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#WearAMask
It’s International Long Covid Awareness Day, and my latest article looks at the reasons why people believe they don’t know anyone with Long Covid.
We desperately need increased visibility into this debilitating chronic illness so that we can raise awareness and fund treatments, mitigations and cures.
Anyone can get Long Covid. It’s not limited to ‘only the vulnerable’ or those who had a severe initial infection.
This disease does not discriminate. Even people with asymptomatic initial infections have found themselves disabled by Long Covid.
It’s time we start processing the trauma of the pandemic and stop living in denial.
We are in the middle of a mass disabling event, and the longer it takes us to admit that, the more people will be harmed.
Let’s spread the word that the only way to avoid Long Covid is to avoid getting Covid in the first place.
Wear a mask. Stay home when sick. Clean and ventilate the air.
When we all agree to care about the air we share, we can begin to bring about real change.
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/i-dont-know-anyone-with-long-covid
"Reinfection can trigger de novo long COVID or exacerbate the severity of existing long COVID"
h/t Ziyad Al-Aly, MD
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03173-6 @longcovid
I wrote a guest article for Healthy Debate that looks at why we need mandatory masks in healthcare, why surgical masks aren’t enough, and how the mounting threats to public health are putting lives at risk.
If you’re a healthcare worker, mask up.
Show us you take your oath to “do no harm” seriously
https://healthydebate.ca/2025/03/topic/wear-mask-plea-health-care-workers/
Things I learned about #measles, a thread:
I've never had or seen measles, I was born in the US after the measles vaccine but before antivaxxers went big, so I did some reading. In order of excitingness:
1) Measles is airborne, making this a great time to #WearAMask. IKR? looks like it would be a skin contact thing, but it's primarily airborne so it can linger in the air for hours after an infectious person exhales in a room. Familiar, no?
(1/4)
It really hurts to see (especially) young people realizing they've declined cognitively who attribute it solely to aging. Yes, aging affects your cognitive abilities, but would you really be noticing the decline this suddenly when it's a gradual process that occurs throughout your entire lifetime (unless you've had a physical brain injury or the like)?
I don't think I'll ever not feel bad for these people; they know something has changed because they're not on the same level as they used to be, but they don't know/don't want to know that it might be related to COVID.
Patients have been bearing the brunt of infection control in hospitals, having to go to great lengths to protect themselves and their loved ones.
They’re unfairly judged, psychologized and mistreated for masking and/or requesting staff mask.
Covid is still here. It’s still killing and disabling people. We’re also seeing outbreaks of tuberculosis, measles and the worst flu season in over a decade.
Public health is being systematically dismantled and gagged by the Trump administration, allowing misinformation and disinformation to flourish and putting even more lives at risk.
Why don’t we have mandatory masking in healthcare? Why are we killing and disabling patients who go there for help? Who can’t ‘just stay home’?
The second article in my Masks in Healthcare series looks at patient stories, retaliation, and what we can do to make hospitals safer for everyone.
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/we-need-mandatory-masking-in-healthcare
Accompanied my Mom to doctor's appointment this morning. This was mainly for getting another prescription for her recurring gout issue. She got a physical checkup too. Her doctor & his MOA were masked up. None of the other medical clinic staff & no other patients were masked.
Location of masking report: Burnside Medical Clinic - office in lower part of building - there's a different office with same name on main level.
RFK Jr finally recommends vaccination to deal with the measles outbreak hitting Texas right now.
This is quite the about face for a man who’s been spreading harmful anti-vaxx rhetoric for years.
Just a few days ago he was minimizing the outbreak by saying it was “normal” and recommending vitamin A.
What changed? Not going to lie… my initial thought was “it must be really bad if RFK Jr is pushing the vaccine”
Please folks, get your boosters. Wear a mask. Clean the air. Protect your health & the health of those around you.
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/03/kennedy-jr-measles-outbreak-vaccine
One of the hardest parts of navigating these difficult times is the fact that many of those fighting fascism & impending collapse are turning their back on the disabled.
We saw it years ago. We warned. We pleaded. We asked people to fight back. We asked them to wear a mask.
Now we’re in the thick of it and still being left behind.
Articles about collapse don’t factor us in. Resistance efforts ignore us. Activism isn’t accessible. People still aren’t masking.
Include us in resistance. We have a lot to offer. We were built for fighting back.
From above link:
"False narratives are being used to dehumanize people and criminalize a basic preventative health practice. In reality, most of the people still masking are among the strongest, most self-assured people I’ve known. They are the least concerned about other’s perceptions, the most concerned about others/our collective well-being, are embodying self-care by protecting their health (and mental health), willing to interrogate their choices and motivations, and are committed to accepting and integrating data and new information - even when they want desperately to be wrong about what they learn. They are also among the most alienated, judged, ignored, harassed, invisibilized, and forgotten."
The fascist oligarchs want us to hate each other. They’re trying to condition us to accept atrocities. To stop caring. To throw people away.
The Covid pandemic accelerated this. It supercharged the idea that there are entire groups of people who are not worthy of protection. Not worthy of life. Acceptable losses.
If we don’t start acknowledging that and changing the narrative, the hate and division will only continue to grow.
One way you can do this? Wear a mask. Stand in solidarity with vulnerable people. Protect your health and the health of those around you.
The parents of the child who died of measles are victims of very expensive misinformation. Are you masking these days? If not, so are you. #WearAMask #CovidIsNotOver
We live in super exciting times where I can juxtapose uncontrolled Albertan wildfires & ongoing genocide in Gaza and definitively prove that imperialist colonialist social murder is orders of magnitude more deadly than the previous King of Lost QALY (Quality-Adjusted Life-Years), PM2.5 pollutants.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)02810-1/abstract
I counted eight people wearing masks this morning.
They’re mostly older. They’re mostly Black. A few are Asian. Zero (aside from me) are White.
White people are the problem, aren’t we? I mean, in general, yes. But specifically when it comes to pandemic response.
I’ve noticed something interesting. Wondering if the same is true in other cities, towns, and parts of the world.
I spend a lot of time walking around my local neighbourhood (Deptford, SE London). It’s not uncommon to see people with masks around here.
Recently, I had to go into central. On the train and walking about, no one was masked.
But there’s something I’ve noticed about the people who wear masks.
Aside from me, none of them are White.
If you want to fight fascism? Wear a mask.
If you want to show solidarity with disabled people? Wear a mask.
If you want to protect your own health? Wear a mask.
If you recognize that no one is coming to save us? Wear a mask.
My ultimate guide to respirators looks at the early days of mask mandates, the rise of antimaskers, how to up your mask game for the ultimate personal protection and why we need to “fix our hearts or die”
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/were-witnessing-the-fall-of-public
I always say that if I knew when I was going to have an accident, I would wear my safety goggles, Kevlar chainsaw chaps, and Petzl helmet only then. But that's not how accidents work.
It seems like everyone I know is sick. Mostly flu A, some Covid.
While we don’t know what’s going to happen to public health, vaccine access, bird flu & other threats… we DO know how to protect ourselves from airborne diseases.
I wrote about how to stay covid safe while in hospital, but the tips in this article apply to all airborne threats and can easily be applied in day to day life too.
If you stopped masking, now is the time to start again. It’s much easier to resist when you still have your health:
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/how-to-stay-covid-safe-when-in-hospital