and pre-disabled people I want to protect of this specific illness and the violence and for those of us who are left alone in this dark terror and often forgotten by unaffected people, the millions missing .
And for those who have to die, not because of the illness they suffer from, but because of fatal, wilful neglect and lack of care. Or those who are driven to suicide.
Even if it is not always obvious from the outside (especially if people don't want to be aware of it), all people with Long Covid and ME-CFS are seriously ill and disabled (very severe ME-CFS and Long Covid, however, bring a whole new level of horror and disability that is hard to imagine for a healthy person). This cannot be changed by our attitude or by being more active (instead, this can make us even more sick).
We have to trust that chronically ill and disabled people are experts and know better how to deal with their situation than those who are not affected.
We don't want or need your pity, but your solidarity.
We need to do what we can to prevent disease, to raise awareness of the biggest medical scandal (#greatestMEdicalscandal) of our time, to push for research and care, and to build networks of care for each other, with each other.
Since SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted via air particles that stay in the environment longer and can behave similarly to smoke and not (only) via saliva droplets, it also makes sense to wear a mask outside or two on top of each other if necessary. In addition, it is best to wear a 95 or similar which have certain mechanisms built in and work better than surgical masks which unfortunately are not as useful for Covid-19 (but better than nothing, especially to protect against transmissibility from yourself to others).
Other ‘hacks’ include first straightening the wire that is in the top of many masks and then adjusting it to the shape of the nose and (additionally!) using antiviral nasal spray (or salt water) to further prevent infection.
And set up air purifiers, which can probably also be simply made from a fan and HEPA filter, or rented.
Anyone who believes that ‘wearing too many masks’ and protecting themselves from Covid leads to an underdevelopment of the immune system, which is strengthened and trained by (re-)infections, I can assure you: Covid is 100% more harmful to the immune system than exposure to a ‘too low’ viral load. This belief comes from the fact that contact with certain pathogens that we have coexisted with for thousands of years is actually good for us. However, the quantities of pathogens and mutations that the body does not know and is not specialized in are not beneficial. There are also anecdotes of people who believe that wearing a mask weakens their immune system and makes them ill more often. It is much more likely that the immune system is weakened by Covid.
(Long) Covid prevention measures and what do they have to do with global justice struggles?
I will forever love Interview with a vampire for acknowledging so openly, sickness and the global pandemic as well as pandemics past, and in the year 2022. So much media ignores it entirely. And now, in 2024 it's a great comfort for me amidst all this mass abandonment, murder, death and illness.
For the sake of guidance, I hope people will follow the highest precautions possible. The worst of SARS-CoV-2 is not limited to 2020, despite what is stated by politicians, media outlets and other public figures and professionals to whom it applies.
I want to inform readers the CDC has officially ended the 5 day isolation period for SARS-CoV-2 and this does not suddenly mean it is not contagious or that our protocols should be lapsed or relaxed. Spread is more rampant than ever. So please do not let this announcement and decision give a false sense of security.
Piece by the incredible Lucky Tran.
Note, please do not use the Washington Post as a source for quality coverage of the ongoing pandemic.
As others have said, if SARS-CoV-2 cannot be eradicated (I still hold out hope and think it imperative in fact), it means adjusting and adapting, not ignoring it, treating this virus and disease as harmless or of little harm and create hostile untenable conditions and daily situations for any efforts of prevention and control of it.
Of what I've read over the course of 4 years, SARS-CoV-2 continues to mutate, kill and disable. This cannot last and will end in an ever escalating disaster if we continue to allow it. - Admin and mod
Additional: Immunity rates are a concern as are vaccination rates. The boast of vaccines administered does not often enough include a breakdown based on how many in the series per person (e.g. 1 dose, primary series, x number of boosters and how recently).
Vaccine rates vary by country, but in regard to the U.S. rates have been on a decline, thus compromising effectiveness on a population level.
More than a month after federal officials recommended a new version of the COVID-19 vaccines, 7% of U.S. adults and 2% of children have gott
