It's Covid-Conscious Community Appreciation Day!!

"Until the rest of the world gets a clue, you're not alone - I'm here for you." 

CCCAD maskcots

We're halfway through winter, on a calendar at least, but likely not nearly halfway through this pandemic. Guiness Pig suggested that every Groundhog Day should be a day set aside for Covid-Conscious Community Appreciation Day (CCCAD). He named the day under absolutely nobody's authority, and I'm here for that kind of energy! 

"Someone wrote about how bad it sucks that we're headed into year five of a global pandemic, and we've learned nothing. . . . A holiday just for the Covid-Conscious community since we're all trying to hold it together while the rest of the world keeps fucking around with a deadly, disabling virus and pretending like it's okay. . . . It can be [a religious observance]. Religions throughout the world teach that the body is a temple or an instrument for the divine. By protecting ourselves and others from Covid we're honoring the higher power that dwells within us all. Which is pretty fucking awesome so yes you should absolutely request February 2nd off from work as a religious observance. Your unmasked HR representative might deny your request. They might even laugh at you. If they do laugh, you should take the opportunity to fart while you're walking past their desk to leave their office. That might get them thinking about how the air is full of nasty shit they can't see but they know is there and that maybe the one person at work who masks and doesn't get sick all the time might be onto something. . . . If the groundhog comes out of the ground on February 2nd and doesn't see any masks, that means there will be six more weeks of Covid."

It's so much like Groundhog Day, the movie, in the number of of us who just keep trying new things day after day as we hear about more and more sickness and deaths, and watch everyone else carry on, doing the same things over and over that they've done before this mess started. Many of us feel like the catalyst that might make everything change if only we can say it just right or make the perfect meme or do that one thing that shifts the way people react around us. But we fail over and over, and wake up to scroll through friends at parties and conferences and on cruise ships, all without any protections in place. 

How to celebrate the day? I plan to send cards to the people in my life who mask in public to tell them how much I appreciate them, thank local businesses who have times that are mask-preferred, and rage vent to the elected officials who keep suggesting that hand washing is THE thing that will save us from this virus!

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COVID BASICS: (1-3 from Dr. Joe Vipond): 

"1. Covid is predominantly airborne. [It can cross a room in minutes and linger for hours.]

2. Over 50% of transmission is from asymptomatic people. [They feel perfectly healthy!!]

3. Long Covid is real and impacts a substantial number of people. We've NEVER EVER EVER had these three things told to us by the system. Not once. Not by our leaders." And also...

4. Vaccines help reduce severity of cases, but can't eliminate transmission (yet), and they wane in effectiveness within months because Covid mutates so fast (because of all the spread!) 

5. N95s trap Covid using inertial impaction, diffusion, interception, and electrostatic attraction. They really work!! (2 min video explanation)

6. Covid's the #3 killer in Canada, and we don't know how many people it has disabled. Avoid being one of them. There is no effective treatment for Long Covid, only prevention. Be wise with N95s! 

Well-fitting N95s reduce transmission by about 95% - even higher if everyone wears them; cleaning the air helps by about 30%, and vaccines reduces hospitalization by 60%. Put together, we could ALL be 99.999% protected from this mess and more! We don't have to get sick every winter; it's a choice.