Austerity, Brexit, Covid Lockdown Parties, PPE Scandal, Raw Sewage in UK Waterways & Coastal Areas, Economic Crash, Record Inflation, Record Interest Rates, Cost of Living Crisis, Pensions Decimated, Mortgage Rises, NHS in Crisis, Schools Crumbling, Housing Crisis...
A lot of people still think about Covid as a wash your hands and socially distance kind of thing.
Chances of getting Covid from touching something is near zero and we're far more likely to catch it from someone we can't see because it can stay in the air for a long time, drift long distances, and remain potent long after a contagious person is gone (as much as 2 hours).
This is why improving ventilation is one of the most important things you can do to reduce risks of infection for yourself and people around you. With good air flow, an infectious person is less dangerous. Infected air is diluted and can't linger to keep infecting.
I took a variety of CO2 readings to estimate indoor air quality. Based on these readings, places I wouldn't want to be unmasked would be: house gatherings, offices, meeting rooms, conventions, public transit, a plane, funerals.
Places that may not be as risky as originally believed are: supermarkets, pharmacies, and restaurants.
3.5 years of constant caution and sacrifice, withholding dinners at restaurants & concerts, and I let one professional event encourage me to take needless risks. I spoke in a room with 80 people without a mask. I asked the event planner to have air filters in the room, but she said "their effectiveness for Covid prevention is limited," which is, of course, BS, and that should've been when I withdrew from the event. I let my guard down, and now I have my first #COVID infection. Be safe out there!
YES! 💉😷 “#FDA gave the green light to updated #Covid-19 #vaccine booster shots from #Moderna and #Pfizer/BioNTech. The updated vaccines are each approved for people 12 and older and are authorized under emergency use for individuals 6 months through 11 years old. As part of the FDA’s update, the original bivalent Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines are no longer authorized for use in the US” 1/...
wife tested positive for covid. It's bad. Online Doc refused to prescribe #Paxlovid citing she's <50yrs. Said LongCovid isn't real and pretty much gaslit the thing.
PCP offices are closed.
CVS w/o prescription requires labwork that we don't have handy.
Man kann jetzt in Echtzeit beobachten, wie die Dynamik bei #Covid zu kippen beginnt. Bisher sind die Fallzahlen sehr moderat gestiegen (siehe z.B. Sentisurv), vermutlich überwiegend durch enge Kontakte. Inzwischen sieht man quasi auf diesem Trend immer wieder größere Cluster (d.h. punktuell starke Verbreitung in geeigneten Settings). Es ist absehbar, dass diese stärkere Verbreitung bald mehr und mehr in der Fläche stattfindet und wir eine echte epidemische Dynamik kriegen.
"... an unusually bad 'flu season is buffeting the country. Doctor say the strain, originating in China, is particularly severe. Children and the elderly are most at risk."
... and Sheldon, panicking, says;
"We're all gonna die!"
... then his mother Mary says;
"But you need to understand that sometimes the news says those things just to scare people."
😷💉“New #COVID vaccine is due out next month, but health experts & analysts say it is likely to be coolly received even as hospitalizations from "Eris", a variant of the Omicron, rise.”
Three years. Three fucking years of zero #COVID in my home.
Now my husband is quarantined downstairs for who knows how long, and I’m building a Corsi-Rosenthal box for the living room, because the HEPA air purifier with the UVC light is camping downstairs with him.
I tested negative earlier tonight, really hoping I manage to stay that way.
If you paid for funeral expenses for someone who died in the US, and their death certificate mentions COVID as a cause, you may be eligible for up to US$9,000 in funeral expense assistance from the US federal government.
“#Florida’s top health official called for a halt to using mRNA coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday, contending that the shots could contaminate patients’ DNA — a claim that has been roundly debunked by public health experts, federal officials and the #vaccine companies” #COVID 💉😷
The Economist used global excess deaths to arrive at the true death toll from the pandemic with a 95% confidence interval.
"Although the official number of deaths caused by #COVID19 is now 7m, our single best estimate is that the actual toll is 27.5m people. We find that there is a 95% chance that the true value lies between 17.8m and 30.8m additional deaths."
“Rates of severe disease may be staying at relatively low levels, but experts agree that there are probably more infections than the current surveillance systems can capture.” #COVID
With the new #COVID vaccine approved, a reminder that we’re all indebted to the ancient & wondrous horseshoe crab.
Their blue blood contains Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) which clumps at contact with bacterial toxins. They are caught for their blood to test sterility of medical equipment & injections.
Unfortunately the harvest is unsustainable & populations are in decline. An effective synthetic substitute has been around for 2 decades & we just need the biomedical industry to switch.
My #Dad, aged 27, at #RefugeeCamp in #Indonesia - 1979. Photo was taken by humanitarian aid workers to help #VietnamWar#refugees get sponsored to go to Europe, Canada, USA & Australia, under asylum.
My Dad passed away June 9, 2023.
He went through hell & back, several times. He beat almost all odds. Until #covid infection in hospital in 2022. #LongCovid killed him last year.
Global Covid-19 cases up 80% as new sub-variant emerges (www.straitstimes.com)
WHO warned that the reported number of cases and deaths do not reflect the true numbers. Read more at straitstimes.com.