Masks or Longterm Illness in Children - It Shouldn't be a Difficult Decision

Sara Novak recently wrote about the study that found 20% of children have Long Covid, aka PASC (Post Acute Sequelae of Covid) that I discussed in August, but Novak brought in further backing from additional studies:

“In the most expansive study of its kind, researchers have for the first time shown serious and prevalent symptoms of Long Covid in kids and teens. The August study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association . . . which followed 5367 children, found that 20% of kids (ages 6-11) and 14% of teens met researchers' threshold for Long Covid. . . . By enrolling children who had been infected with acute COVID-19, as well as those who had not, researchers were able to isolate Long Covid symptoms in kids and teens. 'It allowed us to separate symptoms related to Long Covid with those that may have resulted from changes in a child's environment during the pandemic.' . . . For example, learning loss and mental health changes that were caused by the pandemic vs those that were caused by prolonged symptoms associated with Long Covid. . . . The new research found Long Covid affected nearly every organ system in kids and teens. And experts contend that pediatricians need to be on the lookout for GI complaints in kids as well as complaints of extreme fatigue and cognitive deficits or perceived changes in mental acuity in teenagers. . . . 

Kids and teens also face higher risks for reinfection because they attend school and are constantly exposed to the virus. This, according to experts, means that their symptoms may worsen before they get better. An August 2023 study published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences highlighted the increased risk for Long Covid after acute Covid reinfection, even in vaccinated individuals. . . . Postexertional malaise, a worsening of fatigue that occurs after even minimal exertion, often precludes kids from being able to participate in sports or after-school activities. This may take them away from the things that they enjoyed as well as their friend group. . . . 'Not only are kids not able to play the sports they once did, a lot of them have had to take weeks, months, or even whole years off from school. Other kids have had to switch to homeschooling. . . . A study recently published in the journal eClinicalMedicine showed that the symptoms of Long Covid in children significantly interfered with their lives, specifically their education and social interactions, which may lead to long-term developmental challenges down the line. Acknowledging that kids and teens are suffering is one thing, but we're still not doing nearly enough to help them, and the repercussions could be staggering."

Another Salon article reported about kids too sick for school, yet, at the same time, The Nation reported that some top universities are hosting health conferences full of people who want people more infected, following that nutty Great Barrington Declaration that suggests, in most Orwellian terms, sickness is health. 

"Covid contrarians . . . thought we should 'let 'er rip' and get as many people infected as possible, with a performative not to protecting the vulnerable; suggested that vaccine and mask mandates were somehow akin to Nazi totalitarianism; told us not to worry about variants; and said we'd have herd immunity by April 2021. If you want just one piece of evidence about the kind of cranks we're talking about, consider this: A late addition to the Stanford meeting is a senior editor of the Epoch Times, a far-right publication that not only dabbles in Covid conspiracies but is a frequent purveyor of climate change denialism. . . . The architects of these meetings come with bags and bags of right-wing funding, some of it laundered through think tanks and other institutions. . . . These Covid contrarians have decided that the science has been turned into a 'dogmatic tool of oppression' for rejecting them. In their minds they are Galileos against the church, and now they are tilting their fury against the institutions themselves. . . . If you cannot convince your colleagues of the worth of your arguments, then you can cry out that you're being discriminated against for simply having 'differing views.' But things don't work like that in science: we don't teach intelligent design alongside evolution. . . . Many of the Covid contrarians' favorite claims have withered in the sunlight of scientific scrutiny. . . . And for anyone who thinks this is all academic, in mid-September, the surgeon general of Florida recommended against the use of mRNA Covid vaccines, just as we're heading into respiratory virus season, endangering the lives of the residents of the state with quackery and pseudoscience."

Fortune reported on Covid raising the states for heart attacks, strokes, and death long after initial infection, and TVO had an panel interview in which most of the panel disclosed wearing masks just prior to the tape rolling because it keeps others safe as well as themselves. Dr. Kwame McKenzie clarified, 

"The more often you get Covid, the more likely you are to get Long Covid. . . . We have an escalating number of people with Long Covid. . . . Some of the public health measures in our arsenal are things we should be employing NOW to prevent a longterm problem."

I tweeted that, and a good 70% of comments indicated a strong belief that the virus is caused by the vaccine. That's the danger of giving a platform to scientists with dubious practices that don't hold up to scrutiny. According to Tara Moriarty's stats, Covid is currently affecting the excess death rates in Canada, which consistently average about 1,500 deaths each WEEK. We're currently doing worse than the US and UK. We're hovering around the 20% excess death now relative to the period from 2015-2019. For context, across Canada, vehicular collisions typically take about 1,700 lives each YEAR. If you still wear a seatbelt, and you consider yourself able to make some risk calculations, then consider also wearing a well-fitting mask. 

On Burnout: "Can" is the New "Should"

I started reading about burnout when I walked away from teaching earlier than expected. Suddenly, I couldn't bring myself to open that door after over thirty years of bounding to work. A series of events wiped away any sense of agency, fairness, or shared values. Their wellness lunch-and-learns didn't help me, and I soon discovered I'm not alone.

An article published in JAMA last June looked at rising rates of burnout in healthcare, where 40% of physicians surveyed intended to leave their practice. They suggest, "To prevent a health care worker exodus, experts argue that the emphasis needs to shift from individual resilience to broader system-level improvements." They are looking for standardized methods to affect organizational management with "evidence-based interventions."  

Over 25 years ago, Michael Leiter and Christina Maslach came to the same conclusion. They identified six areas of worklife affecting burnout and created a specific assessment for educators. They determined the cause to be a "mismatch" between employee expectations and employer behaviours leading workers to be closer to the bleak end of a continuum from burned out to engaged. They suggest that "the task for organizations and individuals is to achieve a resolution." This is not just a matter of throwing wellness initiatives or resilience-speak into the mix, but addressing any reasonable expectations of employees with appropriate employer interventions in all six interrelating areas. 

click for clarity

Feels vindicating, right?!

We Can Prevent Chronic Illness in Children, But It's Kinda Inconvenient

Another NEW study shows, yet again, that SARS-CoV-2 is harmful to kids. Who knew?!?

This was a three-year study that followed 1319 children after a first infection. Almost all of the kids had a mild (89%) or asymptomatic (9%) initial infection. Almost 80% were unvaccinated. At 3 months post acute infection, almost a quarter of the kids had Long Covid. From 1-2 years 7 to 8% continued to have Long Covid. Some of the kids infected at the very beginning of the study, still had Long Covid at the 3 year mark. We're generally being told the chance of Long Covid is somewhere between 7 and 10% (the CDC pegged it at 20% earlier), but that misses the reality that many more kids are sick for months before recovering. 

Important to note: only 67% had a fever as part of their acute infection, yet that is STILL the only symptom we look for to determine if kids should go to school. Having a runny nose was the next most common symptom, but fewer than half had that (46%). Covid shows up in a multitude of symptoms. The current variant goes for the GI system, so diarrhea is an important sign. 

Who gets Long Covid? They found that teenagers (kids over 12) are significantly more in danger. And girls tend to get it slightly more than boys. They indicate that vaccination was protective, but I'm confused by their data, which make it seem like it isn't at all: They compare all patients to unvaccinated, and the unvaccinated numbers with Long Covid are lower across the board, but I must be misunderstanding something there.  

At any rate, Covid really, really damages kids. A quarter will lose out on at least three months of school and life at a very pivotal age, and 7-8% will lose years of their lives, possibly the rest of their lives to a chronic illness. I'm not sure how many more studies we need before schools will overtly and regularly start at least encouraging masks in class and before hospitals will mandate them everywhere. How bad does it have to get?? We know that kids (and adults) with a mild infection can go on to develop organ failure. Our only tool right now is prevention with good quality masks while we wait for the clean air revolution to kick into gear. 

Yesterday I posted this article, explaining that it's up to parents to take the lead, but I didn't summarize the tragic story it contained: A 16-year-old girl, Cara, who always masked at school to protect her mom dealing with chemo, was convinced to finally take it off. She got Covid, and brought it home, and her mother died, and now she has to cope with the guilt of that on top of her grief. The article says she was bullied as the only person masking in the school, but then explains that she stopped when she heard a child psychotherapist on the radio say that girls wear them to hide their acne. That was the last straw for her.

 From the article,

"In 2022, over six times as many children died from Covid than from flu in the US. The UN Convention on the Rights of a Child requires states to 'recognise the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health' and to fully implement this right. Children's rights to education include a safe environment not harmful to their health. Cara and her parents fought for these rights. They were denied, with devastating consequences." 

I can do absolutely everything I enjoy publicly with a mask on except to eat in a restaurant. So I order in for special occasions. Once you get used to it, masks don't hamper the pleasure of the event, AND you don't get or inadvertently spread a disabling, fatal virus to anyone!! It's win/win!! I understand that a tiny percentage of people actually can't wear a mask, but I cannot accept the argument that mask are uncomfortable or feel suffocating when the alternative to wearing a mask is children and their parents getting sick like this or dying.  

Grow. The fuck. Up. 

Predictable, Incurable, Disabling, Fatal, and PREVENTABLE

It's still here. It's still dangerous. We have the ability to stop it, but we can't wait to be told to because that's just not happening. 

Andrew Nikiforuk wrote in The Tyee about the dangers of Covid. 

"Although the media routinely dismisses all Covid infections as an inconsequential nuisance, that's not what the science says. The virus remains deadlier than the flu and repeated infections can radically change your health. . . . Even a mild bout of covid can leave a legacy of blood clots, heart failure, diabetes, decreased brain funciton, Long Covid (now affecting 400 million people worldwide) and immune damage that increasingly makes peopel more vulnerable to a plethora of infectious diseases and possibly cancers. . . . There is no such thing as a SARS-CoV-2 infection that does NOT have prolonged consequences. . . . There's not a fresh vaccine in sight. In fact, they are weeks away. . . . 

Pitting Health Against Education as We Debilitate a Generation

Covid is definitely causing a variety of longterm illnesses and public health still can't manage an effective PSA that undoes damage caused by their previous misinformation: teaching people how easily we can get infected, how harmful the virus is, and how to prevent it with N95s and cleaner air. And in many places, like my old school, people are still not allowed to bring in CR boxes or open windows if it's cold out or teach about Covid, and in some places masks are flippin' illegal! And children are in the middle of all this mess. 

from here 

It says, "Forcing families to choose between biosecurity and education is one of the great injustices of our time, violating children's fundamental human rights to life, health, safety, and education.

LONGTERM ILLNESS

In this 20 minute INET podcast with Dr. Phillip Alvelda, they explain that we are effectively debilitating a generation: 

"The danger is clear and present: Covid isn't merely a respiratory illness; it's a multi-dimensional threat impacting brain function, attacking almost all of the body's organs, producing elevated risks of all kinds, and weakening our ability to fight off other diseases. Reinfections are thought to produce cumulative risks, and Long Covid is on the rise. Unfortunately, Long Covid is now being considered a long-term chronic illness -- something many people will never fully recover from."

The Heart Research Institute in the UK wrote about the recent paper showing that even a mild or asymptomatic case can increase stroke, heart attack, and heart failure.  

AIRBORNE AIDS

If that's not enough to be concerned, the World Health Network wrote about Covid's overlap with AIDS:

Why Novavax: Choosing the Tortoise Over the Hare

Dr. Michael Lin explains what makes Novavax different from mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines. It's not in block quotes because this is all from him. It's comprehensive, but complex, and just one thing missing: MASKS are a great way to prevent infection.

I made this graphic to show how different vaccine types work (back in 2021). We can just look at line 1 (protein vax like Novavax) and line 3 (RNA vax). In protein vax, antigen-presenting cells take up the antigen to activate B cells and T-helper cells. In RNA vax, your muscles cells take up RNA and translate it into antigen. This process tends to be a bit inflammatory (apparently that's inherent to RNA uptake) so some cells die and release proteins that are also taken up by antigen-presenting cells. The main differences between protein and RNA vax in practice are threefold:

Aim in the Right Direction

A Tiktoker, amylynn79, explained why she's not masking despite being very sick with Covid. She has few followers on that site (maybe because it's 9 minutes of rambling), but clips of it are travelling around Twitter. 

Here are the highlights: She's on day 4 of testing positive. This is her fourth time having it. Her symptoms: headache, dizziness, feeling cold, and feel like you're dying, like someone's ripping your spine out, diarrhea, brain fog, and massive sweating. She went to the doctors and got meds, which is nice for her. There's nothing much we can get here beyond Tylenol. Where did she pick up Covid? School, of course.

"Every time my kids go back to school, they ALWAYS catch something."

Appropriate Fear and Respect

We teach our children to have a "healthy fear" of the water, to respect that it's possible to drown in the shallows or to hit our head on a rock if we get knocked down by a wave. So we swim with a buddy who's paying attention to us. We should have a healthy fear of viruses too.  

It doesn't mean living in fear, but taking precautions so our littles don't get sick over and over. We need to provide good quality masks in all classrooms, and encourage everyone to wear them and take them home. If funds are an issue, Donate a Mask can help!!

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: 

Back to School in a Wave

This is the first September that I'm not going to school as a teacher OR a student since I was 4 years old (not counting maternity leaves for all my spring babies), and all I can think about is the giant Covid wave engulfing all the little ones without any mitigations even suggested. 

"New" research says that kids actually DO get harmed by Covid, which is something most should have known years ago. For a while there, the story was that kids carry it, making schools the number one vector of transmission, but somehow aren't actually affected by it, which is clearly malarky! Even without an eye to long term damage, just being sick for a few weeks several times a year takes a told. As a trustee in 2022, my phone rang off the hook with parents frantic that their kids were getting sick again. I talked to parents with kids in the hospital, so I can imagine in what universe people ever believed it's harmless.

Salon reports, 

"For years, public health experts have said that Covid-19 infections in children are 'mild.' . . . While some children with the coronavirus are admitted to the ICU and there are pediatric deaths, studies have found that underlying medical conditions including obesity, diabetes, cardiac and lung disorders, increase the risk of severe outcomes."

Canadian Public Health Has Spoken

Apparently we're all in with Pfizer and Moderna despite Novavax providing significantly better protection and fewer risks.

Trudeau claimed to want Canada to be a producer of Novavax back in 2020, and bought a plant in Montréal, but no vaccines have been produced there for public use. Last May, the firm said it would push ahead with vaccines. According to that article, as of February over 37,000 Novavax shots were administered in Canada, 70 million Pfizer, adn 33. million Moderna. The low demand for Novavax negatively affects the likelihood that the plant will get off the ground.

Novavax is preferred for people who can't tolerate mRNA vaccines as Novavax uses protein-based fomula instead. It's targeting the JN.1 variant, as well as KP.2 and KP.3, which originate from JN.1 and most widespread (the "FliRT variants"). 

Avoiding an MPOX on All Our Houses

The WHO has declared an international Public Health Emergency for a more lethal version of Monkeypox, now called mpox, which is clade 1b, aka 1 MPXV, and comes with a 4% fatality rate (compared to Covid's current approximately 0.7% rate -- or 1 in 25 vs 1 in 150). However, Forbes reports that clade I could "kill up to 10% of people."

The different "clades" (a broad grouping of variants) matter. Anyone can get it regardless of sexual orientation, but men who have sex with men had a significantly higher risk of getting Clade II, which was big in 2022. Right now, we've got Clade 1. an airborne infectious disease that is more severe. In Burundi, almost half of the cases are in children under 5, and, from Forbes, "children younger than 15 years old now make up more than 70% of cases and 85% of deaths. . . . The outbreak in children suggests that clade I is transmitted through air." So all the comments about gay sex are moot for this one, like these lovely examples:

Worst Scenario for a School Start Yet

In the fall of 2020 and 2021, we had masks, even if some were a poor fit or made of cloth. Now we have zero mitigations. School is starting soon at a time with the highest fall case count in the states since this all started!

If you saw a parent driving with a young child unbuckled in the passenger seat, would you want to tell them the risks?? That's how I feel when parents send kids to school without masks. Covid kills more than car collisions in my area. Well-fitting N95s work to save their lives, just like seatbelts work. 

But Covid doesn't just kill. It hangs around to reappear later in a disabling form.

Covid Olympics

It's the pinnacle of denialism and such a waste of talent to have top athletes practice for decades of their lives for this one event, then put them together with coaches and family members without ANY precautions, and then watch them get sick one after another. 

Sports Illustrated argued (from J. Offir), 

"If the International Olympic Committee insisted that all participants be at their mental and physical best at the moment of competition, no event would ever take place. . . .  Lyles said he never considered withdrawing. . . . Of course he was sick, and of course it affected him--and of course it doesn't really matter. They held the men's 200 at the Olympics this week, Noah Lyles was the third-fastest man in the final and that's that." 

In other words, we have to live with the virus. Tons of athletes are just going to collapse during or after or before performing. That's the new normal we're ushering in rather than wear N95s. In another article they splash the "R" word around: resilience!! We have to push through despite having preventable spread of a virus allowed throughout the Olympic village!! 

Embracing Fallibility

Many of us live in a punitive, carceral type of society that can make it difficult to have compassion for ourselves or others. It's an era of the glorification of the individual over the group, leading to perfectionism and narcissism and so, so much loneliness. We can't connect when we're working with blind determination to find our place above the rest. We can't connect when we don't dare show an ounce of vulnerability for fear of being taken down like a wounded gazelle on the Serengeti. Our quest to rise to the top for the security we think comes with status and money is completely at odds with our very real need to feel authentically known, within the security of a community.  

We're no longer following that love and forgiveness bit from Christianity, if we ever really did wide-scale. And we project our fear of losing on anyone who has suffered through difficulties, no matter if it's a natural disaster or massive layoff. We distance ourselves from the suffering of others by convincing ourselves they must have done something stupid to be in this position, and, therefore, we're safe as long as we keep on going hard. It's just a trick to make us feel safer, that unwittingly keeps us from too consciously noticing the floods and fires, layoffs and illnesses lapping at our heels.  

Fudging the Numbers for Calm Mongering

Leading causes of death have changed over the past four years. In the States, Covid slipped from 3rd to 10th place. Or did it? 

The numbers are from this study and discussed in this article.

Eric Topal looked more closely at the numbers. There were "still 50,000 [official] Covid deaths in 2023. Heart disease and stroke are not declining. Small reduction in cancer deaths."

In Need of a Church of the Covid Informed

 This is just bananas, but another county in NY State banned masks. 

From this article, 

"Nassau lawmakers on Monday approved a bill making it a misdemeanor--punishable by up to $1,000 and/or a year in jail--for anyone wearing a mask or any facial covering to hide their identity while in public places. The measure exempts people who wear masks for health, safety, 'religious or cultural purposes, or for the peaceful celebration of a holiday or similar religious or cultural event for which masks or facial coverings are customarily worn.'" 

That's a lot of words to ensure that Hallowe'en is safe. 

The Psychology of Diving into Polluted Water

We need external organizations to monitor for safety without any conflicts of interest! And we need to stop throwing people into dangerous situations as if human beings are expendable, expecting more and more to be available to fill their spot like it's flippin' D-Day!! 

Social psychologist, Dr. J. Offir, wrote a great thread on how hard it would be for Olympic competitors to not jump in the Seine despite how sick it was obviously making them: 

This was obviously a policy failure that we watched unfold in real time. ("Wait! Stop! Come back!" says Willie Wonka.) But it also demonstrates how people selectively trust authority figures when those leaders are saying what we want to hear. (This pattern of behavior has also been on clear display during the pandemic: people were suspicious of leaders whom they perceived as restricting freedoms, due to psychological reactance, but once those experts said to unmask and go to the mall, the same folks who had been disbelieving suddenly found faith in authorities' messages again. Ask people why they aren’t masking, and many will give you some variation on "the CDC said I don't need to.") 

Who Can We Blame for All of This??

I totally understand the feeling of being out for blood right now about the number of children who are likely to get sick in our public schools this fall, some who will never recover. We want to find someone to pay. 

But the nature of our fucked up bureaucratic system is that it's engineered so that nobody takes responsibility for anything. It's rule by nobody. 

If anyone should be in trouble, it's the premiers of each province. They're the ones who are in charge of directing the mess. Now the CMOs aren't their own entity, so they take direction from premiers. And, more to the point, school boards can't do much to override whatever direction they're given or they risk losing their right to govern themselves. That means a supervisor can be appointed by the government to take over a board. At some schools, teachers who have complained about how things are run have been suspended. 

If we want blood for the anti-mask rhetoric, then we need to aim at the top. But will that accomplish anything?? It might feel good, but is it productive? 

Rotting the Soul of a Nation

As a Canadian, we need to be concerned what happens to our neighbours. Their politics affects our lives. 

I don't typically write about this stuff, and so much has happened in a very short period of time, but Trump's speech last night was truly alarming. The whole thing is here, but the most frightening thing is this bit of encouragement for all the "christians" out there: 

"Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it'll be fixed, it'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore my beautiful christians. . . . In four years you're not going to need to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote."

This sound a lot like the very end of democracy and the beginning of a dictatorship. And in Trump's world, that will be a system that dismantles human rights for all but the wealthiest and whitest of men. From the way various members of that party talk, I predict we'll see women the property of men. Disabled people - like the journalist Trump mocked so long ago - will be left to die by merely denying care if not actually rounded up. Slave labour in the prisons will be expanded. We already know racialized people can be shot by police in their own homes. It won't get better for them under Trump. Some rumours are already spreading that Harris isn't American, isn't black, and had black kids imprisoned beyond their release dates, and others are scrambling to correct that misinformation. 

I had a moment of hope when Biden stepped down and Harris stepped up, but Trump's speech was bone-chilling for how gleeful he is about this announcement, and that he's not acting in secret. He's being totally upfront about it all. Remember that Hitler came to power legally in a democratic system, and then removed the possibility of ever losing his throne. That's what's happening before our eyes with Project 2025. He also added "we'll have lawyers at every polling station." We know republicans will do everything to keep the "wrong" people from voting. That's their schtick. 

I really hope good prevails. And maybe it's getting bad enough that people will wake up and make sure they're registered and make sure it's the right place (even if it's miles from home and changed at the last minute) and vote against all odds.    

We're already seeing this kind of thing in Canada, fascism-lite, with destruction to hospitals, schools, and  agricultural land, and billions of dollars missing. Yesterday, Ford successful managed to be allowed to commit illegal acts. From NDP MPP Chris Glover:

"Democracy in Ontario was dealt a real blow today. The Ford Conservatives know that they probably broke provincial laws with the Ontario Place Project, so they passed Bill 154 that said that, hey, this project, if we've broken the Heritage Act, the Environmental Protection Act, if any of our ministers or agents have committed acts of misfeasance, which means abuse of government power, well that is exempt from the laws, from the courts in Ontario. Ontario Place Protectors took this law to court, and they said this bill is unconstitutional. Nobody, no government, should be above the law. No government should be able to break the law and retroactively exempt themselves from the law. Unfortunately, the court found today that this law IS constitutional. With this precedent any government in Canada can break the law, and when they realize they've done this, retroactively exempt themselves from the law. It's a really dangerous precedent for the people of Ontario, for the people of Canada. It means that the government, Ford Conservatives, have put themselves above the law."

Time to wake up here, too! The fact that all the destruction in Ontario is from a premier that got 18% of the votes is enraging. And he's done this much destruction to our province in just over half of his term. I can't even imagine what else is in store for us. 

ETA: I just had a conversation with someone online who thinks Trump means, just vote this time, and after that he doesn't care because he can't run again, and they'll fix all the woke nonsense in the next four years. I countered that it's still ominous if it'll be SO fixed that people will never have to vote again. Trump is self-serving, but he also is the puppet of a much larger group, like Steve Bannon. Either way, I'm on eggshells feeling hopeful for Harris.