#Covid-19 News: Live Updates

[thelocalreport8]

Covid JN.1 LIVE: 63 cases of new variant reported in 24 hours, Karnataka Cabinet sub-committee meeting today

COVID-19 JN.1 Variant News Live Updates: Amid growing concerns over rising cases of COVID-19 sub-variant JN.1, a total of 63 cases of the sub-variant have been detected in India as of Sunday. Citing Health Ministry sources, ANI on Monday reported that Goa is the biggest contributor to the cases, where 34 cases were reported in a single day. Apart from Goa, nine are from Maharashtra, eight from…

[newscast1]

China censors report on this city seeing half a million Covid cases a day

China censors report on this city seeing half a million Covid cases a day

Amid the reports of crematoriums being flooded with bodies and hospitals running out of space, a Chinese health official claimed that half a million people in Qingdao city are being infected with Covid every day. New Delhi,UPDATED: Dec 24, 2022 12:16 IST Patients lie on their beds at Central Hospital in Zhuozhou city in northern China’s Hebei province on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022. Nearly three…

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also Preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)

What if the pandemic safety net cobbled together in 2020 had been a new beginning?

What if when Joe Biden came into office in 2021, the Covid-19 safety net he was handed had become a new floor?

What if that was his baseline—and the newly elected Democratic president, sold by his most ardent supporters as FDR 2.0, had used our Covid-19 response as the bare minimum of a new social contract with Americans?

What if the caring nature of the best aspects of the US Covid response became the map for international relations—leading not just to international cooperation on infectious disease, but on matters of war, climate and genocide?

What if, instead of dismantling the vaccine-delivery infrastructure—which, at its height, delivered some four million shots in a single day—the Biden administration built upon and made some version of it permanent, so that everyone could easily get annual Covid boosters, annual flu vaccines, or get specialty vaccinations during outbreaks of unusual viruses (such as for mpox during the 2022 summer outbreak among queer men) whenever they needed it?

What if the viral surveillance and communication mechanisms utilized for learning about SARS-CoV-2, treating it and telling the public about it were being used to address H5N1—a virus which has been moving from birds to farm mammals to humans with so little notice that dead cows were killed by the “avian flu” and left on the side of a road in California’s Central Valley, as “Thick swarms of black flies hummed and knocked against the windows of an idling car, while crows and vultures waited nearby—eyeballing the taut and bloated carcasses roasting in the October heat”?What if the leaders of the Democratic party had used Covid as a blueprint to make a national platform based on care?

What if all the ways Covid had made clear how farmers, industrial butchers, kitchen staff and other food workers are the most at risk people amongst us to viral infection led to meaningful, permanent protections, such that they were much less likely to contract not just SARS-CoV-2 but H1N1, H5N1, influenza, or any other existing or novel pathogens?

What if all the all the ways Covid exposed how unsafe industrial food production is (for the workers who make it and the people who eat it alike) had triggered safety reforms, instead of having these warnings ignored and leading towards record numbers of safety recalls for e-coli, Salmonella, and Listeria?

What if an airborne pandemic had led to indoor air being as filtered, treated and regulated as drinking water?

What if everyone with a child was still getting a $300 check from the US treasury, so that having a child was not a gambling-style risk, but a responsibility shared with all of society?

What if the paused-for-years student debts were forgiven, so that young people could actually begin their lives?

What if Biden built on Americans’ experience of just showing up somewhere to get the medical care they needed to create a universal healthcare system?

(What if Kamala Harris built upon Americans’ taste of not getting charged at the point of such service—and campaigned on Medicare for All?)

What if once the link between Covid and homelessness was established, the Democrats had pushed infectious disease as just one reason for an end to evictions and a robust, public-health-backed campaign to end homelessness and stop the United States from having more people living on the streets than any other country?

What if after the link between Covid and incarceration was established, the Democrats had pursued decarceration as a public health measure and—instead of throwing weed and cryptocurrency at us—had made reducing incarceration a centerpiece of the Harris campaign to earn the votes of Black men?

(What if after 100,000 Californians died of Covid and the links between Covid, homelessness and incarceration were clear, residents of the Golden State chose to allow rent control and to abolish legal slavery in prisons—instead of voting to ban rent control and to continue prison slavery?)

What if the leaders of the Democratic party had used Covid as a blueprint to make a national platform based on care?

Would we be in the lethal position we are now—with a genocide raging abroad, Covid deaths in the hundreds every week at home, a poisoned food supply, $17 trillion in household debt, oligarch goons ready to dismantle government regulations, and a sociopath heading back into the White House—if Covid had been the floor?

[gumjrop]

The Weather

In the US, 41 out of 54 states and territories are at high or very high COVID wastewater levels as of 1/18/2024. Ten states and territories have no data available. It’s important to note that levels of “moderate,” “low,” or “minimal” do not necessarily indicate a low risk of COVID exposure in our daily lives. Viral spread is still ongoing even if at lower levels, and precautions are warranted to protect ourselves and others.

Looking at the CDC’s national and regional wastewater data over time, we continue to see “Very High” levels nationally. It’s important to note that the last two weeks are provisional data, indicated by a gray shaded area on the graph, meaning that those values can change as additional wastewater sites report data. 

Although wastewater data does not provide the same level of detail as previous PCR-based testing data, wastewater monitoring is an important ongoing resource to inform us about the current COVID situation. While the provisional data tentatively shows a downward trend this week, time will tell whether this is a true decrease in the final data. A downward trend does not mean continued decreases are guaranteed or that protections should be relaxed. Multilayered protections help drive COVID spread lower, and relaxing protections can lead to a resurgence of viral spread.

Visit the CDC’s State and Territory Trends page to see available wastewater testing near you, including the number of wastewater sites reporting. Write your elected officials to let them know you want to keep and expand wastewater testing in your area and nationally.

Wins

In November 2023, the CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) passed a series of draft proposals that will further weaken already insufficient protocols employed within healthcare settings. HICPAC refuses to reckon with the airborne nature of infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2, and does not propose crucial measures such as universal masking with well-fitted respirators, isolation periods, and ventilation. The People’s CDC has penned a letter to the ACLU alerting them of HICPAC’s irresponsible decisions, and the ramifications associated with them. We hope that by working together with the ACLU, we can implement public advocacy and legal actions in order to tackle this critical issue.

You can read the full letter here.

Johns Hopkins reinstated healthcare masking on 1/12/2024, in response to high respiratory virus levels. As with many other healthcare systems and public health departments that have restored healthcare masking when facing public pressure, we hope that universal masking can become a standard of care rather than a short term response to a surge. See “Take Action” below for more information.

Variants

JN.1, now the most prominent variant in the United States, is estimated to account for 85.7% of circulating variants by 1/20/2024. HV.1 is expected to drop to 5.3%, and all other variants are estimated to make up less than 2% each. Although ongoing viral spread allows opportunities for new variants to emerge, the latest 2023-2024 COVID vaccine boosters, COVID tests, and COVID treatments are still expected to be effective for JN.1.

Current updated booster uptake is low (as of January 19, 2024, the CDC reports that only 21.5% of adults and 11% of children have received it). It is not too late to get the updated booster, and to protect yourself against the latest variant! 

Hospitalizations

In the most recent week (ending January 13, 2024), we see a slight downward trend in new hospital admissions, currently at 32,861. We see a similar slight downtick in currently hospitalized patients with COVID , at 27,879. This most recent week shows a slight decrease in hospitalizations, although it is too soon to say whether hospitalizations for the current surge have passed their peak. Hospitals continue to be overwhelmed. The data also lacks information on hospital-acquired infections. We urge you to continue taking stringent precautions, such as donning a well-fitting respirator (e.g., N95, KN95) in all indoor spaces��and especially in healthcare settings.

Long COVID

Amid ongoing advocacy by Long COVID groups, the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) held a committee hearing on “Addressing Long COVID: Advancing Research and Improving Patient Care.” The hearing included testimony from three Long COVID patients and four Long COVID physicians and researchers, bringing much-needed attention to the urgent need for funding for Long COVID research and treatments, and to the need for improved access to care for Long COVID patients. We recognize the community care modeled by some of the panelists and attendees who wore masks for the hearing, and we wish the senators on the committee would mask up as well. 

Take Action

Write your elected officials to let them know that Long COVID impacts all of us, and that we need ongoing support for Long COVID research and clinical care. Ask Senators to support bill S.2560, the Long COVID Support Act. Ask Representatives to support bills HR.1114 (Long COVID RECOVERY NOW Act) and HR.3258 (TREAT Long COVID Act).

Although some healthcare settings have reinstated masking in response to high COVID levels along with high respiratory virus activity, ongoing pressure is needed to restore, keep, and expand masking broadly. Use our letter template and toolkit to call or write your elected officials in support of healthcare masking.

Want to do more to support healthcare masking? Consider starting, sharing, or joining a local campaign. Check out work in Illinois, Maryland, and Wisconsin, just to name a few. Also, sign and share our letter to the ACLU asking them to join us in supporting safe and equitable access to healthcare. Sign on is open until 2/1/2024. 

[scopophobia-polaris]

Time to ruin the ocarina of time shipping scene, because in an interview with Nintendo power, Fujibayashi confirmed that he will be the scenario writer for the remake of OoT and confirmed that they will be adding new areas and scenes that were originally planned for the game in 1996. Like that there is a way to fail the Lon Lon side quest and have the ranch catch on fire like Miyamoto planned to do originally.

On top of that, Fujibayashi as scenario writer wanted to "Update the game in a new and exciting way" by "making the world feel more lived in" when asked to elaborate he said " the software for the N64 couldn't allow for more towns and villages besides Kakariko, so it was being added in for the remake along with advanced NPC scheduling, new sidequests and chracters." they will also be adding "Familiar faces from the Zelda series" apprently to end up tying it into the new lore, I'm assuming this is about Hylia since she was not an established God in the original games.

Chris Hoffman was then shown new character art for, and I quote "a fun little guy with an in depth side quest" who apprently is gonna "rectify the fact that nintendo didn't add any young men around Link's age originally" because they were afraid what the fujoshis would do to this man on pixiv " yeah so this fruitcake is named Arnold and we wanted the player to realize link was a queer" when forced to talk further Aonuma confirmed he made Link's appreance the way that it is because " he's one of the el gee bee tees"

Here is the new art for said npc

" so we made him wear purple because it's on the bisexual pride flag, and Link is also bisexual, their sidequest is a romance and will be the first time in Nintendo history that Link canonically kisses a man on the mouth freak style"

Apprently Link will also be kissing Sheik on the mouth too, but because of covid 19 restrictions it cannot be done freak style like Arnold, since Sheik will be wearing a mask. Fujibayashi profusely apologized for this

There also is no way to Romance Sheik after he turns back into Zelda because girls have cooties

[tigerandbunnyftw]

An update on the live action adaptation project for TIGER & BUNNY, which is currently on hold. This has been confirmed by series’ producer, Masayuki Ozaki (who is no longer with Bandai Namco Pictures as of the end of August 2024 and has established his own original animation company, Creadom8), as he explains that previously established negotiations had expired after the global COVID-19 pandemic.

He hopes to push the project forward and establish new partnerships.

Sources:

[spooniestrong]

Make your voice heard and ask the CDC to:

Recommend updated 2024-2025 COVID vaccines for all ages AND

Strengthen our vaccine drive by recommending more frequent boosting (at least every six months) and more frequent updates to the vaccines, adjusted for the latest variants.

Submit a public comment using our sample language below.

You can also register to give Oral Public Comment at the upcoming June 26-28 online CDC ACIP Meeting at: https://www2.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/acip_publiccomment.asp 

Submit written comments and/or register to make oral comments at the meeting by Monday, June 17 at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time.

It’s important to submit a personalized comment, which can be brief. Ideas for a personalized comment:

How you, your family, or your community would be impacted by fall vaccine eligibility being restricted to only high risk groups (such as older age or immunocompromised status)

Barriers to vaccination your have faced, particularly if your eligibility was questioned or misinterpreted by a vaccine provider

How out-of-pocket costs are a barrier to getting the latest vaccines

Also feel free to take inspiration from or borrow the language in our sample public comment below.

Docket No. CDC–2024–0043

Updated 2024-2025 COVID vaccines must be recommended for people of all ages, regardless of health status. A restrictive approach to eligibility would create undue barriers for vulnerable people and discourage high risk people from getting needed vaccine boosters.

The vaccine schedule should address waning efficacy in the months following vaccination [1-3] as well as emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 strains by recommending updated vaccination for all ages, at least every six months. Recent vaccination is also associated with a lower risk of developing Long COVID following a COVID infection [4] as well as a lower risk of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in children (MIS-C) [5]. 

The CDC’s clear and unequivocal recommendation of updated COVID vaccination for all ages will influence what healthcare providers recommend, and what health insurances cover. Moreover, it will improve public awareness regarding the need for updated vaccination.

The CDC must ensure equitable and affordable access to updated vaccines and prevent limited access because of financial constraints or demographics. The CDC’s Bridge vaccine access program is slated to end August 2024 and must be extended to ensure uninsured and underinsured people have access to the updated vaccines this fall [6].

References:

1. Link-Gelles R. Effectiveness of COVID-19 (2023-2024 Formula) vaccines. Presented at: FDA VRBPAC Meeting; June 5, 2024. Accessed June 12, 2024. https://www.fda.gov/media/179140/download

2. Wu N, Joyal-Desmarais K, Vieira AM, et al. COVID-19 boosters versus primary series: update to a living review. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. 2023;11(10):e87-e88. doi:10.1016/S2213-2600(23)00265-5

3. Menegale F, Manica M, Zardini A, et al. Evaluation of Waning of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine–Induced Immunity: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(5):e2310650. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.10650

4. Fang Z, Ahrnsbrak R, Rekito A. Evidence Mounts That About 7% of US Adults Have Had Long COVID. JAMA. Published online June 7, 2024. doi:10.1001/jama.2024.11370

5.  Yousaf AR. Notes from the Field: Surveillance for Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children — United States, 2023. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2024;73. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm7310a2

6. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/bridge/index.html 

Full instructions for written and oral comment and meeting information can be found at: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/index.html

You can also register to give Oral Public Comment at the upcoming June 26-28 online CDC ACIP Meeting at: https://www2.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/acip_publiccomment.asp 

You must register by June 17 at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time

CDC’s ACIP meeting information on the Federal Register: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/05/24/2024-11439/meeting-of-the-advisory-committee-on-immunization-practices 

Vaccination with the latest updated vaccines continues to be foundational to a multilayered approach to COVID, providing protection against both acute disease and Long COVID. Far too few Americans have received the latest vaccines. Only approximately 22.6% of adults and 14.8% of children have received the latest 2023-2024 vaccines (as of June 1, 2024), which have been available since Fall 2023. COVID vaccination rates in both groups lags far behind influenza vaccination rates. Only 7.1% of adults aged 65 and older received the recommended two doses of the 2023-2024 vaccine (as of April 27, 2024).

Vaccine efficacy wanes significantly four to six months following vaccination, making updated vaccination important for all people as COVID continues to spread in our communities. Vaccine approaches that restrict access based on age or risk status put all of us at risk and leave those at high risk of severe consequences of COVID infection confused about whether they qualify to receive additional doses. A more frequent vaccination approach providing vaccination at least every six months as well as frequent updates to match current variants is needed to better protect all of us amid year-round COVID spread.

The CDC’s Bridge Access Program, which provides COVID vaccines to uninsured and underinsured adults free of charge, is due to end August 2024. The end of this program will unnecessarily put vulnerable people at risk, and public health officials must advocate for continuation and expansion of this program.

Submitted written comments or registration to make oral comments at the meeting must be received by the CDC no later than June 17 at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time

[darkmaga-returns]

Are Particulates to Blame?

Washed Up Pharmacist Nov 08, 2024

Update Eagle-eyed Jessica Rose noted that the Moderna batch 052D22A is NOT included in the batches identified by the FDA and released. However, batches 050D22A and 051D22A are mentioned so it is possible 052D22A wasn’t actually tested but I would expect to have the same issues as the other batches.

This also gives background as to these early booster bivalent doses Moderna's new booster launch tripped up by production issues at Catalent plant: reports

Evidence supporting early lots of the Pfizer vaccine were toxic than later lots. Dr Peter McCullough just recently summarized the data supporting the increased toxicity of the early lots in the US.

I have noticed in my practice that nearly all of those with serious COVID-19 vaccine syndromes including myocarditis, blood clots, and other live-threatening problems received their first shots either in December 2020 or early 2021. Pfizer’s lots or batches have been evaluated and studied for variation in risk by Schmeling, Manniche, and Jablonowski. All three studies have concluded the earlier batches were more lethal and the variation in risk was considerable from lot to lot. Now Jablonowski and Hooker report:

Here is the paper. Batch-dependent safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in the United States. The conclusion states:

So batches allocated in the first 2 months, sent out to hospitals and universities first. Here are the batches mention in the Jablonowski and Hooker report:

Death: EL0140, EL9261, EL3248, EN9581, EJ1686

Serious AEs: EC4176, EK5730, EH9899, EJ1685

All AE’s: EK5730, EH9888, EK9231, EJ1685

All of these are the purple topped vials formulated in the PBS buffer.

[vintageaustin]

Masterlist

Last Updated: 04.20.2023

Welcome to my main masterlist! It is about time I finally got this up and running... and not broken

Under the cut you will find the links to everything I posted along with prewarning's to the fics themselves. Please pay attention to these warnings as the things I write are not for everyone!

A couple of things to note, descriptions are short little summaries. They may not be the best explained, but I promise the fic themselves are much better then such.

Along with that, keep an eye out for the emojis below for some pre-warnings.

🖤 Dark Themes 🤍 Smut

Elvis Presley

Baby Fever

► You and Elvis have been married for about three years now, and he thinks it's time for a baby

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Jessie's Girl

► You are Elvis' best friend's girlfriend, but little did you know Elvis is head over heels for you.

Part 1, Part 2 🤍

Pretty When You Cry

► Reader finds out that Elvis has to leave for Germany

Fucked My Way Up to The Top 🤍

► Sugar daddy Elvis being jealous after seeing the waiter flirt with the reader at the restaurant

Summer of '55

► The reader goes with Elvis and some friends down to the sunflower fields. Your best friend ends up asking what he's like in bed and Elvis overhears how in love the reader is with Elvis.

Art Deco 🤍

► Reader and Elvis meet at Club Handy after being apart for a short period of time. The both of you knew that you're bad for one another, but can't leave each other alone.

It's Supposed to be Fun Turning 21

► Based off the Presley home video's on Priscilla's 21st birthday. Instead of Priscilla it is the reader.

Fuck it I Love You

► Sugar daddy Elvis starting a relationship between 34-year-old Elvis and 19-year-old reader, who is the Colonel's step daughter... it starts off pretty innocent but soon turns into a lot more.

Part 1, Part 2

Honey, I Belong With You

► Drugged up Elvis begging you to stay by his side forever. You make a promise that you might not be able to keep.

Take Me to Church

► The church and the royal family isn't always the best mix, but when it comes to the newfound king and the presists daughter... they mix perfectly.

Baby Blues

► Reader finds out that Elvis is cheating, and she finds herself with filled with rage.

Until I Found Her

► Formally known as Tredici // cowriter: @asshlyyyy

► You’ve heard of Romeo and Juliet right? Well, imagine that… but remove the violence and death. You’re the rich girl who would never be seen with someone who was poor. Well… that’s what you image was. You didn’t care about the money. Because once you found Elvis… Everything changed.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Sebastian Kydd

Cruel Summer 🤍

► The reader and Sebastian have been friends since forever... well that is until that one collage part...

Austin Butler

Are you Lonesome Tonight......?

► It is 2020 and the Covid pandemic just got worse than it already was... Seeing you are in lockdown and living with your boyfriend who was working on the new Elvis movie and your college being on lock down as well, it could get quite lonesome.

Lotta True Crime

► Serial Killer Austin kidnaps reader who has a podcast about true crime with her friends. She saw something she shouldn't have, and the rest is history.

Part 1 🖤, Part 2 🖤, Part 3 🖤🤍, Part 4 🖤

Say Yes to Heaven, Say Yes to Me

► It is the 1950s, and Austin is on his way to get married to the love of his life.

I've Got My Eye on You

► The reader is getting hated on and becomes depressed... down in the dumps... and even suicidal. Austin helps the reader through this hard time.

Put Me In a Movie

► Both the reader and Austin have an unhealthy obsession with each other and decide to finally make something of it.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive (Daily updates!)

An older (published in January 2024) but interesting and comprehensive look at long Covid's effect on Latino families and communities in the US.

By Lygia Navarro and Johanna Bejarano

Editor’s note: This story first appeared on palabra, the digital news site by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. It is part of a series produced in partnership between palabra and Northwest Public Broadcasting (NWPB) with the collaboration of reporters Lygia Navarro and Johanna Bejarano. *Some people interviewed for this article requested anonymity to discuss private health issues.

Victoria* is already exhausted, and her story hasn’t even begun. It’s late January 2021 in rural Sunnyside, Washington. The town of 16,000 people is a sleepy handful of blocks flecked with pickup trocas, churches on nearly every corner, and the twangs of Clint Black and Vicente Fernández. Geometric emerald chunks of farmland encircle the town.

Thirty-nine-year-old Victoria drags herself back and forth to her parents’ bedroom in a uniform of baggy burgundy sweatpants, scarf, knit hat and mask. Always a mask. As the eldest sibling, her unspoken job is to protect the family. But COVID-19 hits before they can get vaccinated.

When Victoria’s mamá got sick and quickly infected her papá, Victoria quarantined them. She shut them in their room, only cracking the door briefly to slide food in before retreating in a fog of Lysol.

Working in the health field, Victoria knows if they make it through the first 14 days without hospitalization, they will likely survive. Yet, caregiving drains her: Keeping track of fevers. Checking oxygen saturation. Making sure they’re drinking Pedialyte to stay hydrated. Worrying whether they will live or die.

Five days in, COVID comes for Victoria. Hard. Later, when she repeatedly scrutinizes these events, Victoria will wonder if it was the stress that caused it all — and changed her life forever.

At the pandemic’s onset, Victoria’s family’s work dynamics fit the standard in Sunnyside, where 86% of residents are Latino. “Keeping the members of your household safe — it was hard for a lot of families,” Victoria says. Living in multigenerational homes, many adult children, who’d grown up in the United States with access to education, had professional jobs, and switched to working from home. Their immigrant elders, who’d often only been able to finish fourth grade, braved the world to toil in fields, produce packing plants, supermarkets, or delivery trucks. As Leydy Rangel of the UFW Foundation puts it: “You can’t harvest food through Zoom.”

More than three decades ago, when 6-year-old Victoria’s family migrated from rural northern Mexico to this fertile slip of land cradling the zigzagging Yakima River, their futures promised only prosperity and opportunity.

According to oral histories of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation — who white colonizers forced out of the Yakima Valley in 1855 — the valley’s fecund lands have fed humans since time immemorial. Soon after the Yakamas’ removal to a nearby reservation, settler agriculture exploded.

By World War II, employers were frantic to hire contracted bracero laborers from Mexico — themselves descendants of Indigenous ancestors — to harvest the valley’s bounty of asparagus, pears, cherries and other cornucopia. This was how Victoria’s family arrived here: her abuelo and his brother had traveled back and forth to Washington as braceros decades before.

Victoria’s path took similar twists, in a 21st century, first-gen way. She moved all over the country for her education and jobs, then returned before the pandemic, bringing a newfound appreciation for the taste of apples freshly plucked from a tree that morning, and for the ambrosial scent of mint and grapes permeating the valley before harvest.

Today, agriculture is the largest industry fueling the Yakima Valley, the country’s twelfth-largest agriculture production area. Here, 77% of the nation’s hops (an essential ingredient in beer) and 70% of the nation’s apples are grown. Latinos, who constitute more than half of Yakima County’s population, power the agricultural industry.

While the area’s agricultural enterprises paid out $1.1 billion in wages in 2020, 59% of the low-wage agriculture jobs are held by undocumented folks and contracted foreign seasonal laborers doing work many Americans spurn. Latinos here live on median incomes that are less than half of white residents’, with 16% of Latinos living in poverty. Also in 2020: as they watched co-workers fall ill and die, Latino farmworkers repeatedly went on strike protesting employers’ refusals to provide paid sick leave, hazard pay and basic COVID protections like social distancing, gloves and masks.

“Every aspect of health care is lacking in the valley,” Yakima Herald-Republic health reporter Santiago Ochoa tells me.

In interview after interview, Yakima Valley residents and health care workers sketch in the details of a dire landscape:

The state’s busiest emergency room. Abrupt shutdowns of hospital facilities. Impoverished people without transportation or internet access for telehealth. Eight-month waits for primary care appointments. Nearly one in five Latinos uninsured. More than half of residents receive Medicaid. Resident physicians cycling in and out, never getting to know their patients. Not enough specialists, resulting in day-long trips for specialized care in bigger cities. With its Latino essential workforce risking their lives to feed their families — and the country — by summer 2020, COVID blazed through Yakima County, which quickly became Washington’s most scorching of hot spots. Not only did Yakima County tally the highest per-capita case rate of all West Coast counties (with Latinos making up 67% versus, 26% for white people), it also saw more cases than the entire state of Oregon. Ask Latinos here about 2020, and they shiver and avert their gazes, the trauma and death still too near.

Their positive tests marked just the beginning of terrifying new journeys as COVID slammed Victoria and many other Yakima Valley Latinos. Mix in scanty rural health care, systemic racism and a complicated emerging illness, and what do you get? Chaos: a population hardest hit by long COVID, but massively untreated, underdiagnosed, and undercounted by the government and medicine itself.

It won’t go away The cough was the first clue something wasn’t right. When Victoria had COVID, she’d coughed a bit. But then, three months later, she started and couldn’t stop.

The Yakima Valley is so starved for physicians that it took five months to see a primary care doctor, who attributed Victoria’s incessant cough to allergies. Victoria tried every antihistamine and decongestant available; some brought relief for three, maybe four weeks, and then returned spasms of the dry, gasping bark. A few minutes apart, all day long. The worst was waking up coughing, at least hourly.

Victoria had chest x-rays. An ear, nose and throat specialist offered surgery on her nose’s deviated septum. As months passed, the black hair framing Victoria’s heart-shaped face started aging rapidly, until it was grayer than her mother’s.

Over a year after the cough began, an allergist prescribed allergy drops, and Victoria made a chilling discovery. Once the drops stopped the cough for a month, then two, Victoria realized that the extreme fatigue she’d thought was sleep deprivation from coughing all night persisted.

“The exhaustion comes from within your soul, it overpowers you,” she says. “It’s intolerable.”

And her mind was foggy. When interrupted at work every 10 minutes by a coughing jag, Victoria hadn’t realized COVID had substantially altered her brain. “There are things in my brain that I should have access to, like words, definitions, memories,” she says. “I know that they’re there but I can’t access them. It’s like a filing cabinet, but I can’t open it.”

Before long, the cough resurfaced. Sometime in 2021, reading COVID news for work, Victoria learned of long COVID: new or lingering health issues persisting at least three months after COVID infection.

How to get help if you think you might have long COVID Talk to your doctor, and if your doctor doesn’t listen to your concerns, bring a loved one to advocate for you at your next appointment. Bring this article (or other materials on long COVID) to show your doctor. Ask your doctor about seeing specialists for long COVID symptoms, such as a cardiologist (for dysautonomia symptoms like dizziness, heart palpitations and shortness of breath), a gastroenterologist (for digestive problems), or a neurologist (for chronic nerve pain). Ask to be referred to a long COVID clinic (if there is one in your area). Now four years into the pandemic, there is still no treatment or cure for long COVID. COVID long-haulers (as they call themselves) have reported over 200 varied symptoms, with fatigue, dizziness, heart palpitations, post-exertion exhaustion, gastrointestinal issues, and brain dysfunction among the most common.

Long COVID is far from a mysterious illness, as it’s often called by the medical establishment and some media. There are precedents: for at least a century, historical documentation has shown that, while most recover, some people remain sick after viral or other illnesses. Yet funds for research have been severely limited, and sufferers ignored. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis – sometimes called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or ME/CFS — is a prime example. Like ME/CFS, long COVID afflicts many more women (and people assigned female at birth) than men, with women comprising as many as 80% of COVID long-haulers. Most long-haulers are in their 30s, 40s and 50s — the busiest years for women with children, who often put their own needs last.

What should have been instantly clear, given how disproportionately Black and Brown communities were hit by COVID, was that long COVID would wallop Americans of color. Yet, the U.S. government waited until June 2022 to begin tracking long COVID. Even now, with 18 months of data showing Latinos are the population most impacted by long COVID, palabra is among the very few media outlets to report this fact. Are the nation and the medical community willfully ignoring Latino long-haulers — after sending them into clouds of coronavirus to keep society’s privileged safe?

Fighting for a diagnosis When Victoria mentioned long COVID, her doctor didn’t exactly ignore her: she listened, said “OK,” but never engaged on the topic. Same with Victoria’s allergist and the ear, nose and throat specialist. All they could do, the doctors said, was treat her symptoms.

“I’m highly educated and I know that you have to be your own advocate. But I kept asking, kept going on that line of thought, and they had nothing to say to me. Absolutely nothing,” she laments.

Victoria understood science on long COVID was limited, but still expected more. “All of the treatments we tried, it was as if COVID hadn’t existed. They should at least say that we need to investigate more, not continue acting like it wasn’t a factor. That was what was most frustrating.”

Just as Victoria fought to have her illness validated by doctors, 30 miles away in the northern Yakima Valley town of Moxee, 52-year-old María* waged a parallel battle. Both felt utterly alone.

When the pandemic began, María became the protector of her husband and children, all asthmatics. When she fell ill New Year’s Day 2021, she locked herself in her room, emerging weeks later to find her life unrecognizable.

Recounting her struggles, María reads deliberately from notes, holding back tears, then pushes her reading glasses atop her head. (María moved here from northern Mexico as an adult, and feels most comfortable in Spanish.) Her dyed brown hair, gold necklace and lightly made-up face project convivial warmth, but something intangible behind her expression belies a depth of grief María refuses to let escape. When I tell her I also have long COVID, and fell ill the exact same month, she breathes out some of her anxiety.

María’s long COVID includes chronic, full-body pain; memory lapses so severe she sometimes can’t remember if she’s eaten breakfast; such low energy that she’s constantly like a battery out of juice; unending shortness of breath; joint inflammation; and blood flow issues that leave her hands a deep purple. (The only time María ventured to the hospital, for her purple hands, she says staff attempted to clean them, thinking it was paint.) Like Victoria, María used to enjoy exercise and hiking in the valley’s foothills, but can do neither anymore.

María has no insurance, and receives care at the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic, created in 1978 out of the farmworkers’ movement. The clinic’s multiple locations are the valley’s main providers of care irrespective of patients’ ability to pay.

Whereas Victoria’s doctors expressed indifference to the idea of COVID causing her health complaints, María’s doctors not only discounted this connection, but made serious errors of misdiagnosis.

“Every week I went to see my doctor. She got so stressed out (at not knowing what was wrong with me) that she stressed me out,” María says. “My doctor told me, ‘You know what? I think you have multiple sclerosis.’” María saw specialists, and afterwards, even without confirmation, María says her doctor still insisted she had MS. “I told her, ‘No. No, I don’t have multiple sclerosis. It’s COVID. This happened after COVID.’ I was really, really, really, really, really, really insistent on telling them that all of this was after COVID.”

Latinos uncovering the connections between their ill health and COVID is rare, partially due to the plummet in COVID coverage on Spanish-language news, says Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, a long-hauler and head of the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio long COVID clinic. There has been no national public education on long COVID, in any language.

“It’s hard for people to understand what the real impact of long COVID is now and in the future,” says Lilián Bravo, Yakima Health District director of public health partnerships and the face of COVID updates on Yakima Valley television early in the pandemic. “We’re looking at a huge deficit in terms of people’s quality of life and ‘productivity.’”

Eventually, María’s doctor sent her to another specialist, who said that if she didn’t improve within a month, he’d operate on her hip. María’s never had hip problems. “He said, ‘Well, I don’t know what you’re going to do,’” and then put her on a strong steroid medication that made her vomit horribly, María says. She hasn’t tallied what she’s spent on medical bills, but after paying $1,548 for a single test, it must be many thousands of dollars.

Meanwhile, María’s family and friends kept insisting her maladies were psychological. “I never accepted that. I told them: ‘It’s not in my head. It’s in my body.’” It wasn’t until more than a year after becoming ill that María finally saw a rheumatologist who diagnosed her with long COVID and other immune dysfunctions. “I told her, ‘Yes, I knew that my body wasn’t working. I knew that something was wrong.’ I felt like I could relax. Finally someone is telling me that it’s not all in my head.” Once María was diagnosed, her extended family switched to asking how she was feeling and sympathizing with her.

Victoria, on the other hand, has never received a long COVID diagnosis. At Victoria’s request, her doctor referred her to the state’s only long COVID clinic, at the University of Washington in Seattle, but Victoria’s insurance, Kaiser Permanente, refused to pre-approve the visit — and the clinic wouldn’t accept cash from her. At present, the clinic isn’t even accepting patients from the Yakima Valley or any other part of Washington — they are only accepting patients in King County, which includes Seattle.

Victoria’s family hasn’t accepted her health struggles either. “I’d say, ‘I know that you think I’m crazy,’” Victoria says, chuckling, as she often does to lighten her discomfort. “My mom would fight with me: ‘You forgot to do this! Why are you so spacey?’ ‘Mami, it’s not that I forgot. In reality, I completely lost track of it.’” If Victoria is fatigued, her family asks how that’s possible after a full night’s sleep. “I’ve found that I have to defend myself. When I try to explain to people, they hear it as excuses from a lazy person — especially being Latinos.”

Karla Monterroso, a 42-year-old California Latina long-hauler since March 2020 who spent her first year bedbound, says, “(With long COVID), we have to rest in a way that, in our culture, is very difficult to achieve. We really judge exhaustion.” In fact, pushing physically or mentally for work can make long-haulers much sicker. Karla says Latino ethics of hard work like those of Victoria’s parents “aren’t the principles that are going to serve us with this illness.”

Long COVID diagnoses in Latinos are still too rare, due to untrained family medicine physicians and medical stereotypes, says Verduzco-Gutierrez. (Doctors might see blood sugar changes, for example, and assume that’s just because of Latinos’ high rates of diabetes, rather than long COVID.) She says “misinformation on long COVID” is rampant, with physicians claiming long COVID is a fad, or misdiagnosing the bone-deep exhaustion as depression. When Verduzco-Gutierrez’s own doctor invited her to speak to their practice, the assembled physicians weren’t aware of basic research, including that the drugs Paxlovid and Metformin can help prevent long COVID if taken at infection. In Washington, physicians must complete training on suicide, which takes 1,200 to 1,300 lives in the state yearly, but there’s no state-wide training on long COVID, which currently affects at least 498,290 Washingtonians.

Cultural skepticism about medicine — and entrenched stigmas about illness and disability — mean Sunnyside conversations about aftereffects don’t mention COVID itself. Victoria’s relatives push traditional herbal remedios, assuming that anyone still sick isn’t doing enough to recover. “(People suffering) feel like they’re complaining too much if they try to talk about it,” Victoria says. Meanwhile, her parents and others in her community avoid doctors out of stubbornness and mistrust, she says, “until they’re bleeding, when they’re super in pain…, when it’s gotten to the worst that they can handle.”

“People in this community use their bodies for work,” Victoria says. “If you’re Latino, you’re a hard worker. Period,” says Bravo. “What’s the opposite of that, if you’re not a hard worker? What are you? People don’t want to say, ‘I came to this country to work and all of a sudden I can’t anymore.’”

Victoria sees this with her parents, who’ve worked since the age of 10. Both have health issues inhibiting their lives since having COVID — her dad can’t take his daily hour-long walks anymore because of heart palpitations and shortness of breath, and her mom began getting headaches and saw her arthritis worsen dramatically — yet neither will admit they have long COVID. Nor will their friends and family. “If they noticed the patterns of what they themselves are saying and what their friends of the same age are suffering after COVID,” Victoria says of her community, “they’d hear that almost everyone is suffering some type of long COVID.”

Long COVID’s deep impact on Latinos The “back to normal” ethos is most obvious in the absence of long COVID messaging while as many as 41 million adults now have — or have recovered from — long COVID nationwide. “The way that we’re talking about the pandemic is delegitimizing some of (long COVID’s) real impacts,” says Bravo of the Yakima Health District.

Even with limited demographic data, statistics show a nationwide reality similar to Victoria’s Sunnyside. Through a recurring survey, the Census Bureau estimates that 36% of Latinos nationally have had long COVID — likely a vast underestimate, given that the survey takes 20 minutes to complete online (Latinos have lower rates of broadband internet), and reaches only a sliver of the U.S. population. Experts like Verduzo-Gutierrez believe that true rates of long COVID in Latinos are higher than any reported statistic. California long-hauler Karla Monterroso agrees: “We are underdiagnosed by a severe amount. I do not believe the numbers.”

This fall, a UC Berkeley study reported that 62% of a group of infected California farmworkers developed long COVID. Weeks later, a survey from the University of Washington’s Latino Center for Health found that, of a sample group of 1,546 Washington Latinos, 41% of those infected became long-haulers. The Washington results may also be an undercount: many long-haulers wouldn’t have the energy or brain clarity to complete the 12-page survey, which was mailed to patients who’d seen their doctor within the prior six months. Meanwhile, many long-haulers stop seeing doctors after tiring of the effort and cost with no answers.

“Our community has not bounced back,” says Angie Hinojos, executive director of Centro Cultural Mexicano, which has distributed $29 million in rent assistance in Washington and hasn’t seen need wane. “That is going to affect our earning potential for generations.” The United Farm Workers’ philanthropic sister organization, the UFW Foundation, says union organizers hear about long COVID, and how it’s keeping people out of work, frequently.

Cultural and linguistic disconnects abound between doctors and Latinos on long COVID symptoms, some of which, like brain fog and fatigue, are nebulous. If doctors lack patient rapport — or don’t speak their language — they’ll miss what patients aren’t sharing about how long COVID changed their lives, work and relationships. That’s if Latinos actually go to the doctor.

“If you’re working in the orchards and your muscles are always sore, it’s just part of the day-to-day reality,” says Jesús Hernández, chief executive officer of Family Health Centers in north-central Washington. “If you’re constantly being exposed to dust and even chemicals in the work environment, it’s easy to just say, ‘Well, that’s just because of this or that,’ and not necessarily be readily willing to consider that this is something as unique as long COVID.”

Even Victoria says if not for the cough, she wouldn’t have sought medical advice for her fatigue. “There are a lot of people out there that are really tired, in a lot of pain and have no idea why. None,” says Karla, who was a nonprofit CEO when she became sick. “I have heard in the last three-and-a-half years the most racist and fatphobic things I have ever heard in my life. Like, ‘Oh, sometimes you got to lay off the beans and rice.’ I have a college education. I’m an executive. I am in the top 10% of wage earners in my community. If this is my experience, what is happening to the rest of my people?”

Conspiracy theories and misinformation As Yakima Valley’s Latino vaccination rates continue dropping, I hear all the COVID conspiracy theories: the vaccine has a chip that’ll track you; the vaccine makes you and your children infertile; COVID tests are rigged to all be positive; that hospitals get paid more for COVID patients. Victoria laughs at the most absurd one she’s heard. Her mom’s explanation for her health problems nearly three years after COVID: the vaccine.

Across the Latino United States, social media algorithms and WhatsApp threads promoting COVID disinformation proliferate. Last summer, Latino Center for Health co-director Dr. Leo Morales did a long COVID community presentation just south of Yakima Valley. The audience’s first question: Are vaccines safe? “This is where we’re still at,” Morales says. “That’ll be a big stumbling block for people…in terms of getting to talking about long COVID.”

One morning in early November, Morales and his team gather in Toppenish at Heritage University, where 69% of students are Latino, to present their survey data. Neither presenters nor attendees wear masks, an essential tool for preventing COVID transmission and long COVID. “The only conversation that I’m having about COVID is in this room,” says María Sigüenza, executive director of the Washington State Commission on Hispanic Affairs.

Yakima Valley health institutions are also ignoring long COVID. Of the two main hospital systems, Astria Health declines interview requests and MultiCare reports that of 325,491 patients seen between January and November 2023, 112 — or 0.03% — were diagnosed with long COVID. The Yakima Valley Farmworkers Clinic, where María’s doctor works, refuses to let me speak to anyone about long COVID, despite providing patient information for the Latino Center for Health’s survey. Their doctors simply aren’t seeing long COVID, the clinic claims. Same with the other main community provider, Yakima Neighborhood Health Services, whose media officer responds to my interview requests with: “It’s not going to happen.”

“I think they’re not asking, they’re not looking,” Verduzco-Gutierrez says. “Do the doctors just…look at your diabetes or your blood pressure, but not ask you, ‘Did your diabetes get worse when you had COVID? Did your blood pressure get worse? Did you not have blood pressure problems before? And now do you get dizzy? Do you get headaches? Do you have pains?’” She believes that many, if not most, Latinos with long COVID aren’t getting care, whom she calls “the ones that we’re missing.”

An uncertain future The outlook for Latinos with long COVID is grim. Cultural stigma and ableism cause now-disabled long-haulers to feel shame. (Ableism is societal prejudice and discrimination against disabled people.) Disability benefits are nearly impossible to get. Long-haulers are losing their homes, jobs and insurance. Latinos’ overrepresentation in sectors that don’t offer sick pay and are heavily physical — cleaning, service, agriculture, construction, manufacturing, homecare and healthcare among them — may automatically put them at higher long COVID risk, given ample anecdotal evidence that pushing through a COVID infection instead of resting can lead to long COVID. Latino care providers will become ill in greater numbers, imperiling the healthcare industry.

But Latinos may not be clear on these factors, says long-hauler Karla Monterroso. “My tío had said…'We must be defective because we get sick more than the white people.’ And I’m like ‘No, tío. We are exposed to the illness more. There’s nothing defective about our bodies.’ I’m afraid for us. It’s just going to be disability after disability after disability. We have to start in our small communities building caring infrastructure so that we can help each other. I am clear: No one is coming to save us. We’ve got to save us.”

Disability justice advocates worry about systems unable to cope with inevitable disabling waves of COVID in the future. “(Latinos) aren’t taking it as serious as they should,” says Mayra Colazo, executive director of Central Washington Disability Resources. “They’re not protecting each other. They’re not protecting themselves.” Karla sees the psychology behind this denial: “I have thought a lot about how much it takes to put yourself in danger every single day. (You have) to say ‘Oh, it’s fine. People are exaggerating,’ or you get that you’re in existential hell all of the time.”

Reinfection brings additional risk of long COVID, research shows, and Verduzco-Gutierrez says, “We still don’t know the impact of what is going to happen with all these reinfections. Is it going to cause more autoimmune disease? Is it going to be causing more dementia? Is it going to be causing more cancer?” She believes that every medical chart should include a COVID history, to guide doctors to look for the right clues.

“If we were to be lucky enough to capture everybody who has long COVID, we would overwhelm our (health) system and not be able to do anything for them,” Victoria says. “What’s the motivation for the medical field, for practitioners to find all those people?” For now, Victoria sees none. “And until that changes, I don’t think we will (properly count Latino long-haulers),” she adds.

Flashes of hope do exist. In September 2023, the federal government granted $5 million each to multiple long COVID clinics, including three with Latino-specific projects. In New York City, Mt. Sinai Hospital will soon open a new long COVID clinic near largely-Latino East Harlem, embedded in a primary care clinic with staff from the community to reach Latino long-haulers. Verduzco-Gutierrez’s San Antonio clinic will teach primary care providers across largely rural, Latino South Texas to conduct 15-minute low-tech long COVID examinations (the protocol for which is still being devised), and will deploy community tools to educate Latinos on long COVID.

Meanwhile, at the University of Washington long COVID clinic, staff are preparing a patient handbook, which will be adapted for Latinos and then translated into Spanish. They will also train primary care physicians to be local long COVID experts, and will return to treating patients from the whole state rather than just the county containing Seattle. After palabra’s inquiry, the UFW Foundation now has plans to survey United Farm Workers members to gauge long COVID pervasiveness, so the Foundation can lobby legislators and other decision makers to improve Latino long-hauler care.

Back at the Yakima Valley survey presentation, attendees brainstorm new care models: Adding long COVID screening to pediatric checkups, given that long COVID most impacts child-bearing-age women, so moms can bring information to their families and community. Using accessible language for long COVID messaging, or, as Heritage University nursing faculty member Genevieve Aguilar puts it: “How would I talk to my tía, how would I talk to my abuelita? If they can understand me, we’re good to go. If they can’t, olvídate. We have to reframe.”

More than anything, personal narratives will be the key to open people’s minds about long COVID — although that path may be challenging. In Los Angeles, Karla has dealt with a lack of full family and community support, in part, she believes, because her body represents COVID. “I am living, breathing proof of a pandemic no one wants to admit is still happening, and that there is no cure for what I have. That is a really scary possibility.”

While Karla does identify as disabled, Victoria and María don’t. Victoria has learned to live and move within her physical limits. At work, she sometimes feels inhibited by her cognitive issues. “I tell my boss all the time, ‘Oh man, you guys hired such a smart person. But what you got was after COVID, so it’s not the same.’” At times, she worries about the trajectory of her career, about how her work’s intense problem-solving wears out her brain. Will she be able to pursue larger challenges in work in the future? Or will long COVID ultimately make her fail?

Victoria tells me she “remains hopeful that there is a solution.” In a surprising twist, her cough completely disappeared eight months ago — when she became pregnant. (Other long-haulers have seen their symptoms improve with pregnancy, as well, likely due to immune system changes allowing a pregnant person’s body to not reject their baby’s growing cells). Victoria is optimistic that her other symptoms might disappear after she gives birth. And that, maybe someday, her parents will admit they have long COVID, too.

[gumjrop]

The Weather

As of September 13, 2024, national wastewater levels remain high. The CDC’s national wastewater map has contracted viral activity levels from ten grades of color to five grades of color while our map below maintains the original ten grades of color based on CDC data. We will adjust to the five grades in future reports. With schools in full session and the weather transitioning in northern regions to cooler temperatures, transmission continues to occur. Wastewater activity is either “High” or “Very High” in 37 states according to the Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) dashboard. Activity is “Moderate” in 8 states and the District of Columbia, and there is no data available for New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam. 

According to the Wastewater COVID-19 National and Regional Trends dashboard, COVID wastewater levels have plateaued, remaining between high and very high in all regions except for the West, which is having a slight increase. The highest levels remain in the West as of 9/7/2024 (data captured on 9/13/2024). 

In order to access local COVID wastewater levels, you can refer to the CDC’s state/territory trends page as well as the WastewaterSCAN dashboard. State and local public health wastewater trackers may also be available for example in Illinois, they are reporting over 80 locations. Also, the National Academies of Medicine recently published a second report stressing the importance of a robust wastewater surveillance system and its invaluable role in infectious disease surveillance. They recommend improving the consistency and quality of wastewater surveillance for COVID and other infectious diseases.

As of September 10, 2024, COVID levels are “likely growing” in 3 states and territories according to the CDC Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics dashboard. Thirteen states have reached “stable or uncertain” levels, and 31 states are seeing “declining” or “likely declining”, while levels are “not estimated” in 4 states. 

Note, this model utilizes emergency department visit data to estimate COVID transmission’s Rt, which is an estimate of the average number of new infections caused by each infectious person. An Rt greater than 1.0 indicates that infections are growing, while an Rt less than 1.0 indicates that they’re declining.

According to the CDC's COVID Data Tracker, there has been an increase to nearly 1,000 deaths and slightly more than 1,000 deaths per week from COVID during the entire month of August 2024. The last time this occurred was during the winter months of 2024. This total count of weekly COVID deaths is likely to be an underestimate due to limited COVID testing and reporting. The loss of these lives could have been prevented if layers of protections were consistently implemented in preventing infections. 

A recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine highlights the importance of preventing infections especially during periods of high rates of transmission. It notes that COVID death rates were higher when healthcare systems faced a larger strain as a result of increased levels of transmission. Comprehensive policies that protect people and prevent healthcare-acquired COVID infections are needed to prevent healthcare system overload.

Variants

According to the CDC’s variant tracking dashboard, KP.3.1.1 remains the dominant variant of all currently circulating strains. Nowcast modeling projects that KP.3.1.1 will increase to 52.7% by 9/14/2024, followed by KP.2.3 at 12.2%, followed by LB.1 at 10.9%, and KP.3 at 10.6%, respectively. The most prevalent circulating variants are JN.1-derived, and closely related to both JN.1 and KP.2. Updated vaccination with any of the available options (Pfizer, Moderna, or Novavax) is recommended to better match current variants.

Vaccines and Treatment

Although the Bridge Access Program, covering the updated vaccines for uninsured and underinsured adults, has ended, several states including California’s Bridge Access Program and other departments of health have taken steps to partially address this major gap by either providing funding for no-cost access to COVID vaccines or using budgets to acquire a limited supply for their residents. Ultimately, the federal government must contribute resources to ensure no-cost access for all who are uninsured or underinsured. We continue to demand from the federal government to provide continued funding for the Bridge Access Program as well as the Vaccines for Adults Program. As people access the updated COVID vaccines, it is notable that a longer 1.5 inch needle may be needed for adults with higher body weights, in order to pass through subcutaneous tissue into muscle. Complete guidelines for vaccine administration in consideration of age, weight, and injection site can be found on the CDC's website.

It is important to seek treatment when facing a COVID infection. A recent study, reviewing population data of nonhospitalized individuals ages 18 and older during the period of January 2022 and December 2023, showed that nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid)—treatment for COVID—was less commonly used among those who identified as non-Hispanic Black and Latinx/e patients. Although the Test-to-Treat program prematurely ended, there continue to be programs available to ensure financial access to Paxlovid.

Wins

This is a reminder that another batch of no-cost COVID rapid antigen tests can be ordered and sent to your home address at the end of September 2024. Through the CDC’s Increasing Community Access to Testing (ICATT) program, no-cost access to COVID testing access is limited to those who are uninsured or underinsured at places including CVS, Walgreens, eTrueNorth, and other local sites as well as in New York City, which is supported by the NY Department of Public Health.

We are eagerly awaiting news on updates from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid on mandatory reporting of COVID infections in healthcare systems, which begins November 1 thanks to our community’s advocacy. It is invaluable that all healthcare systems participate as case data is paramount for keeping track with current COVID trends and understanding the volume of healthcare acquired COVID infections. 

Take Action

The National Institute of Health (NIH) is seeking public comment and feedback on the next phase of RECOVER clinical trials, which focus on Long COVID. Meetings will be held virtually and on-site between September 23 and 25 to solicit feedback and comments. Register to attend these virtual or on-site sessions by September 25, 2024. It is very important to participate and ask NIH to commit to studies that will result in developing a better understanding of Long COVID, effective treatments for Long COVID, and key approaches to preventing Long COVID. 

Amid ongoing COVID spread, masking in healthcare remains central to safe access to healthcare. As we await implementation of COVID hospitalization reporting and prepare for CDC’s next Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee meeting in November, you can use this letter campaign to ask your elected officials to take action for healthcare masking.

And finally, because all of us need access to the updated COVID vaccines regardless of our insurance status or ability to pay, use our letter template to demand free COVID vaccines for uninsured and underinsured adults nationally.

[observeowl]

Natasha Romanoff

Last updated on 1 Jan 2024

Series

Right By Your side

Her Assistant

Unwanted Marriage

Second Chance

One shot - Latest one on top

Sleepwalking - You started sleepwalking again when Natasha went missing

Ghost Dates - Someone has been sabotaging R dates

Scared - There's something that prevents R from approaching love life like a normal person

Moonlight - After being injected with a serum, R have a unique allergy that prevents her from going out at night

You're not supposed to know - R has a secret relationship with her boss that no one knows

Not Kicking - R gets a little scare during her pregnancy and Natasha is there to calm her down

To say goodbye - Natasha get a call that R was in a serious accident abroad and she immediately packs up to leave but was stopped by a mutual friend with gifted powers

Mini-boss - Natasha makes sure no one bullies her baby

Fever - Natasha woke up to find R sick

Distraction - Too many people are competing for the attention of Natasha and you're just not able to compete with it even though you were supposed to be given the priority. After giving her chance time and time again, R just couldn't take it anymore Distraction Part 2 - After leaving Natasha 3 years ago, Fury calls R back and R agrees under a special condition

Sorry Mama - Due to R being sick, Natasha was removed from the mission and spends the day taking care of her

Next Chance - 5 years after Natasha's pregnancy, they talk about having a second kid and potentially R carrying

A Chance - Natasha and R talks about having kids and their journey

Seeing Red - R found Natasha in with Steve against her will Seeing Red part 2 - Natasha ends up getting pregnant with Steve's baby and has to make a decision if she wants to keep it or not

Mama Sick - Natasha woke up sick. Wanda and R tries to help make Natasha feels better

How am I going to trust - After a celebration and lots of drinking, Steve and Nat did something that they both regretted. Is R able to live with that fact if she continues to be Natasha's fiance?

After a night's sleep - R has a unique disorder that she hides from everyone until she got hurt in one of the mission. How long is she able to hide her secret for?

Miscarriage - Natasha wasn't there when R needed her at the most desperate times Miscarriage part 2 - Natasha tries to make amends for her mistake but will R accept her again?

That's... mom? - An offhand comment made Loki change Natasha into a toddler. Take a ride to see how R takes care of Natasha for a few days until the magic wears off

Avalanche - R, Steve and Natasha faces an avalanche during of their mission. In order to save the village, R risk herself and ends up buried in the snow

Fading - R has cancer

Admit it - R has to take certain measures to make sure Natasha admits she is sick and takes her medicine

This is as far as I would go - R refuse to take actions on her feelings about Natasha and Natasha has to take things into her own hands when she realises

Falling asleep - Can you always count on Natasha to prevent you from sleeping during meetings?

Cake - Natasha found a new hobby during COVID-19. But, she still has lots of room for improvement and R couldn't bear to break her heart

Helping Hands - R likes to help whenever she could and Natasha loves her for it

Nerf Gun - R and Natasha gets into a friendly shoot out with their nerf guns at home Nerf Gun part 2 - R past caught up with her and she was forced to kill Natasha. But, she still has a last trick in her sleeves to save her loved one. Natasha didn't know that the mission she was assigned to was related to R

Unrequited - Natasha is oblivious to the crush that R has on her and Clint loves to tease R for it. R willing to do anything for Natasha Unrequited part 2 - R tries to hide from Natasha to control her feelings but it didn't work

Do you want another winter soldier? - R is stuck in a freezer during a mission and Natasha tries to free her before it is too late

Needle - R is afraid of needles and it was time for the yearly checkup for the Avengers. Things took a serious turn when Natasha dragged you to the medbay

Temperature - R hides a disorder from Natasha and she finds out in a mission together

Nobody - R abusive family background haunts her at night and Natasha comes to calm her down

Last Name - After having a fallout with your father, you went to legally change your last name

Birthday Week - Why R is always missing during at the same time?

Different Facade - R has different faces at different times

Prosopagnosia - R has a disorder and the cute moment between R and Natasha

Sick once a year - R is sick

Learning emotions from pictures - R hides that she doesn't know what emotions are and Natasha helps her

That's not how you do it - R comes back from a mission and shows Natasha her trick in interrogating

[womanlifefreedom]

account restored

I'm writing with an update: my account was terminated weeks ago without warning, notice, or reason. My main tumblr was wiped out and because of that, I couldn't log in to update this one. My account appears to have been reinstated (for now). In case I am booted off again, please know that I appreciate everyone sharing information about what is happening in Iran <3

My time away from Tumblr also made me reevaluate my relationship to this platform so to be honest, I am not sure that I will continue this blog. But for now, I do wish to share news that the rapper Toomaj has been sentenced to death. There are ongoing protests worldwide in addition to the celebrity support and I would encourage readers to seek out further actions. On that note, I also have some more personal thoughts under the cut.

As I write, people around the world are mobilizing against a genocide in Gaza and we are witnessing an undeniable sea change in international solidarity. It's a change that may prove to be more disruptive to our current global system of nation states and capitalist exploitation than the covid-19 pandemic. I am seeing a stronger level of rigour and structure from organizers who may be responding to the bitter lessons of the leaderless and spontaneous uprisings of the 2010s - many of which resulted in increasingly authoritarian governments taking power (Egypt, Brazil, etc.).

If the Iranian Revolution of 1979 teaches us anything, it is this: that horrific things can and will take root in the cracks that a revolution causes and that would go against all revolutionary demands. When a power structure topples, there will be power grabs and those who know that the surest and fastest way to seize power from the masses is to sell us seductive fantasies of safety, order, belonging, dignity and everything that capitalism strips from us by alienating us from ourselves. Such groups will leverage everything at their disposal - religions, art, technologies, science, psychology, weaponry - to benefit themselves and those useful to them while exploiting our fear of uncertainty and stoking our distrust of each other. They will come from all directions and we must remain vigilant.

The thing is, the world cannot be made safe. Especially the world we live in today, a world that is convulsing in the grips of a climate catastrophe. The only solid ground we have now is a willingness to acknowledge our radical dependency on each other and to embrace how one's own fate is intimately bound to the fate of others and that of the world...

Thanks for reading and please take care 🙏

[willowreader]

https://www.healthcentral.com/condition/coronavirus/long-covid-is-a-chronic-disease

Yes, Covid is a chronic disease.

NEWSLETTERS

Medically Reviewed

It’s Official: Long COVID Is a Chronic Disease

A new report from the Social Security Administration and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine confirms that COVID can cause long-term illness and, for some, permanent disability. We spoke to one of the report’s leading scientists.

Updated Jun 21, 2024

By

Michele G. Sullivan

Medical ReviewerTabitha Woolpert, M.D., M.P.H.



Getty Images/wildpixel

Editor's note: HealthCentral first asked the question, “What If COVID Is Chronic?“ in early 2021. Millions were living with unusual, life-upending, and sometimes painful post-infection symptoms of COVID-19 that lingered for many weeks or months—even after a negative test suggested they’d cleared the virus. From those early days, we made it our mission to chronicle the emerging science of long COVID, documenting an increasing body of research that suggested long COVID might be a new category of chronic disease. In June 2024, the scientific community announced that for some, COVID can indeed be a chronic disease.

A new 265-page report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, commissioned by the Social Security Administration, confirms what some scientists have long suspected: Infection from COVID can lead to lingering symptoms and long-term, possibly permanent disability. The report officially categorizes long COVID as a chronic condition that requires new and better ways to diagnose it, treat it, and help pay to manage it as we continue to learn to co-exist with the threat that this ever-mutating virus brings to us, now and in the future.

Symptoms of chronic COVID, per the report, include shortness of breath, cough, persistent fatigue, difficulty concentrating, memory changes, recurring headache, lightheadedness, fast heart rate, sleep disturbance, problems with taste or smell, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea. These symptoms may present as diagnosable conditions including interstitial lung disease and hypoxemia, cardiovascular disease and arrhythmias, cognitive impairment, mood disorders, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and more.

[theculturedmarxist]

Although many Canadians act as though the pandemic has ended, the airborne virus that causes COVID-19 continues to evolve at an amazing pace with devastating consequences for both individuals and the public at large.

The pandemic may no longer be a major conflagration but it still kills about 140 Canadians a week while morphing into a steady viral blaze sustained by dirty air, waning immunity and overt political indifference.

What was once a giant wave of acute illness has become a series of often unpredictable wavelets driven by ever-changing variants that can cause chronic illness. Long COVID, a disabling health event that can affect multiple organs and destabilize the immune system, now affects millions and continues to claim new victims.

A 2023 Danish study recently confirmed that about 50 per cent of those diagnosed with long COVID fail to improve 18 months after infection regardless of the variant.

Long COVID has taken a huge toll among health-care workers. Anywhere from six to 10 per cent of Quebec’s health-care workforce, for example, has been derailed by long COVID.

Seventy-one per cent of health-care workers impaired by long COVID reported that their state of health now interferes with their ability to function. Another 16 per cent said that they are often unable to work. Multiply this data across the country and then ask: How sustainable is this trend?

The cost of living in a ‘viral soup’

While the media focus concern on the potential next big nasty viral wave, evolutionary biologist T. Ryan Gregory says that threat seems less likely than before, but the current reality is nothing like normal.

“We are not dealing with Omicron-like waves but a viral soup,” Gregory told The Tyee. “We are seeing a near-constant high level of hospitalizations that falls just below overwhelming them but is nonetheless unsustainable. More health-care workers are getting sick and that just adds to the strain on the whole system.”

What worries Gregory, an expert on the evolution of COVID variants at the University of Guelph, “are the long-term effects of multiple infections and the sustained pressure on the health-care system and well-being.”

Yet the current impact of COVID — measurably higher than at some previous points during the pandemic — remains largely ignored or poorly reported.

Tara Moriarty, a University of Toronto infectious disease expert and co-founder of COVID 19 Resources Canada, recently tallied the imperfect data, and it is bracing. She calculates that about one in every 23 Canadians is now infected with COVID. We are not at the low point of the pandemic in Canada. To the contrary, compared with a previous time during the pandemic, infections are 25 times higher and the rate of long COVID is 19 times higher. Meanwhile the hospitalization rate is 13 times higher and deaths are 25 times higher.

In the middle of October, Moriarty calculated that COVID patients occupied about nine per cent of intensive care beds and 21 per cent of hospital beds across the country. (The average hospitalization rate during the pandemic has been seven per cent.) The estimated cost of this sustained viral assault is $274 million a week.

Governments peddling denial

Most governments seem intent on diminishing or hiding these realities. They avoid any talk about the effectiveness of masking in public places or the value of improved ventilation and filtration in schools and workplaces. It’s a demonstrated fact that the virus travels through the air in tiny smoke-like aerosols that can infect people at much greater distances than six feet, but the natural responses to this reality are not encouraged by our leaders.

Alberta, for example, now pretends that COVID is just another mild respiratory disease and reports its doings along with influenza and RSV activity.

Despite this push for “normalization,” only one disease stands out as a routine killer and dominant occupant of hospital beds on the province’s “respiratory virus dashboard.” And that’s COVID. COVID also dominates outbreaks in Alberta’s hospitals and long-term care facilities where masking and attention to ventilation have become haphazard practices.

Lumping COVID in with other respiratory diseases is also patently misleading. A recent Swiss study compared hospitalized patients infected with COVID and those infected with the flu. Those with COVID had a 1.5-fold higher risk of dying in hospital up to 30 days after infection than patients infected by influenza A. The death rate was even higher for unvaccinated people.

A 2023 Swedish study also found the death rate from Omicron greatly surpassed that of influenza patients.

And next comes the increased risk of cardiovascular problems. Medical researchers have long observed strokes and acute myocardial infarctions in patients after respiratory infections, such as influenza. But COVID breaks the mould here. Compared with patients with the flu, the risk of stroke is more than sevenfold higher in COVID-19 patients.

This is likely tied to the fact that COVID can inflame the vascular system through which the body’s blood travels. New non-peer-reviewed evidence suggests that even a mild infection can temporarily damage endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels.

COVID may begin with the symptoms of a cold or flu for most people, but it often ends as thrombotic or vascular disease in a small percentage for reasons researchers don’t clearly understand. The virus can therefore infect multiple organs from the brain to the kidneys.

Immune systems and long COVID

COVID can also unsettle the immune system by damaging T-cell response, as recent studies have illustrated.

These findings make all the more illogical the current, widespread blasé attitude towards the ever-evolving virus.

Let’s begin with diabetes, which itself stresses the immune system and makes it less effective.

Early in the pandemic, researchers suspected there might be a connection between having COVID and later developing diabetes. Now it’s confirmed. Earlier this year the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai organization in Los Angeles found that a COVID infection dramatically increases the risk for developing Type 2 diabetes and that this risk continues with Omicron variants.

“The trends and patterns that we see in the data suggest that COVID-19 infection could be acting in certain settings like a disease accelerator, amplifying risk for a diagnosis that individuals might have otherwise received later in life,” noted Susan Cheng, a senior author of the study and a professor of cardiology.

Another study found that the incidence of diabetes in Black and Hispanic youth has increased by 62 per cent since the pandemic. The authors noted that COVID can bind to receptors in the pancreas, resulting in damaged cells.

A Canadian study also found steep increases in diabetes after COVID infections. University of British Columbia researchers examined a large population of British Columbians (more than 600,000) and discovered that people infected with COVID had a 17 to 22 per cent higher risk of developing diabetes within a year compared with uninfected people.

Concluded the researchers: “SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a higher risk of diabetes and may have contributed to a three per cent to five per cent excess burden of diabetes at a population level.”

Related research has also demonstrated that COVID infection can trigger or lead to a variety of autoimmune disorders.

One recent Lancet study that looked at nearly a million people who were unvaccinated between 2020 and 2021 found that COVID cases experienced much higher incidence of autoimmune disease than non-infected people.

These autoimmune conditions included rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, vasculitis (inflamed and swollen blood vessels), inflammatory bowel disease and Type 1 diabetes mellitus.

A similar German study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, evaluated a cohort of 640,701 unvaccinated individuals with PCR-confirmed COVID infection during 2020 for the risk of autoimmune conditions. The researchers identified “a 42.6 per cent higher likelihood of acquiring an autoimmune condition three to 15 months after infection” compared with a group of 1,560,357 individuals who weren’t infected.

The researchers also found that a COVID infection “increased the risk of developing another autoimmune disease by 23 per cent” in individuals with pre-existing immune conditions.

The autoimmune studies confirm that COVID can be a significant immune deregulator. The Yale University immunologist Akiko Iwasaki, who has dedicated her lab to studying long COVID, notes that “there's misfiring of the immune response happening in the severe COVID patients that lead to pathology and lethality.” Even a mild infection can lead to this misfiring and long COVID, and this group tends to be women between the ages of 30 and 50.

Reinfection is no trifle

The autoimmune studies, of course, don’t tell us anything about the current crop of variants and what autoimmune or cardiovascular diseases they might trigger in the future. But the precautionary principle would suggest avoiding infection.

The highly regarded U.S. epidemiologist Ziyad Al-Aly, who also studies long COVID, has been very clear about the hazardous consequences of reinfection in terms of chronic disease such as diabetes, brain inflammation and heart disease: “Two infections are worse than one and three are worse than two.”

His most recent research shows that people with mild infections are still at risk for chronic disease two years after the fact. Patients who were hospitalized with COVID were at even greater risk for chronic complications.

“The concern here is that this pandemic will generate a wave of chronic disease that we did not have before the pandemic,” Al-Aly, chief of research and development at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, recently told Euronews Next.

“Even when the pandemic abates and is in the rear-view mirror, we will be left with it after the fact in the form of a chronic disease that for some people may last for a long time or even a lifetime,” added Al-Aly.

The Tyee has repeatedly reported evidence that immunity to COVID from natural infection or vaccination is not long-lasting because of the nature of the virus.

The research now confirms that infections can even leave some people more vulnerable to reinfection. A startling Canadian study published this year looked at 750 vaccinated elders at long-term care facilities where COVID deaths continue to be high. They found infection with Omicron in its first wave actually made these inmates more susceptible to reinfection in subsequent waves. Counterintuitively, these people were more prone to reinfection than patients who had never experienced COVID.

“Our current vaccine schedules are based on the assumption that having had an infection provides some level of protection to future infections, but our study shows that may not be true for all variants in all people,” noted Dawn Bowdish, an immunologist and one of the study’s authors.

What our health leaders should be saying

The implications of these findings are plain enough. The pandemic has a long tail, and it can be found in a growing population of people experiencing chronic disease. Therefore, limiting transmission is still the most important public health goal.

We know how to do that but are reluctant to employ the tools. Masking in crowded public spaces or poorly ventilated buildings during periods of high infection is a proven viral risk reducer. Cleaning dirty air in workplaces and schools removes the virus and other pollutants such as wildfire smoke and should be an urgent public health crusade.

We might all take inspiration from what happened at one Australian school. Concerned parents studied airflow and then installed HEPA filters with the result that improved air circulation stopped COVID transmission dead.

Rigorous surveillance testing is also essential to inform citizens of the advancing or retreating COVID risks.

Vaccinations play a role because they can significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization, death and long COVID. But current vaccines will not stop transmission. Or end the pandemic.

In a recent study a group of U.S. researchers modelled a variety of paths that COVID might take in the future.

If repeat infections and vaccinations actually work to improve immunity and dent the pandemic over time, then models suggest infections and the incidence of long COVID should decline too.

But as Omicron demonstrated, community immunity is unlikely to be achieved via existing vaccines and especially at a time when vaccine hesitancy is rising.

In one pessimistic scenario the researchers posited that “a first infection may provide partial protection against a second infection” but the combination of new variants and complexities surrounding immune responses “could then increase the susceptibility to tertiary and quaternary infections.”

That means a good proportion of the population could end up with long COVID in the absence of effective public health measures and the development of a durable, transmission-blocking vaccine.

“More pessimistic assumptions on host adaptive immune responses illustrate that the longer-term burden of COVID-19 may be elevated for years to come,” added the researchers.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: august 2023

wow what a month!!! I turned 27, I got to do so much work on a documentary on queer style, and most importantly I read a batch of really cool books that I'm so excited to ramble about. so let's cut the bullshit, here's what I've been reading!

Condomnauts (Yoss, 2013; trans. David Frye, 2018) - thank you to, who else, tumblr user @condomnauts for the recommendation! the premise of this book is so sensational: humankind has taken to the stars and become part of a bustling galactic community, with a catch: politeness demands that when different species get together to trade, they open negotiations by sending members from each crew to have sex with each other. these "condomnauts" are highly in demand among humans, since it takes a very particular kind of person to figure out how to bone down with someone who isn't even remotely human. but it's not all fun or free-wheeling space orgies; our protagonist, Josue, is up to his eyes in unresolved trauma from the miserable violence and poverty of his upbringing (seriously, look up those trigger warnings; it gets pretty yucky out there) and has definitely never been to space therapy. ultimately this book isn't as much of a romp as I might have hoped and does fall a bit more into "let's explain at length how the sci-fi tech works" than I usually like, but. BUT. I have to say, the payoff at the (deep sigh) climax of the book (and it is, in fact, a climax) took me totally by surprise and made me SHRIEK with delight when I realized what was about to happen; huge props to Yoss for bringing that particular plot point so perfectly full circle.

Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs (Jamie Loftus, 2023) - I'm a huge fan of all of Jamie Loftus' nonfiction podcast series (go listen to Ghost Church, like, immediately. stop reading this an go do it) so I was naturally pretty fucking stoked for her first foray into nonfiction books. the premise is simple enough: driven by a need to consume a truly terrifying amount of hot dogs for research, Loftus and her boyfriend set off on a cross-country road trip, sampling hot dogs across America so that Loftus can alternate descriptions of the most iconic contemporary hot dogs with an investigation of the hot dog's sordid past. as is pretty much the signature of Jamie Loftus' work, to me, the end result is much funnier, weirder, and sadder than the innocuous-sounding premise would suggest; in addition to the perils of colonialism, capitalism, COVID-19, and factory farming, Loftus does a remarkably tactful job documenting the the downfall of her own relationship as she searches for the perfect dog. cannot recommend enough, an incredible debut.

Yellowface (R.F. Kuang, 2023) - a couple of months ago I read my first R.F. Kuang book, Babel, and thought that it couldn't possibly live up to the amount of hype that it was getting at the time. and I was wrong! Babel was tremendous! but surely R.F. Kuang, that crazy son of a gun, couldn't pull it off twice in one year. and yet! Yellowface was a book I found hard to put down, because with each chapter came some fresh new BUGFUCK CRAZY BULLSHIT from our terrible, terrible protagonist. maybe the plot hinging so much on extremely online book discourse will make it inaccessible for some readers, but as someone who used to spend a lot of time on lit twitter I got it and felt seen. honestly, if this kind of discourse broke loose on twitter tomorrow - a white author stealing the work of her Chinese-American friend? publishing it after her friend's tragic premature death?? changing her name to sound more racially ambiguous??? - I might go crawling back to X dot com just to gawk. this is a satirical thriller of the highest order, and if you love mess as much as me you will gobble this shit up.

The Prisoner's Wife (asha bandele, 1999) - and now for a totally different vibe than I've been bringing you so far! bandele's memoir is an absolutely wrenching account of falling in love with Rashid, a man incarcerated for murder and the ensuing fight to build a life together. bandele is a poet and it shows; her words flow beautifully even in the ugliest of circumstances. this is no suffering porn but a nakedly honest account, all of the good and all of the bad in her relationship. the struggles are never limited to the inhumanity of American carceral system, and the reader is also witness to the usual growing pains of two people learning how to love each other heightened by the enormous obstacles of stolen autonomy. but for every moment of difficulty there is love, such an enormity of love that you at time feel the need to look away from someone being so vulnerable. but I'm so grateful bandele shared the way she did. even reading the book two decades after its publication, with the knowledge that she and her husband Rashid would ultimately divorce, did nothing to dull the love. the love was real, and bandele captured it with devastating precision.

Clay's Ark (Octavia E. Butler, 1984) - god, I love Octavia. just when you think you know where she's going with a story of a creepy codependent psychic cult she zags on you and introduces a SECOND creepy codependent cult, this time in the form of a bunch of HORNY PARASITIC SPACE WEREWOLVES hiding out in the desert! there was no mention of Mary and the Pattern! where are they, Octavia? why are they sending people into space? what does it mean that aliens are in play now? are they going to fight in the next book? god, I hope they fight. there was some gruesome shit in Clay's Ark, but man was I compelled.

My Wandering Warrior Existence (Nagata Kabi, 2020; trans. Jocelyne Allen, 2022) - this was a really exciting new turn for Nagata's graphic memoirs! this one is a great reflection on ✨romance✨ as Nagata begins the arduous work of trying to figure out what romance means to them and what she'd actually want out of a relationship. there was a lot that I related to immensely, although our outcomes may be different - in my case, I realized that building so many mental hurdles for myself because I didn't want to be in a relationship at all. watching someone else navigate that journey at a later age than people are usually expected to is so cool, especially doing it so thoughtfully and with such candor and coming from a place of queerness. I don't know where things are going for Nagata Kabi, but I'm excited for the next translation of her work to be released in November. and I really recommend this graphic memoir to anyone trying to figure out their own romance situation, whether or not you're read the preceding volumes; it can stand quite well on its own!

Love, Hate & Clickbait (Liz Bowery, 2022) - guys. listen. I was so prepared to hate this romance novel, but "a governor forces two of her male staffers to fake date each other to win #woke points" is pretty heinous premise! and it SUPER doesn't help that one of these guys, Thom, is a stone cold manipulative bastard who's chronically online and obsessed with his job to a generally terrifying degree. (the other guy, Clay, is just kind of a doofus who's been, I think, accidentally autism-coded.) but by the end [SPOILERS] Thom has uuuuuh suffered complete and total ego death and renounced his entire life, and it kind of rules? idk, the fake dating might be kind of long and tedious if you're not into fake dating, by which I mean it was tedious for me, but the climax really catapulted it up the list of romance novels I've read this year. also I regret to say the sex is pretty good.

Docile (K.M. Szpara, 2020) - god almighty I put off actually getting to this book for YEARS but I'm glad I did, because I don't know if I would have had the range to appreciate her back in 2020. the basic bones premise - a slightly future dystopia in which those in extreme debt can take a drug called Dociline to become a passive blank slate and sell themselves as servants for the ultrawealthy - barely scratches the surface; it's an intoxicating story about power, control, cobsession, consent, vulnerability, exploitation, capitalism, and loss of self in so many different ways. also I once again regret to say that the sex is pretty good. I completely understand why this book wouldn't be someone's cup of tea - jesus CHRIST read those content warnings - but I couldn't read it fast enough.

Carnal Knowledge: Sex Education You Didn't Get in School (Zoë Ligon and Elizabeth Renstrom, 2020) - what a fun book! for those of y'all who don't know Ligon's work, she's the owner of Spectrum Boutique, a Detroit-based sex toy store that I endorse wholeheartedly and as often as possible! Ligon has put together a great little book of beginner's sexual affirmations, covering everything from body image to pubic hair to relationship styles as well as, naturally, sex toys. it's a great read for anybody, and Renstrom's whimsical, vibrant photos make it a delight to flip through. I'd recommend it for anyone, especially my many anons over the years who have asked how to start getting more comfortable thinking and talking about sexuality. it's a great place to start, a gorgeous little safe space of a book that welcomes everyone to think more widely about pleasure and how to find it.