The fact that Covid is dangerous is at odds with how most people live. So they pretend it’s not, because it’s too hard to do anything about. It would be more convenient for it to not be true. But it is true. So what can the average person do to mitigate in a realistic way? 1/
With Covid surging at record levels all over at the moment and so many people I know testing positive, I would love it levelheaded and reasonable people took a moment in good faith to reflect on the fact that this is not the pandemic we were promised. 🧵
Anyone who thinks the
#YallMasking
trend is virtue signaling needs to understand that we’re often the lone masker in spaces and feel extremely alone. Seeing so many ppl all over the world is a genuine surprise and the first glimmer of hope that many of us have felt in a long time
A lot of people are asking why anyone would bother testing for Covid in 2024, when it’s the same as any illness, where you should just stay home if you feel sick. Here are some reasons why it’s still a good idea to test for Covid 🧵 /1
I’ve started collecting articles and studies about covid whenever I’ve come across them. It helps to have something easily accessible to share with people when they want to call my bluff (or, more positively, when they genuinely want to learn). Here they are for your convenience:
I don’t understand how a virus serious enough to shut down the entire world that continues to circulate, kill, and disable people, is something that we are now just expected to accept and expose ourselves to indefinitely? And it’s somehow controversial to question or oppose it?
The whiplash of everyone collectively taking Covid extremely seriously and then suddenly vehemently denying its severity when nothing concrete has happened to make it less dire is such a mindfuck! 1/
People act like those who take covid seriously are somehow choosing to make covid a big deal. But the world is simply not what it was 5 years ago. I wish it was. But it’s not. I’m adapting to the reality. You can choose to ignore it or acknowledge it, but there is no opting out.
Humans are social creatures above all else and I’ve been noticing that there’s a tipping point when it comes to mask mirroring. I want to share a surprisingly positive and hopeful experience that I had a few months ago 😷🧵1/
The dissonance I feel seeing all the unmasked faces packed inside at the DNC during a huge Covid wave. In my mind I still think they must know what they’re signing up for. Then watching what seems to be genuine bafflement as the positive tests roll in. I’ll never get used to this
I think the average well-intentioned person sees effective Covid mitigation as too hard to consistently keep up, so they decide to opt out entirely, and in doing so, they conclude that Covid must not be that harmful. And thus they see those who take precautions as over the top.
People are trying to warn you. It’s not some made up thing or something that only happens to other people. Or that it won’t happen next time you get covid just because it didn’t happen last time. You can keep ignoring this as long as possible. But people tried to warn you.
📢 The popular drag artist Themme Fatale has announced their retirement due to Long COVID:
“That’s all folks: Live, laugh, look out for each other during a mass disabling event.”
If you’ve ever had Covid and are now more tired, have weird brain fog, have a pesky cough that won’t go away, are more prone to random illnesses, but you still think long covid is something that happens to *other people* - are you sure?
If you’ve stopped masking, it’s never too late to start again. No shame. I take way more precautions than I did even a year ago. We learn and change our behavior.
To people who argue that although millions of people have died from Covid, it’s nothing special because people die from all sorts of other things every day, like cancer, heart attacks and strokes, so Covid is not uniquely special. 1/
If you think you can’t go back to masking because we were told that we didn’t need to wear masks anymore and we were told we had to go back to living our lives completely normally, consider the fact that we were also told that we wouldn’t be getting Covid over and over. /8
Covid was surging all summer and I think people were hopeful it would go down by fall. But so many seemingly small changes on a societal level will undoubtedly make it worse. Work from office full time, isolation periods almost nonexistent, penalizing kids’ absences. 🧵1/5
The best way to prevent covid is by wearing a high quality respirator. We are in a massive surge right now. If you stopped masking, it’s okay to start again. It’s okay to learn new information and change your behavior. 10/10
Here is what we were promised.
We were promised that people who are vaccinated cannot be infected or infect others.
We were told that breakthrough infections were incredibly rare.
We were told that if we did get it, we would then develop immunity and not get it again. /4
If you have cold symptoms right now, sure, I suppose it *could* be brand new allergies or a cold. But it's August, it's not cold or flu season, and covid is surging everywhere right now. It's far more likely that it's the obvious thing.
What is a mild a case for you could be spread to someone else and disable them. You can also get long covid even if your case was mild or asymptomatic in the acute phase. 3/
Think about where you were in spring 2021.
The vaccines were just coming out and we finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
What did you think about the future then? Did you think you would go on to get Covid multiple times a year?
/2
People were traumatized during the time of stricter Covid mitigations because there was a dangerous airborne virus we were all terrified to get! Why are we blaming the measures that were put in place to keep us safe? It’s completely misplaced. The virus itself is traumatizing.
How absurd and embarrassing to see public health officials like
@DrJeanneM
openly acknowledge that they know they are harming patients and vulnerable ppl by refusing to practice mitigations, but they’d rather live in denial than confront reality. Absolutely unbelievable quote
This is the main reason people are so adamant about avoiding Covid, the people who you might dismiss as crazy or paranoid. We are less concerned with feeling like we have a cold when we first get infected, and more concerned with the long term effects. 8/
I wish everyone masked consistently. But for those who never do, sometimes is better than never. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Covid is dangerous. Every interaction is a new opportunity to make a choice to mitigate or be exposed. 13/13
1. You could test if you know you’ve been exposed, because you can get covid even if you never develop symptoms. If you test positive even if you don’t feel sick, you can prevent spreading it to countless others. 2/
This is why it's so important for people to keep masking in spaces. The more people see others masking, the more they feel like they can and that they're supposed to be. Many people WANT to mask but feel uncomfortable standing alone. Mask mirroring is so powerful. 11/
So if you go to your friend’s indoor birthday at a crowded bar, that doesn’t mean you have to just be a person who never masks ever. You can still mask at the grocery store. The grocery store is a brand new opportunity for you to either avoid infection or be exposed. 5/
3. It’s helpful to know if and when you’ve had Covid because the long term effects are cumulative, even if your acute phase is mild. Covid is not like other respiratory illnesses. It’s a vascular disease that damages multiple organ systems. 5/
This is not an antivax post! The vaccine can prevent severe infection and hospitalization. But the original vaccines were designed for much older variants than the ones that are currently circulating, and the boosters that are available are several variants behind. /6
I'm worried that doctors who are in denial about Covid will see all the patients who come in with the same kinds of unexplainable symptoms, and instead of connecting the dots, conclude that since they're seeing it so much now, it's normal and common. A new baseline.
They keep moving target blood pressure guidelines lower & lower while refusing to acknowledge SARS-CoV-2 infections as a cardiovascular risk factor 🤔
New normal defined as <120/70
If, for example, people masked at hospitals, movie theaters, grocery stores, then people you mingle with at the bar will have had fewer opportunities for exposure. You and the people around you would be safer in unmasked situations because you’ve all masked some of the time. 12/
If you develop a mystery heart issue three months from now, or countless other health issues that have popped up in millions of people in the last four years, it helps to be able to point to the last time you had a known Covid infection. 6/
4. If you have Covid, even if it’s mild, it’s recommended that you rest and don’t overly exert yourself for several weeks, to help prevent long covid. If you never know that you have Covid and you push it too soon, you put yourself at greater risk for long term complications. 7/
Again, let me be clear. I wish people masked all the time. But if you’re currently a person who masks NONE of the time, it’s better for you to mask at least sometimes. 10/
I know this is hard for people to do because then you’d have to admit that the times you didn’t mask were also dangerous. You have to admit that Covid is harmful. I can’t do that for you. 8/
Multiple variants are circulating, it’s one of the biggest surges ever (including “during covid” in 2020), and everyone is just getting it all the time and claiming to have consented to this reality. We didn’t. You didn’t.
This is not the pandemic we were promised. /11
A lot of people seem to think that Covid mitigations are all or nothing. The thinking seems to be if you can’t mask all the time, you’re simply not a person who masks at all and there’s no point in doing it ever. You either mask or you don’t. 2/
The existence of Covid in our daily lives is extremely inconvenient, so people who can’t engage with it see those of us who are responding appropriately as the thing that is making things hard, instead of the virus itself.
2. If you do have symptoms, you can still have the virus in your body and be contagious for days even after you feel better. So continuing to test is a helpful way to gauge if you should wait to go out and see people even if your symptoms have improved. 4/
If you ate inside a restaurant on Monday and have the option to eat outside on Tuesday, that’s a new opportunity to reduce exposure. If you didn’t mask in the audience of your friend’s improv show, you can still mask at the movies. 6/
If more people masked half of the time, then the times when people didn’t mask would actually be less risky than they are now, because the people they expose themselves to will have been reducing their own opportunities for exposure. 11/
Why do so many people who insist that we have to live our lives and “if you’re vulnerable, you can choose to wear a mask” then turn around and HARASS people who mask in public???
Oh and before the trolls descend to say “it’s the jab!”
1.People have been getting long covid since before the vaccines existed.
2.Just because you don’t test doesn’t mean you’ve never had covid. /12
I would love if people took mitigations all the time. But given the fact that most people take ZERO mitigations, what can we do to reduce harm as much as possible? 3/
But once you do admit it, if you don’t think you can mitigate all the time, it doesn’t mean you have to throw in the towel entirely. Each situation is a brand new opportunity. 9/
If you’re saying that covid will always be with us and we have to live with it and keep getting reinfected, this was never what we signed up for going into it.
This is not the pandemic we were promised. /10
Our chances of long covid go up with each infection and it will only make your future mystery health issues all the more baffling and impossible to explain if you were never aware that you had covid in the first place. 9/
3.I’ve been to your neck of the Twitter woods and I’ve seen your bewilderment about how you’re always sick and not even vaccinated (as if it’s a badge of honor). It’s all the same. We are all sick. It’s covid.
A few days later someone in the class messaged me to say that three people she knows had covid at the moment, and she thanked me for keeping the class safe. This is more than I could have ever asked for. 15/
Setting aside the fact that Covid can cause or exacerbate all of those things, I want to point out the fact that those other deaths are considered huge tragedies, while for some reason covid is accepted or minimized. 2/
And the thing is, people can act like they have moved on from covid, but the truth is, people still don't want to get it. They're just living in willful denial that it won't happen to them or that it’s somehow not that bad because everyone else is ignoring it. 16/
If your takeaway is “don’t smoke” that’s a good start, but what about the current, immediate reality we are perpetuating, where people who are immunocompromised cannot participate in society without becoming further disabled or killed? Wear a mask.
David Lynch says he can no longer direct in-person due to his health.
“I've gotten emphysema from smoking for so long, & so I'm homebound whether I like it or not. I can't go out... because of COVID, it would be very bad for me to get sick”
(via:
@fatecolossal
/
@SightSoundmag
)
When someone is diagnosed with cancer, it is a huge deal, and it takes center focus in their life. But if someone dies or becomes disabled from covid, it’s somehow acceptable. And even if the death itself is tragic, we keep insisting that it’s okay to continue to get covid. 3/
Someone else entered the room and saw the three of us in masks and asked if I had an extra. The class filled in and more and more people took stock of the people around them and asked me for a mask. 8/
Imagine if cancer were airborne! Imagine if you could catch cancer just by stepping outside and sharing air with strangers. Imagine if people kept getting it over and over just by breathing. Imagine if people were hostile to you for questioning this as a normal and good. 4/
I took an acting class in the spring, and, just like in almost all spaces, l was the only one who masked. It was awkward and uncomfortable but I've gotten to the point where I no longer feel weird or like I have to explain myself, because I know I'm doing the right thing. 2/
Someone overheard us and was shocked to hear that the infection levels were so high at the moment. He said he didn't bring a mask but asked if I had an extra. I did! (I actually brought a whole bag for everyone, just in case.) 7/
When I got to the acting class, to my shock and thrill, one other person was masked. She thanked me for sending that email, and told me that three kids had to cancel playdates with her kid that week because they had covid. 6/
But people want to protect themselves. It's such a social thing. I want to encourage you to be that person who gives people permission to protect themselves. This experience gave me so much hope about what humans are capable of. 17/
(I'm not even mad about that. I obviously kept my mask on and I was so grateful and frankly shocked that people masked at all. It was a just interesting observation in herd mentality.) 14/
On that note, one thing that I observed was that as the class neared the end, some people who took their masks off for their scenes would keep them off, and because of that, others would start to do the same. 12/
But l was still nervous about being in a class full of unmasked people when covid was surging in our area, so a few weeks into the class I messaged everyone to let them know about the surge, telling them that it's not a bad idea to start masking again. 3/
I didn't pressure anyone or demand anything; I just gave them the facts and encouraged them to make their own decisions. (I also was not the teacher so I literally had zero authority. And I *did* run this by the teacher ahead of time.) 4/
Covid minimizes love to point out that if someone has Covid when they die, they died WITH Covid, not FROM Covid. Aka Covid itself doesn’t kill “normal people” - you must have some other medical vulnerability that made catching Covid deadly for you. So it’s somehow justified. 🧵1/
Nobody responded to my email, which was disheartening but not surprising. I’d had a similar experience in an improv class where I emailed everyone about masking, and no one responded or masked in class. So my expectations were low this time. But it was still worth it to try 5/
I know we have vaccines now. They help. But they don’t prevent infection or long covid, and the effectiveness wanes, and so few people are up to date on vaccines, and the new vaccines are several variants behind what is circulating. 2/
Oh and “it’s 2024, it’s time to move on” means nothing when we are seeing some of the highest infection rates of the entire pandemic. A virus doesn’t care what year it is???
@lindsaydevon
When I was 13 I convinced all the younger campers at my all girls camp that I was the voice of the (male, British, adult) gecko in the Geico commercials.
And it’s constantly reinforced by all the people around them doing the same thing. It’s very easy for them to simply decide to not be people who bother with all of that covid stuff. And in order to maintain that mindset you have to decide that Covid is no big deal.
Every person you interact with will now have had more opportunities for exposure. And every person THEY interacted with will have had more opportunities for exposure. It’s exponentially worse. 2/5
@themediawitch
Yes I wish I had worded the first post more clearly. I’m NOT saying it’s the same as any illness. I’m saying that people think these illnesses are interchangeable and it makes no difference what you’re sick with, and that testing is irrelevant. I’m disagreeing with that.
I know that a lot of people have had Covid by now and they didn’t die and maybe the acute phase was even mild for them, which I think was huge turning point in people taking it seriously. It demystified something that was once terrifying and unknown. 3/
All the small ways we’ve maybe unknowingly been able to keep exposure at bay (work from home, longer isolation periods, reliable testing, staying home while sick) are going to dissolve and make the spaces people have been stepping into and deeming safe exponentially worse. 3/5
That friend will now be coming to you with all of these precautions gone. And everyone THEY interact with will have their precautions gone. It’s exponentially worse. 5/5
Things we maybe once deemed moderately risky will be much bigger risks. The friend you see for lunch who worked from home for 4 years, whose yearly conference once had testing requirements, whose kid’s school required Covid isolation, whose city didn’t ban masks - 4/5