Not Just a Health Issue

Professor Lidia Morawska just won a quarter million dollar science prize for her work in proving that Covid is airborne, against the WHO's public announcement to the contrary back in March 2020. Her efforts saved lives.

"A renowned expert in air quality and health, Morawska, of the Queensland University of Technology, began contacting international colleagues. She eventually gathered 239 scientists globally to highlight the risk of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The public pressure eventually prompted the WHO and other authorities to update their public health guidelines. ... 'Science and scientists are nowhere near as listened to as in the past, and decisions are not based on science.' It is a problem she hopes to tackle by bringing scientists together as she did during the early years of the pandemic."

That feels like a lifetime ago, long forgotten by many, yet illnesses and death from Covid haven't retreated. 

A US study tracked 150 million workers and absences "since the end of the so-called public health emergency in 2023" to find that absences continue to be 12.9% higher than before the pandemic. "Absences were highest in occupations with the greatest exposure to the public." And last month a global insurance firm "pegged that number of excess deaths at 2% above the pre-pandemic annual mortality rate. ... That's roughly the equivalent of two fully loaded standard commercial jets crashing and killing everyone aboard every day." They cited long Covid as a significant factor. Andrew Nikiforuk reports in The Tyee, 

Costs of Disability

Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, the guy who told the Senate Hearing that the burden Long Covid is on par with the burden of cancer and heart disease, wrote a brief explainer of a recent study (Gascon, Martorana & Moore, 2024) that found "a significant surge in the number of people with a disability in the U.S."

I still have educated people in my life that argue Covid isn't a big deal because they know tons of people and don't know anybody who's been disabled or died from it. They don't seem to understand why the scientific method uses random sampling instead of taking anecdotal accounts as evidence. But the numbers don't lie. And the big picture will hit home eventually: 

How We Look After the Least Fortunate

Back in the day, the left was all about protesting for rights for marginalized people, and the right fought for a more individualistic, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps ideology.  

Another thread from Kelly, this time on something I've also noticed in my life: this individualistic right-wing ideology in left-leaning friends:

Had a discussion with a friend on CDC isolation guidelines and how we’re fostering a culture of eugenics and forced infection. Their response? “More like we’re just finally going to stop paying people to sit at home.” 

This is someone who had been a kind and logical person. This type of personality shift is one of the aspects of the pandemic that bothers me the most. This person was kind and considerate and never opposed paid time off. Now they’ve become angry, intolerant and spew right wing rhetoric despite claiming to not belong to any “side.” 

For all the Fierce Raindrops: Lessons that Should Have Been Learned

Changing minds on big issues takes a long time and the work never ends. 

Anti-drinking and driving groups appeared in the early 1980s, like MADD, typically made up of survivors or relatives of victims who saw first hand that something must be done to prevent so many disabilities and deaths. I was a teenager at the time, and my circle didn't think twice about driving hammered. I remember people saying things like these boring old ladies should get a life and stop telling us when we can and can't drive! We were all pretty sure we could drive just fine after a few. Who are they to tell us otherwise? Breathalizer legislation was on the books in the 60s, and RIDE programs were legal in the 70s, but it wasn't until MADD came about that we got flooded with school visits and PSAs and then really strict penalties were enacted for drunk driving including jail time! And they we all sobered up about it, realizing our inconvenience in staying the night or going back to get the car in the morning doesn't really warrant potentially taking a life. 

Wheelchair ramps weren't an architectural requirement in public buildings until the 90s, but only after people with disabilities and allies fought for their rights to fully participate in society over decades, starting with Judy Heumann's winning lawsuit in 1970 against the NY Board of Ed that was preventing her equal access to the workplace because she uses a wheelchair. That was following by blocking traffic that got a weak bill passed, and then sit-ins that eventually forced politicians to listen and act. Check out Crip Camp, where activist Denise Jacobson said, "You can pass a law, but until you change society's attitude, that law won't mean much." And now we generally agree that everyone should have access to participate fully in society despite any form of disability. Right???

Early AIDS activists watched friends and loved ones die for years before they could get enough of an audience to have an effect on policy. "Sickness and death from HIV/AIDS was brought to a virtual standstill in the USA . . . by a vigorous public health campaign designed not around treating those who became infected, but by preventing infection in the first place." But it took years of activism, from 1979 to 1986, and many celebrities dying and children dying before public health started to issue PSAs, to actually teach the nation how to prevent the spread.

It takes a really long time to convince governments to impose safety measures that, in some way, affect people's freedom to do their own thing. It's not necessarily a bad thing on its own. to be careful about legislation, but it's very frustrating to be living during the activism phase watching so many children get sick. We've got children dying of Covid already. And lots of celebrities. But there's a huge coverup or spin or denial that has people claiming that, for instance, a fatal heart-attack at 13, 17, 27, and 44, all within a day of each other, is totally normal now. When my healthy friend succumbed to a heart attack in his early 60s, people were so fast to say that people die of heart attacks in their 60s all the time!! Instead of, you know, sorry for your loss. It's all ABC: Anything but Covid.

How to Profit from Pandemics

Three threads from this week outline the political and media pandemic protocol being followed around the world, the similarities and differences between prior pandemics, and how the profit motive fuels it all.

Prognostic Chats outlined a baker's dozen of steps taken by many countries to get us to this damaging place. His post comes with receipts, but I've grown weary of including them. I don't think they need evidence. It's just how most of us are living now. 

"Masks have been removed from healthcare. Now schools are encouraging parents to send their sick children to class. We didn’t get here by accident. We have been brought here through carefully orchestrated system changes. They have been common in many counties. Few have noticed.

Depending on One Another

A.H. Reaume, disabled from a brain injury, wrote about how dramatically her life changed with some help once in a relationship. Her partner does the household chores and makes sure she eats well and regularly. 

"Being in my disabled body feels different with him than without him in my life. I can work more and make more money. I can do it with pain even. I have much higher hourly earning potential, so I work more hours than he does, and he does things that make my life simpler. I've never made more money freelancing in my life, and I can do that only because of him. I feel better. Being partnered as a disabled person is a vector of disabled privilege we really don't talk about enough. I could not do this single."

It made me think of all the men throughout the last couple hundred of years who made huge contributions to society with the help of someone doing all the other work necessary in their lives. Her partner isn't doing anything different than has been done by countless wives.