The Brave and Stalwart

As a quick reminder, well-fitting N95s/FFP3s work amazingly to avoid measles, the flu, and covid. I haven't been sick in years, and I love it!! The only inconvenience is not eating food with people who aren't cautious. I throw on a mask before going inside a public building. It's second-nature now, like putting on a seatbelt when I get in a car. Pretty simple and effective. Really, it's a no brainer.

But Jon Stewart (with Jon Favrou and Tim Miller) saw fit to make fun of people like me: crazy people who continue to avoid getting sick. In case you've forgotten, or if this is news to you, unlike the flu, which is brutal this year, Covid stays in the system, hibernating and attacking internal organs, the brain (sticking glial cells into clumps), and the immune system. The only other virus that attacks the immune system like this, causing lymphopenia, is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). So, call me crazy for avoiding getting a virus with similar effects as AIDS. 

Putrino Lab wrote,

"There are tens of millions of Americans who have been disabled by LongCovid and must do everything in their power to prevent further infections that make them vulnerable to further worsening of their symptoms. There are countless millions more who are immunocompromised or love someone who is and must therefore mask to protect themselves from a virus that continues to spread without mitigation due to its novel ability amongst viruses to persist in the body and drive immune dysregulation, hypercoagulation, oncogenic processes, nervous system dysfunction, cognitive decline and other terrible long-term effects. Furthermore, after hearing all the things that this virus drives, there are those of us who are perfectly healthy who just think that, until governments enact good-sense measures against the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (i.e. air purifiers, better ventilation, routine testing, far UVC germicidal lights, development of post-exposure prophylaxis drugs and CURES for #LongCOVID), it is really sensible to adopt masking as on of the few reliable ways to protect oneself and others when entering and sharing public spaces 

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt rather than condemn you outright given your history of meaningful advocacy for 9/11 survivors. You have done more than most in this space and it seems like you did it because you genuinely care for these folks. Given this, I hope I’m right that this moment on your @weeklyshowpodcast.bsky.social was a moment where you said something unkind because you are uninformed, not because you are cruel. You have a loud voice, a big following and your actions have consequences. I sincerely hope that you might open yourself up to being educated about all the reasons that those two maskers that you always see are brave and stalwart enough to be continuing to mask in public. There are many clinicians, patients, advocates and scientists here in NY, a city hit harder than most by #COVID and #LongCOVID, who would happily sit down and talk with you about this topic. I truly hope you choose to learn from this and help, because I do believe you to be a helper given your long history of good works. You clearly have a lot of fans in the disabled community, so please apologize and commit to doing better. Walt Whitman never said it, but Ted Lasso definitely did: 'Be curious, not judgmental'."

Karistina Lafae called it punching down in Mother Jones since, "Research shows that Long Covid is very much a working-class problem." 

LRSH - Education Podcast pointed out that "Anti-masking is a project 2025 goal literally written out on page 475, and Liberal Currents writes that the pro-infection lobby is battling each mitigation measure.

And Dr. Lucky Tran said "You don't owe anyone an explanation about the health reasons why you are wearing a mask."

I don't have any health reasons to mask except to avoid getting sick. I think that's plenty of reason.

Recent studies found that wearing masks at the beginning of the pandemic completely eliminated a strain of the flu. We don't have to get sick over and over; it's a choice. 

A recent review in Nature listed the incidence of Long Covid as 5-20% in the community and as high as 50% in patients hospitalized: 

It's not a cold. It has long term repercussions. We don't have to let it in. 

My fall 2022 info posts still stand (most transmission is from someone asymptomatic, so it's not enough to just mask when you're sick, but it's not nothing, either, and Covid still kills more than vehicle collisions):