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/

Knowing that the return to normal means even more dying and life-altering suffering is terrible. Knowing that many people seem not to realize this, that people in officially respected positions seem to find this acceptable, that fellow travelers on the left don’t treat this as a priority, that all feels isolating to a degree I find hard to overstate. What’s happening, I think, is that there’s no consensus on the reality we’re living in: ideologically, the pandemic continues for some of us and is over for others, while, of course, it hasn’t *actually* ended; it feels like living in a different world from other people, but still interacting. In some cases, this means old relationships feel different, and not for the better.

What I've called political and social loneliness overlap and are related significantly. [...] I try to suppress any urge to be judgmental about individual choices and to focus my anger at those with the most institutional power, but I do notice differences on this stuff. Those differences increase the sense of isolation. This is heavily reinforced by various explicit and implicit messages from public officials and other high-status actors.

[...] I’m worried that small differences within the communities of people who are relatively likeminded on the pandemic will fracture, leading to more isolation. Obviously those of us tending to abstain from what I’ve here called the broken sociality of normal (pseudonormal, funhouse mirror normal) life amid the ideological but not actual ending of the pandemic need to continue to find and make alternative sources of sociality, simply in order to sustain ourselves in this intolerable situation.  

A friend who, like me, has spent many years in far left circles said recently that they think they’ve only processed a small fraction of the shock and trauma of seeing that over a million covid deaths made so little difference in the world politically, and is not a more widespread scandal, even on the far left. I’ve resisted letting the ramifications of this to some of my relationships sink in.

Not that everyone should get their information solely from government institutions but that the CDC, FDA, and god damn White House have acknowledged exactly how covid spreads, exactly how N95s work, exactly how aerosol spread works, and people who still use these sources as their main reference including medical facilities don't even know how to properly wear a SURGICAL MASK, is so so fun to think about. Wear an N95, even if you are vaccinated. Everywhere you go. Even outside, if it's near other people. It doesn't have to be crowded. I know my Tumblr is an ancient relic collecting dust and I haven't posted here in 84 years but please, reblog this. Education is activism.

NYC Mayor Wants To Force People To Lower Their Mask (And Why This Is Not The Solution He Claims It Is)

Who hurt Mayor Adams and why does he go to such great lengths to cause so much harm to New York City? As an activist who loves their city, I prefer to shop at small local businesses versus the giant corporate chains, I realize how hard it is for a small business to make it (especially in these times) and how vital the movement to support them really is. That said, as a proud disabled woman who gets around via a motorized wheelchair, I sometimes have no choice but to shop at the larger chain stores due to accessibility issues. It only takes one step to prevent someone like me from having access to a store, but when I see that a small local business has put in the effort to get a ramp etc, it does not go unnoticed. But lately, Mayor Adams has added yet another obstacle for disabled people like me. I don't know what he hopes to accomplish by forcing store employees to harass customers like myself to lower our mask if we want to enter a store. While many people like to pretend that the pandemic is over (and I get it, we all want it to be, but fun fact: that's really not how this works), a lot of us do not have the luxury of such illusions. For people like us, wearing a mask is not optional. From the beginning of the pandemic, my safety as a disabled person has been at best an after thought. And now Mayor Adams wants to make it even harder by forcing people like me to lower our mask, which immediately puts me at risk for COVID. But he's not just harming people like myself. If I can't safely shop at the local stores, then I have no choice but to give my money to the larger online chains. As a result, smaller businesses will lose money, and is this really what Mayor Adams thinks the city needs right now? It also makes you wonder, where does the absurdity end? Many people for religious reasons cover their face (which is their prerogative.) Is the Mayor going to make store employees harass them as well? Will this policy be enforced consistently or will this turn into yet another form of profiling? Mayor Adams insists that this is being done in the name of public safety, but I think the majority of New Yorkers can see through that. After all, if the Mayor really wanted to reduce crime, then he wouldn't be so eager to massively cut funding to education and social services, while giving the NYPD an increased budget. More police has never been the answer, and if his goal was truly to reduce crime, then he would address the root issues as to why crime exists in the first place. Here's a hint: it has nothing to do with people wearing masks.

[image description a photo of New York CIty Mayor Eric Adams is stand outside. He is a bald man with brown skin, wearing a blue blazer with a white shirt. He is smiling and adjusting his collar. behind him you can see a sidewalk and various buildings that are blurry as he is the focus of the photo. ]

#DOH reports 207 new cases, 6 deaths today March 25. #NCR owned 60 (29%) of these cases. Active cases = 8,596 #COVID19 #Philippines #PH #COVIDisAirborne https://www.instagram.com/p/CqNqIo5rbqq/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

"The past tells us plagues end messily; they don’t fade until something dramatically changes in the ecology of the pathogen’s transmission or how people live alongside the disease."

Air filtration and ventilation are incredibly effective public health safety interventions that have been underutilized during the pandemic. While masking and vaccines have been overly politicized, more people might agree that clean air benefits everyone in a similar way that clean water and sanitation practices prevent us from getting sick through other means. In this post, I will make the case for clean air, and introduce a homemade solution that can be widely implemented by lay people. (FYI: 3M scientists tested these DIY “Corsi-Rosenthal boxes” and concluded that they are effective. Figures from such tests and studies are included as a bonus in the last 3 slides.) Note: Despite their popularity during the pandemic, the box fan design concept was not invented by Corsi and Rosenthal. Woodworkers commonly used this design to filter fine wood dust in their workshops before the pandemic. Image descriptions will be provided in the comments. Tags: #PublicHealth #AirQuality #CorsiRosenthalBox #MedTwitter #WearAMask #CovidIsAirborne #Cholera #WaterSanitation #Filtration #Ventilation #EnvironmentalEngineering #environmentalHealth #ChronicIllness #MillionsMissing #pwME #MPHStudent #VaccineSavesLives #PublicLife #HealthPolicy #StructuralSolutions #Covid #CleanAir #ResearchPapers #stem #asthma #allergy #HealthEquity #ClassroomSafety #OpenSource #WeKeepUsSafe (at DIY) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmzfh-av8YR/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Mein Zweitaccount auf #twitter , der aktuell eher zum Hauptaccount wird, denn #CovidIsNotOver #covidisairborne #coronavirus #sarscov2 #pims #MISC #Hepatitis #LongCovid #longcovidkids #PostCovid #postcovidkids #longcovidisreal #MECFS #avoidmecfs #me #cfs #pemistnichtverhandelbar #menschenrechte #kinderrechte #leben #unversehrtheit #grundrechte #grundgesetz #unkinderrechtskonvention (hier: Zauberwald) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgHksK5orj_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[chicken little]

Most of you are going as this for Halloween. And it doesn't even require a costume.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/

#COVID #COVIDisNotOver #COVIDisAirborne #COVID19 #eugenics #ableism

COVID-19 Pandemic Update for 2024–01–31

Take a close look at what’s happening with the USA’s #COVID19 wastewater curve. Leveling out (at 821 copies/mL, surge levels) in late January is NOT an encouraging sign! See second image for close-up.

Typically, the #SARSCoV2 viral levels in the water peak on New Year’s and then drop through February and early March. This year, levels are remaining high to extremely high in all regions, and all of them are starting to stabilize or flatten out rather than continuing to drop. While they could resume dropping again soon, for now this is a concerning sign that the virus is spreading at very high levels and a sharp reminder that #COVIDisNotOver!

#MaskUp with an #N95 mask or better that has a tight seal around your mouth and nose (no surgical or cloth masks) and STOP THE SPREAD. #COVID can cause disabilities, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, brain damage, immune dysfunction, and all kinds of other serious health problems up to and including death.

source for wastewater curve: https://biobot.io/data/

It's a good idea to wear a well-fitting, effective mask!

...because COVID is airborne and it is NOT over!

Aerosols/breath (tiny bits of infected moisture) can remain suspended in the air and are able to float distances greater than a metre.

AIDS/ACT UP posters updated for the ongoing global COVID pandemic. we must know history & be able to apply it to the current moment. queer liberation, disability justice, racial justice – these struggles cannot be separated. WearAMask #CovidIsAirborne #LongCovid 😷

Images, image descriptions, and full thread with more posters by @/_copy_of_a_copy on Twitter. The thread also includes a link to a Google Drive of PNGs/PDFs to print and wheatpaste.

The artist is only on twitter, so I am sharing this incredible thread here on Tumblr.

In the U.S. where mask-shaming and spread of misinformation against mitigation measures were allowed, vulnerable people who need to stay safe face discrimination and bullying every day. We’re grateful to Jeanine Santucci, a national news reporter at @USATODAY, for showing solidarity with the marginalized community in @usatodayopinion.

#MaskTogetherAmerica & @spooniestrong highly recommend all politicians to read “A letter to my loved ones about COVID. You’ve moved on, but I’m still here.”

“…our country’s most vulnerable people deserve to be part of society. With the removal of mask mandates in health care settings and essential places such as pharmacies, public transit and grocery stores, #immunocompromised people are made outcasts. Telling #disabled and chronically ill people to “stay home forever” is cruel.”

Santucci, diagnosed with #T1D type 1 diabetes 11 years ago, a new mom, wears N95s, carries a portable air purifier, monitors air quality and tests her family weekly. She worries about #LongCovid. She is not alone. Santucci understands the despair and danger #spoonies with chronic illnesses are facing today.

We agree with Santucci that #Masking & #CleanAir are the most effective mitigation tools. It’s time for politicians to acknowledge that #CovidisAirBorne.

“I’ve kept up with vaccines and boosters – though even vaccinated people are reporting C19 to be the worst illness they’ve ever had. And my underlying condition might make it much harder to manage. What I’m more afraid of is what could happen to my body in the long term. I’m worried about health impacts that might crop up weeks or months later, and last for months, or even years…I’m worried about the impact to my short-term memory, vital for a parent.”

3 in 5 Adult Americans, ~200 million people in the U.S. need to avoid C19 infection due to the list of factors the CDC provided. We share Santucci’s fear. Immunity wanes. With C19 data lagging, precautions will save lives and prevent outbreaks. Let’s stay #COVIDSMART. If you are a hospitalist, please #keepmasksinhealthcare.

Link: http://bit.ly/3n8YqQH

Opening a window can keep you healthier.

🪟💨 😷 ✅

#COVID #CovidIsNotOver #COVIDisAirborne #ventilation #IAQ