The latest Covid variant has the same name as a big looming rain cloud. The more we let Covid spread, the more it will continue to mutate, and this one is even more easily transmissible.
It's provoking people to mask up in parts of Asia, and governments are encouraging updated vaccinations in parts of Europe, and it's definitely in the states, but they're not doing much to stop it. Will we?? My kids and I still can't get another Covid shot until it's been a year since our last, and we can't access Paxlovid if we need it. But thankfully there are no mask bans being proposed here.
In the states, the FBI is treating Covid as a crime to be investigated instead of a public health matter to be mitigated:
"No other flu vaccine production approach can produce doses with the speed of the messenger RNA platform used by Moderna and other companies that work with mRNA. But the vaccine platform is viewed with deep suspicion by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his political base."
Also related, I believe: Mother Jones recently published a timeline of Trump's obsession with eugenics. Last year he said people like his own great-nephew, who has complex disabilities, should just die.
"There's a pattern to his comments about intelligence (or lack thereof), his intense hostility towards disabled people (including reputed public use of the r-word stretching back decades), and his preoccupation with 'good' genes: it's inseparable from his constant promotion of Afrikaner and Northern European immigration, sympathy to claims of 'white genocide,' and promotion of close advisors like Stephen Miller and Elon Musk. Taken together, that track record illustrates the sitting president's eugenicist mindset."
I've been saying it for a while, but I can't shake the connection between a eugenist mindset and the early propaganda insisting Covid only harms the disabled and elderly, and now current policies that remove the vaccine from the CDC's immunization schedule for pregnant women and healthy children. It still feels like a flippin' cull!
In Canada, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists issued an assurance that the vaccine
"remains safe and strongly recommended during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. ... Getting the Covid-19 vaccine also helps protect against serious complications associated with the virus, such as preterm birth. ... Kennedy's move to discontinue the shot in the U.S. is not based on any medical evidence. ... Pregnant women should get a Covid-19 shot, especially if they had their last vaccination more than six months ago. ... I talk about one vaccine, two lives. You're protecting the mom and the baby."
And it's so easy to prevent the spread.
I had people over for dinner last night, and everyone agreed to mask for the week prior, then do a test. I have a PlusLife PCR tester for sleepovers, which is super sensitive, but it can take 45 minutes to run each test and it's pricey, so we still use RATs for dinners, which I buy from Canada Strong for $3.70 per test. Tests often show false negatives for a good five days, which is what makes wearing an N95 for the prior week a vital part of the plan. Dr. Sean Mullen recently re-explained how to do a rapid test to get the best accuracy:
"Don't eat or drink for one hour before testing, that includes gum, brushing teeth, etc. It can mess with detection. ... Swab like you mean it. Use a multi-point method: cheeks, under tongue, back of tongue, then low and slow into each nostril (aim toward throat, not up at brain). ... Any visible line, even faint or partial, is positive. ... RATs still detect current variants, but quality matters. ... These guidelines aren't new. They've been true since 2020. What changed? Not the science--just the will to listen. ... There is a new wave barreling right now in the US. We just aren't tracking it. No data. No masks. Taiwan just went remote after more than doubling Emergency Department cases last week from about 20,000 to over 40,000. The virus hasn't disappeared. Only the infrastructure to warn us has."
He also explained the dangers at length, in a reaction to this study that "revealed significant long-lasting cognitive dysfunction in PCC [Post Covid Condition] in young adults, two years after Covid-19 infection. Verbal working memory was significantly impaired, and a lower performance was found in divided attention and response inhibition [which could be causing behavioural problems in schools]. In addition, there was an increased reaction time in most cognitive tasks, demonstrating cognitive slowing in young people with PCC." The young adults were healthy before getting Covid! It doesn't just take down the weak who are slowing down the herd.
Dr. Mullen said,
"I’ve spent two decades studying how brains age. And I’ve never seen anything quite like this. In normal aging, some neurons die—but it’s gradual, region-specific, and the brain compensates remarkably well. Most of what we see is driven by loss of synaptic connections, not widespread neuron death. Behavioral changes tend to be slow, subtle, and mostly involve executive function. In neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, it’s different. These diseases kill neurons. The decline is faster, deeper, and more functionally disabling.
What we’re seeing in young adults after SARS-CoV-2 infection doesn’t fit either pattern. We’re seeing signs of early, widespread cognitive impairment—slowed thinking, weakened memory, executive dysfunction. Not just in one domain. Not just in one region. Almost every study that looks for brain damage post-infection finds it. This suggests accelerated neural de-differentiation—a breakdown in how specialized brain regions communicate and function. It's something we normally see decades later.
Impairment doesn’t always mean permanent disability. But if neurons are dying, those cells aren’t coming back. And yes—cognitive disabilities have also spiked dramatically since 2020. There’s no other plausible explanation for the scale and timing of this trend. Meanwhile, self-styled truth-tellers with zero background in neuroscience or cognition keep minimizing the risks—spreading the idea that these impairments are rare, minor, or imagined. Speak up with evidence? You’re called an extremist. Refuse to play along? You’re accused of fear-mongering. My biggest mistake? Thinking these folks were just misinformed. They’re not. They’re propagandists. It’s 2025. The damage is measurable. The science is clear. And the longer we pretend this is normal, the worse the outcomes will be."
Nimbus is about to rain down on us. N95s work really well to prevent the spread and they're way more comfortable than surgical masks that fold into your mouth when you talk and slide around on your face and don't help nearly as much to prevent transmission. I worry that some people who hate masks have only tried surgical or cloth.
It's one more thing to think about, but we can get used to anything. I really don't think about masking before leaving the house anymore, just like I don't think about putting on a seatbelt in a car, or a helmet when I bike. We can save some lives with N95s.
No comments:
Post a Comment