#UP coronavirus cases

[aurorashard]

.

[pochapal]

i hauve covid

[inkbotkowalski]

Covid fucking sucks. Why do so many people want to keep getting it over and over

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall Free

"The Food and Drug Administration approved new mRNA coronavirus vaccines Thursday [August 22, 2024], clearing the way for shots manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to start hitting pharmacy shelves and doctor’s offices within a week.

Health officials encourage annual vaccination against the coronavirus, similar to yearly flu shots. Everyone 6 months and older should receive a new vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends.

The FDA has yet to approve an updated vaccine from Novavax, which uses a more conventional vaccine development method but has faced financial challenges.

Our scientific understanding of coronavirus vaccines has evolved since they debuted in late 2020. Here’s what to know about the new vaccines.

Why are there new vaccines?

The coronavirus keeps evolving to overcome our immune defenses, and the shield offered by vaccines weakens over time. That’s why federal health officials want people to get an annual updated coronavirus vaccine designed to target the latest variants. They approve them for release in late summer or early fall to coincide with flu shots that Americans are already used to getting.

The underlying vaccine technology and manufacturing process are the same, but components change to account for how the virus morphs. The new vaccines target the KP.2 variant because most recent covid cases are caused by that strain or closely related ones...

Do the vaccines prevent infection?

You probably know by now that vaccinated people can still get covid. But the shots do offer some protection against infection, just not the kind of protection you get from highly effective vaccines for other diseases such as measles.

The 2023-2024 vaccine provided 54 percent increased protection against symptomatic covid infections, according to a CDC study of people who tested for the coronavirus at pharmacies during the first four months after that year’s shot was released...

A nasal vaccine could be better at stopping infections outright by increasing immunity where they take hold, and one is being studied in a trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

If you really want to dodge covid, don’t rely on the vaccine alone and take other precautions such as masking or avoiding crowds...

Do the vaccines help prevent transmission?

You may remember from early coverage of coronavirus vaccines that it was unclear whether shots would reduce transmission. Now, scientists say the answer is yes — even if you’re actively shedding virus.

That’s because the vaccine creates antibodies that reduce the amount of virus entering your cells, limiting how much the virus can replicate and make you even sicker. When vaccination prevents symptoms such as coughing and sneezing, people expel fewer respiratory droplets carrying the virus. When it reduces the viral load in an infected person, people become less contagious.

That’s why Peter Hotez, a physician and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said he feels more comfortable in a crowded medical conference, where attendees are probably up to date on their vaccines, than in a crowded airport.

“By having so many vaccinated people, it’s decreasing the number of days you are shedding virus if you get a breakthrough infection, and it decreases the amount of virus you are shedding,” Hotez said.

Do vaccines prevent long covid?

While the threat of acute serious respiratory covid disease has faded, developing the lingering symptoms of “long covid” remains a concern for people who have had even mild cases. The CDC says vaccination is the “best available tool” to reduce the risk of long covid in children and adults. The exact mechanism is unclear, but experts theorize that vaccines help by reducing the severity of illness, which is a major risk factor for long covid.

When is the best time to get a new coronavirus vaccine?

It depends on your circumstances, including risk factors for severe disease, when you were last infected or vaccinated, and plans for the months ahead. It’s best to talk these issues through with a doctor.

If you are at high risk and have not recently been vaccinated or infected, you may want to get a shot as soon as possible while cases remain high. The summer wave has shown signs of peaking, but cases can still be elevated and take weeks to return to low levels. It’s hard to predict when a winter wave will begin....

Where do I find vaccines?

CVS said its expects to start administering them within days, and Walgreens said that it would start scheduling appointments to receive shots after Sept. 6 and that customers can walk in before then.

Availability at doctor’s offices might take longer. Finding shots for infants and toddlers could be more difficult because many pharmacies do not administer them and not every pediatrician’s office will stock them given low demand and limited storage space.

This year’s updated coronavirus vaccines are supposed to have a longer shelf life, which eases the financial pressures of stocking them.

The CDC plans to relaunch its vaccine locator when the new vaccines are widely available, and similar services are offered by Moderna and Pfizer."

-via The Washington Post, August 22, 2024

[pangur-and-grim]

if I were you, I'd get your dang money back from that breeder.

FIP is a random chance event. nearly all cats are exposed during kittenhood to the feline coronavirus, and only in a small percentage of them does it mutate into FIP.

as for the other two pathogens (feline calcivrus and mycoplasma) - I don't know where he picked them up. maybe he came to me pre-diseased, in which case, I'd have a reason to be pissed at the breeder! or maybe he got them on a trip to my parents house. or maybe he got them from the catio. or from the vet's office, when he went in for vaccines and neutering.

FIP messes with the immune system, meaning that affected cats have a hard time fighting off pathogen exposures that a health cat would shrug off with no problem. so it could be that, if not for the FIP, he'd be in perfect health with zero diseases.

tl;dr there are so many unknowns at play that I have a hard time blaming anyone or anything.

[odinsblog]

That last tweet sums it up perfectly: “They realize COVID isn’t over. But while they may not take precautions to protect your health, they will to protect their money.”

Pretending that COVID is over is one of the worst things our government has done to us, but COVID isn’t over. It’s not even close to being over. If it were, insurance companies and big businesses wouldn’t be going through such extreme measures to protect themselves against coronavirus-related lawsuits. And you just know if a case went all the way up, this illegitimate, morally bankrupt & corrupt Supreme Court would rule in favor of big business having no responsibility to protect their customers.

In our ass backwards society, antivaxxers and anti-maskers practically can’t be barred from going everywhere they want, and businesses probably won’t be held liable for conditions that expose people to dangerous diseases (and the antivaxxers who love spreading diseases).

Anyway, I got all my scheduled vaccines and I still mask up in public. 😷

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

Whenever you hear someone trying to blame kid's poor test scores "post pandemic" on "lockdowns," show them this.

By Dr. Sushama R. Chaphalkar, PhD.

New research shows that mild COVID-19 alters brain structure and connectivity in key areas responsible for memory and cognition, emphasizing the lasting effects on young people’s brain health.

In a case-control study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and cognitive tests to examine brain structure, function, and cognition in adolescents and young adults with mild coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) compared to healthy controls in a pandemic hotspot in Italy. They identified significant changes in brain regions related to olfaction and cognition, with decreased brain volume and reduced functional connectivity in areas like the left hippocampus and amygdala, which were linked to impaired spatial working memory. Notably, no significant differences were observed in whole-brain connectivity, suggesting that these changes were localized rather than widespread.

Background COVID-19, primarily known for respiratory symptoms, also affects the central nervous system, leading to neurological issues like headaches, anosmia, and cognitive changes. MRI-based studies reveal anatomical brain changes in COVID-19 patients, such as reduced gray matter and decreased volume in regions like the hippocampus and amygdala, often linked to cognitive deficits.

While research mostly focuses on severe cases and older adults, a majority of infections with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of COVID-19, occur in adolescents and young adults who also experience long-lasting cognitive symptoms.

This age group, undergoing key brain development, is impacted by changes in spatial working memory and brain structure, which are crucial for cognitive functions shaped by social interactions, significantly disrupted by the pandemic.

Given that this is the largest and most understudied population affected by COVID-19, understanding the brain and cognitive impacts in adolescents and young adults is vital.

Therefore, researchers in the present study compared anatomical, functional, and cognitive outcomes, utilizing a longitudinal design that allowed them to assess both pre- and post-infection differences, in COVID-19-positive and negative adolescents and young adults from Lombardy, Italy, a global hotspot during the pandemic.

About the study The present study involved participants from the Public Health Impact of Metal Exposure (PHIME) cohort, a longitudinal investigation of adolescents and young adults in northern Italy. Between 2016 and 2021, 207 participants, aged 13 to 25 years, were included in a sub-study with MRI scans and cognitive tests. After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, 40 participants (13 COVID+ and 27 COVID−) participated in a follow-up study, which replicated the MRI and cognitive assessments.

The mean age of participants was 20.44 years and 65% were female. COVID+ status was confirmed through positive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests within 12 months of follow-up. Neuropsychological assessments used the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) to evaluate spatial working memory.

MRI and functional MRI data were acquired using a 3-Tesla scanner, processed, and analyzed for structural and local functional connectivity using eigenvector centrality mapping (ECM) and functional connectivity (FC) metrics. Whole-brain functional connectivity metrics showed no significant differences between COVID+ and control groups, indicating that the observed changes were specific to key brain regions rather than generalized across the entire brain.

Statistical analysis involved the use of pairwise Student's t-tests, Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, linear regression, two-waves mediation analysis, negative binomial regression, and linear regression, all adjusted for covariates.

Results and discussion Significant differences were observed in the two groups regarding the time between assessments, COVID-19 symptoms, and vaccine status. The research identified five localized functional connectivity hubs with significant differences between the two groups, including the right intracalcarine cortex, right lingual gyrus, left frontal orbital cortex, left hippocampus and left amygdala, which is vital for cognitive functions. Only the left hippocampal volume showed a significant reduction in COVID+ participants (p = 0.034), while whole-brain connectivity remained unchanged, reinforcing the localized nature of the brain changes.

The left amygdala mediated the relationship between COVID-19 and spatial working memory "between errors" (p = 0.028), a critical finding that highlights the indirect effect of amygdala connectivity on cognitive function in COVID+ individuals. This mediation analysis underscores the role of specific brain regions in influencing cognitive deficits, as only the indirect effect was statistically significant for spatial working memory errors. The orbitofrontal cortex, involved in sensory integration and cognitive functions, also showed decreased connectivity in COVID+ individuals, supporting previous findings of structural and functional changes in this region during COVID-19.

The study is limited by small sample size, lack of diversity, potential confounding factors due to the long interval between MRI scans, treatment of certain subjects as COVID-negative based on antibody testing beyond the 12-month threshold, and the possibility of non-significant findings in mediation analysis due to these factors.

Conclusion In conclusion, the findings indicate persistent structural and functional alterations in specific brain regions of COVID-19-positive adolescents and young adults, including changes in gray matter volume and localized functional connectivity, which correlate with diminished cognitive function, particularly in working memory.

Further research is necessary to evaluate the longevity and potential reversibility of these brain and cognitive changes post-infection, enhancing our understanding of post-COVID outcomes and informing future interventions and treatments. The longitudinal design of this study, with pre- and post-COVID data, strengthens these findings by allowing direct comparisons over time, offering robust insights into the impact of COVID-19 on adolescent brain development.

Journal reference: COVID-19 related cognitive, structural and functional brain changes among Italian adolescents and young adults: a multimodal longitudinal case-control study. Invernizzi, A. et al., Translational Psychiatry, 14, 402 (2024), DOI: 10.1038/s41398-024-03108-2, www.nature.com/articles/s41398-024-03108-2

[mindblowingscience]

Vaccines ensure bouts of COVID are far less deadly than they were at the pandemic's start, yet multiple studies now suggest even seemingly mild cases of the coronavirus have a cost. With every single infection, our risk of long COVID increases. While this risk starts (relatively) low for most of us, particularly those vaccinated and in younger people or children, there are concerning signs it may not stay low. If each new invasion of our bodies allows this insidious virus a greater chance to cause damage, such small risks will eventually add up to a big one. Even if you only experience the symptom of the initial infection mildly.

Continue Reading.

[mariacallous]

For Sander van der Linden, misinformation is personal.

As a child in the Netherlands, the University of Cambridge social psychologist discovered that almost all of his mother’s family had been executed by the Nazis during the Second World War. He became absorbed by the question of how so many people came to support the ideas of someone like Adolf Hitler, and how they might be taught to resist such influence.

While studying psychology at graduate school in the mid-2010s, van der Linden came across the work of American researcher William McGuire. In the 1960s, stories of brainwashed prisoners-of-war during the Korean War had captured the zeitgeist, and McGuire developed a theory of how such indoctrination might be prevented. He wondered whether exposing soldiers to a weaker form of propaganda might have equipped them to fight off a full attack once they’d been captured. In the same way that army drills prepared them for combat, a pre-exposure to an attack on their beliefs could have prepared them against mind control. It would work, McGuire argued, as a cognitive immunizing agent against propaganda—a vaccine against brainwashing.

Traditional vaccines protect us by feeding us a weaker dose of pathogen, enabling our bodies’ immune defenses to take note of its appearance so we’re better equipped to fight the real thing when we encounter it. A psychological vaccine works much the same way: Give the brain a weakened hit of a misinformation-shaped virus, and the next time it encounters it in fully-fledged form, its “mental antibodies” remember it and can launch a defense.

Van der Linden wanted to build on McGuire’s theories and test the idea of psychological inoculation in the real world. His first study looked at how to combat climate change misinformation. At the time, a bogus petition was circulating on Facebook claiming there wasn’t enough scientific evidence to conclude that global warming was human-made, and boasting the signatures of 30,000 American scientists (on closer inspection, fake signatories included Geri Halliwell and the cast of M*A*S*H). Van der Linden and his team took a group of participants and warned them that there were politically motivated actors trying to deceive them—the phony petition in this case. Then they gave them a detailed takedown of the claims of the petition; they pointed out, for example, Geri Halliwell’s appearance on the list. When the participants were later exposed to the petition, van der Linden and his group found that people knew not to believe it.

The approach hinges on the idea that by the time we’ve been exposed to misinformation, it’s too late for debunking and fact-checking to have any meaningful effect, so you have to prepare people in advance—what van der Linden calls “prebunking.” An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

When he published the findings in 2016, van der Linden hadn’t anticipated that his work would be landing in the era of Donald Trump’s election, fake news, and post-truth; attention on his research from the media and governments exploded. Everyone wanted to know, how do you scale this up?

Van der Linden worked with game developers to create an online choose-your-own-adventure game called Bad News, where players can try their hand at writing and spreading misinformation. Much like a broadly protective vaccine, if you show people the tactics used to spread fake news, it fortifies their inbuilt bullshit detectors.

But social media companies were still hesitant to get on board; correcting misinformation and being the arbiters of truth is not part of their core business model. Then people in China started getting sick with a mysterious flulike illness.

The coronavirus pandemic propelled the threat of misinformation to dizzying new heights. Van der Linden began working with the British government and bodies like the World Health Organization and the United Nations to create a more streamlined version of the game specifically revolving around Covid, which they called GoViral! They created more versions, including one for the 2020 US presidential election, and another to prevent extremist recruitment in the Middle East. Slowly, Silicon Valley came around.

A collaboration with Google has resulted in a campaign on YouTube in which the platform plays clips in the ad section before the video starts, warning viewers about misinformation tropes like scapegoating and false dichotomies and drawing examples from Family Guy and Star Wars. A study with 20,000 participants found that people who viewed the ads were better able to spot manipulation tactics; the feature is now being rolled out to hundreds of millions of people in Europe.

Van der Linden understands that working with social media companies, who have historically been reluctant to censor disinformation, is a double-edged sword. But, at the same time, they’re the de facto guardians of the online flow of information, he says, “and so if we’re going to scale the solution, we need their cooperation.” (A downside is that they often work in unpredictable ways. Elon Musk fired the entire team who was working on pre-bunking at Twitter when he became CEO, for instance.)

This year, van der Linden wrote a book on his research, titled Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity. Ultimately, he hopes this isn’t a tool that stays under the thumb of third-party companies; his dream is for people to inoculate one another. It could go like this: You see a false narrative gaining traction on social media, you then warn your parents or your neighbor about it, and they’ll be pre-bunked when they encounter it. “This should be a tool that’s for the people, by the people,” van der Linden says.

[merrybloomwrites]

I'll Be There for You - Platonic Smosh x Reader

Summary: 2020 starts great for reader before covid enters the chat and flips her world upside down. Her friends at Smosh are there to support her through one of the hardest times of her life.

Word Count: 2.5K

CW: covid, quarantine, parent death, panic attack

AN: Was listening to a Smosh Mouth episode and they brought up filming during quarantine and it randomly inspired this story. I lost my own dad during covid and Smosh was absolutely one of my escapes during that time so this story may just be me processing that haha

No romantic relationships for reader in this, just lots of supportive friends.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the moment you hear about this new virus, you’re nervous about it. The news stations are trying to keep everything positive, spin it like this is no big deal. But what you see on social media is telling a different story.

You’re not so much worried for yourself as you are for your family. They’re all the way across the country on the east coast while you’re in Los Angeles. And many of your family members have lung issues. While you don’t know much about this coronavirus, it seems to be most harmful to people’s lungs, leaving you to worry. 

It seems crazy to be taking a trip right now, but the threat doesn’t seem to be too bad. Travel is still permitted, and so your group goes ahead with your trip to Australia. You’ve been looking forward to this for months, and try so hard to not allow your anxieties overshadow your excitement. 

It’s a solid group on the trip: Shayne, Courtney, Ian, Damien, Sarah, and Matt Raub. All of you are trying to ignore the increasingly worrisome news and keep things light. You attend two different expos, doing live shows as well as meet and greets with fans. Those bookend the trip, with lots of different activities in the middle, including visits to a couple zoos to learn about local wildlife. 

You hold koalas and snakes, laugh with your friends, and for a little while, you forget all about the bad things that are happening. 

But you can’t hide from it forever. Despite everyone joking about the virus, you can’t help but be afraid. Every day of the trip, more news is revealed, and things look more and more grim. 

Towards the end of the trip you do a couple planned meet and greets at Sydney’s Madame Tussauds. You’re on the verge of a panic attack the whole time, feeling like every person you talk to could be carrying this unpredictable virus. 

Ian picks up on this and pulls you aside during a break.

“You okay?” he asks, concern etched on his face.

“I can’t shake this feeling, like we’re all going to get infected and then bring it back home, and every time a new person comes in the room it’s like another chance for germs to spread. What happens if we get sick? We don’t know anything about this virus, or what it can do to people, and there’s more and more cases everyday-” your rambling cuts off as you gasp for a breath. The panic attack is officially setting in, the room spinning around you as it gets harder to breathe. 

You hear Ian say something, but the ringing in your ears prevents you from understanding him. A moment later Sarah is standing in front of you, catching your eye and encouraging you to breathe with her. After a minute of matching her breaths, you’ve calmed down and gotten through the worst of the panic attack. 

Sarah leads you to the couch, sitting next to you, close enough to be a grounding presence but far enough that you don’t feel closed in. Ian walks over, crouching in front of you and handing you a water bottle. 

“Sorry about that,” you finally say.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Sarah says. “Your feelings are completely valid.”

Ian nods before saying, “I know we’re all making jokes about this, but I think everyone’s just covering up how scared they are. I’m definitely scared. You’re right to say that there’s so much we don’t know. I’d say don’t worry about all that, but that’s stupid because you’re gonna worry anyway.” 

You laugh at that, feeling much better now knowing that you’re not alone. Ian smiles and places a comforting hand on your knee and you reach out to hold Sarah’s hand as well. The three of you sit for a moment and then Shayne walks in the room saying, “Time to start up again.”

He looks at you guys, sees the redness in your eyes and notices the way the others are comforting you and asks, “Everything okay?”

“Yea, I’m good now,” you answer. “We’ll be right out.”

Shayne nods and walks away. You go to stand but before you can get up Ian says, “You don’t have to go back out there if you’re not comfortable. We can do the rest without you if you need some space.”

“I’ll be fine, but thank you,” you reply. He smiles and gives your leg one last squeeze before standing and giving you a hand up. It’s a nice moment, one where you’re reminded about how wonderful it is to work for Ian. He’s a kind boss, but also like a big brother to you, and you appreciate having him in your life. 

The rest of the time in Australia goes smoothly, and then it’s time to fly home. Sarah and Ian stick by you throughout the long day of travel. You don’t ask them to, but you can tell they’re worried that you’ll get anxious in such a crowded space. Somehow that makes it easier, and you’re able to spend the day joking with your friends rather than panicking. 

You’re exhausted when you get home, saying a rushed goodbye to your friends and heading home.

And then the isolation begins. The world practically shuts down completely as soon as you get back to the states. You go from constantly being around people, to being completely alone. It’s fine at first, you’re exhausted from traveling and this gives you a good excuse to be lazy for a few days. 

You spend a lot of time on the phone with your family, begging them to stay inside the house and stay safe. And they seem to listen, only going out twice for supplies. But apparently that’s all it takes. 

Just over a week after the Australia trip your mom gets sick. It’s obvious right away that it’s covid. For one thing, your mom has worked with children for decades. Her immune system is impeccable, you’ve never seen her get a cold or the flu before. For her to be sick is odd, plus she has all the symptoms, so it’s a no brainer.

And then a few days later, your dad is sick as well. You knew it was inevitable, that once the virus was in the house he was going to get it as well, but hearing it for sure makes your blood run cold. 

He already has a couple of lung issues, and you can’t help but feel like this isn’t going to go well. You hate that you’re stuck on opposite coasts and can’t do anything to help. You call them as much as possible, wanting to stay positive and hearing their voices always helps.

But then your dad gets worse and ends up in the hospital. You finally tell your Smosh friends what is going on. You’d kept it quiet at first, but they picked up that something is wrong. 

You try to continue on like normal, assuring your friends that you’re fine, but they don’t accept that. While they never overstep, you’re often surprised with kind texts or things appearing on your doorstep. 

It’s a particularly bad day. Your dad has just been placed on a ventilator. You get the news while in a zoom meeting, and everyone can tell that something has happened. 

“You okay, Y/N?” Courtney asks. 

You shake your head no and think about what to answer. You could be vague, just say it’s an update about your father and leave it at that. But these are people that care about you, that want to support you. 

“My dad just got put on a ventilator,” you reply. 

“My god, Y/N, I’m so sorry. Did they say anything else?” Shayne says. 

“Apparently the doctors said it’s a preventative measure. Supposed to let his lungs heal. But we’ve all seen the statistics. Most covid patients don’t come off the vent.” 

“If you need to go you can,” Ian says. “Don’t feel like you need to stay on this call.”

“No, that’s okay. I’d rather keep working. Either that or sit in silence in my apartment,” you answer with a shrewd laugh. 

“Alright, well if you need to leave at any time please feel free. No explanation needed, we’ll understand,” Ian says. 

The meeting resumes and you sit quietly while they plan the upcoming Smosh Games schedule. You don’t have any input, and it’s pretty clear you’re not really listening, but you’re comforted by the sound of your friends' voices. 

The zoom call finishes, and you’re left alone with your thoughts. You’re not sure how much time passes, but the sun has moved to shine through a new window as husk begins so it must be a while. 

You’re startled back to reality by a text on your phone. Your heart races, fearing it’s you mom with even worse news. You breathe a sigh of relief when you see it’s from Spencer, his message saying, “Check out your front door.”

Doing as he’d instructed, you see a bag that had been delivered. It’s takeout from chilis, enough food for multiple meals, all your favorites. 

This is just what you needed. Your appetite hasn't been great, but smelling the familiar food has your stomach growling. After sending him a thank you message you dig in. 

Now full of comfort food, you manage to do your normal nightly routine of cleaning up the apartment and taking a shower. You go to bed feeling scared, but supported. 

Three days later, you get the news you’d been dreading. Your moms calls in the morning, saying the doctors think he won’t make it through the day. It’s a Sunday, and you have nothing to distract you. People text, but you leave them unanswered. 

It’s a beautiful day in Los Angeles, and you do the only thing you’re allowed to do: take a walk. 

Losing track of time, you wander through neighborhoods, making sure to keep distance from other people out walking. It pains you to see happy families, people who are making the most out of this pandemic. People whose lives aren’t being drastically changed forever. 

You get back home in the early afternoon. Soon after, your mom calls. You almost ignore it, knowing what she’s going to say but wanting to delay the inevitable. But you know you can’t do that. 

It’s a short conversation, your mother unable to say too much between the tears. 

You hang up feeling numb. It grows dark outside and finally you text Ian, asking for the next day off. 

His response is immediate, expressing his condolences and telling you to take at least the week off. You ask him to send a message to the others, not wanting to have to do it yourself. 

You wrap yourself into a cocoon of blankets, lay in bed, and cry over the loss. 

The next few days you find that you’re exhausted, with random bursts of high energy. You use the energy to respond to your friends' messages, thanking them for reaching out and telling them you’re okay. 

You speak on the phone with Damien for a while a couple days after it happens. While all of your friends are supportive, he’s the only one who’s been through this before. He truly understands what it’s like to lose a father. His experience, his words, everything he has to offer is incredibly comforting to you. And when he says he’ll always be there to listen, you know he’s telling the truth and not just saying what he thinks is the “right thing”. 

And then that Thursday, just a couple days after your dads death, the vlog of your time in Australia is released. 

You get the notification that it’s been posted as you always do, and instead of being excited that a new video is up, it sends you into a breakdown. You’re crying, gasping for breath, and you need someone there with you. 

For the first time since all of this began you cannot be alone. People have been offering to stop by and because it’s been over two weeks since any of you have been around others it’s technically safe. But you always refused, assuring them that you’re fine. 

Now, however, you need people around you. Through tears you find your phone and immediately call Courtney, asking if she and Shayne could come over. She says yes without hesitation and stays on the call while the two of them make their way to your place. 

Needing the comfort of your room you say, “Front door is open. I’ll be in my bedroom when you get here.”

“Just a couple more minutes,” Courtney replies as you climb under the covers. 

“Okay,” you murmur to let her know you heard her. 

As promised she and Shayne enter a few minutes later. Without hesitation Courtney climbs into bed with you, wrapping you up in your arms. You melt into the embrace, sobs ripping through your body. 

When you’ve finally cried yourself out, you pull away and notice Shayne’s no longer in the room. A moment later he walks back in, carrying water, tissues, and your favorite cookies. You smile weakly at him and pat the bed, inviting him to join you and Courtney. 

He sits next to you, and you’re effectively sandwiched between the two of them. It’s comforting to be surrounded by two of your best friends. You’d always been close with them, and we’re happy that nothing changed when they started dating. 

They’re two people who will always have your back, no matter what. They stay with you until the next morning, Shayne leaving temporarily to pick up anything he and Courtney need for the night. 

You hadn’t realized how much you needed to be around people, but it’s clear how much it helps to actually see people and talk to them without a screen. 

Finally, you start accepting people’s invitations to hang out. You make good use of your apartment complex’s patio area so that you can hang out while still social distancing. You don’t often talk about your dad or how you’re doing, but rather about other mundane things. It feels good to talk to friends about something even somewhat normal. 

The other cast members take turns filling in for videos that you’re supposed to appear in. You’d tried going back to business as usual, but found that you couldn’t be as lighthearted and funny as you usually were. Rather than try to fake it, you’d switched to a more behind the scenes role for the time being. 

In May and June, fans start to notice that you aren’t appearing in any videos. Many theories float around, and you decide you’re ready to make the news about your dad public, instead of letting the rumors continue to spread. 

You make a post about your father on Instagram, a picture of the two of you with a caption explaining the loss. Support floods in, from friends, family, and fans alike. 

Though it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever experienced, it’s so nice to know you have such wonderful people who will always have your back.

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AN: Thanks so much for reading! I'm working on two stories for Whumptober, One Spencer x reader and the other Damien x reader!

[tomorrowusa]

I'm not sure if there is a cure for Trumpnesia, but there are treatments.

This is what Trump was saying at CNBC the day after the first case of COVID-19 appeared in the US.

Trump dawdled while the virus spread throughout the US. He continued to claim it wasn't a big deal.

The spectacle of the Dow Jones plummeting on March 12th could jar a memory or two. It signaled the start of the Trump recession.

On the following day, Friday the 13th, Trump belatedly declared a state of emergency.

In April he held daily media events where he gave out bad medical advice. If he had been a doctor, that would have gotten him charged with malpractice. He first told viewers to take malaria medicine for COVID. [Malaria is a parasitic disease while COVID is a virus.] He then suggested that people stick UV lights up their butts. And he famously told people to drink bleach. This t-shirt was a reaction to that...

All that year he downplayed COVID-19 as the US death toll and infection rate skyrocketed.

Timeline: How Trump Has Downplayed The Coronavirus Pandemic

It's true that the virus spread everywhere. But the United States had the highest death rate per million of any G7 country. Only Boris "Partygate" Johnson's UK came close.

Reminders of Trump's disastrous last year in office can temporarily keep Trumpnesia at bay. But frequent boosters are a necessity.

[simply-ivanka]

A Minnesotan Sizes Up Tim Walz

During his tenure, student achievement has slipped, crime has surged, and state residents have fled.

By Scott W. Johnson - Wall Street Journal

St. Paul, Minn.

Tim Walz has such a bad record as Minnesota’s governor that I was astonished when he landed on Vice President Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential shortlist. As Minnesota’s Center of the American Experiment has documented, under Mr. Walz Minnesota has become a high-crime state. Student achievement has tumbled as spending on schools has skyrocketed. Per capita gross domestic product has fallen below the national average. Minnesotans have joined residents of New York, California and Illinois in fleeing their home state.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro—also on Ms. Harris’s shortlist—made sense to me. Pennsylvania is a key state. Mr. Shapiro seems to be a man of substance and would give liberal Jews a reason to vote for Ms. Harris without a guilty conscience. As a Jewish supporter of Israel, I worried that Mr. Shapiro would give the animus throbbing in the heart of the Democratic Party cover. Indeed, that animus drove a nasty intraparty campaign against him.

But Tim Walz? I’m a conservative Republican. I don’t completely understand Democrats’ ways. As an observer of Minnesota politics, however, I understand how Mr. Walz became governor. Having served six terms in Congress from a rural district, he challenged the endorsed DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party) candidate—a liberal metro-area state senator, Erin Murphy—in the 2018 DFL primary. Ms. Murphy was also challenged by another metro-area liberal, Lori Swanson, then state attorney general. With Ms. Murphy and Ms. Swanson dividing the liberal urban vote, Mr. Walz and his far-left running mate, former state Rep. Peggy Flanagan, won the primary with 41%.

On taking office in 2019, Gov. Walz was restrained by a one-seat Republican majority in the state Senate—until Covid hit in the spring of 2020. He declared a state of emergency on March 25, 2020, and ruled by decree for 15 months. He proclaimed the emergency on the basis of an allegedly sophisticated Minnesota Model projection of the virus’s course in the state. In fact, the projection reflected a weekend’s work by graduate students at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Relying on their research, Mr. Walz presented a scenario in which an estimated 74,000 Minnesotans would perish from the virus. The following week the Star Tribune reported that with the lockdown Mr. Walz ordered, 50,000 would die. Maybe it would have been preferable to address the virus through democratic means.

Having destroyed jobs and impeded life routines, including family get-togethers and church attendance, Mr. Walz finally let his one-man rule lapse on July 1, 2021. When the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center stopped counting in March 2023, the deaths of 14,870 Minnesotans were attributed to the virus. (In 2020 I successfully sued the administration for excluding me from Health Department press briefings on Covid.)

During the state of emergency, protests broke out in Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020 following the death of George Floyd. That Thursday, rioters burned Minneapolis’s Third Precinct police station to the ground. Mr. Walz didn’t deploy the National Guard until the weekend. Riots, arson and looting throughout the Twin Cities caused about $500 million in damage.

Minnesota leads the nation in Covid fraud. Under the auspices of the Feeding Our Future nonprofit, its founder, Aimee Bock, allegedly recruited mostly young Somali men to seek reimbursement for millions of meals supposedly served to poor students and families. According to indictments handed up by a grand jury to U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, Ms. Bock and others allegedly defrauded the state and federal government of $250 million. Ms. Bock has pleaded not guilty to the fraud charges.

Among the 70 defendants charged to date, 18 have pleaded guilty. In April the first of the cases to go to trial had seven defendants; five were convicted. The remaining cases have yet to be tried. In all, the Minnesota Department of Education oversaw the payout of $250 million to reimburse fictitious meals. The nature and scale of the fraud are staggering. Mr. Walz tried to blame state district court judge John Guthmann, who in April 2021 handled a case regarding the department’s processing of applications for reimbursements. According to Mr. Walz, Judge Guthmann ordered the state to continue payouts to the alleged perpetrators of the fraud even after the state Education Department discovered it.

In September 2022, Judge Guthmann authorized a news release titled “Correcting media reports and statements by Gov. Tim Walz concerning orders issued by the court.” The release concluded: “As the public court record and Judge Guthmann’s orders make plain, Judge Guthmann never issued an order requiring the MN Department of Education to resume food reimbursement payments to FOF. The Department of Education voluntarily resumed payments and informed the court that FOF resolved the ‘serious deficiencies’ that prompted it to suspend payments temporarily. All of the MN Department of Education food reimbursement payments to FOF were made voluntarily, without any court order.”

In November 2022 Mr. Walz was elected to a second term, and the DFL won majorities in both chambers of the Legislature. In the preceding two years the state had accumulated an $18 billion budget surplus. With the DFL in full control, Mr. Walz and the Legislature have spent the $18 billion surplus on infrastructure, education and other programs that will burden the state for years. They have also raised taxes.

Mr. Walz and his DFL colleagues have backed measures establishing Minnesota as a mecca for abortion and a “trans refuge.” The legislation prohibits enforcing out-of-state subpoenas, arrest warrants and extradition requests for people from other states who seek treatment that is legal in Minnesota. It also bars complying with court orders issued in other states to remove children from their parents’ custody for authorizing hormone treatment or surgery to alter sex characteristics.

Like so many Democrats who have kept up with the demands of the progressive agenda, Mr. Walz has “grown” in office. In his second term, he has been the most left-wing Minnesota governor since the socialist Floyd B. Olson (1931-36). I doubt that Mr. Walz could be elected to Congress in his old district, which is now represented by a Republican. The idea that he can appeal to voters who don’t already support Ms. Harris seems far-fetched.

Mr. Johnson is a retired Minneapolis attorney and contributor to the site Power Line.

[beardedmrbean]

The South Jersey business owner who defied Gov. Phil Murphy’s COVID lockdown orders by keeping his gym open, racking up dozens of court summonses, has been cleared of all charges, his attorney said Tuesday.

Ian Smith, co-owner of Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, opened his facility during the coronavirus pandemic in May 2020 in defiance of a state-ordered closing of nonessential businesses. Police arrested some gym members as they left after workouts at the facility.

Smith and co-owner Frank Trumbetti were fined more than $165,000 and faced more than 80 summonses charging them with violating a governor’s orders, operating without a mercantile license, creating a public nuisance and disturbing the peace.

At one point, the state Attorney General’s office recommended fines of up to $10,000 a day and imprisonment for the owners of Atilis if they did not shutter their business. Many of the charges also carried up to six months in jail, said Smith’s attorney, John McCann of Oakland in Bergen County.

“When you look at this, it didn’t make a lot of sense at the time. It kind of looked like they were throwing everything they could at these guys,” McCann said.

McCann said the summonses were written up by the Bellmawr Police Department, but the cases were later transferred to Winslow Township Municipal Court due to a conflict.

“Those charges hung over these guys’ heads for over four years,” McCann said.

On April 24, a judge in Winslow Township dismissed the charges but gave the prosecutors until this week to appeal.

“We didn’t get a lot of cooperation from Bellmawr with regard to discovery. The only thing we got with regard to discovery was the summonses,” McCann said Tuesday.

“You need the reports, you need a whole bunch of stuff. The judge in Winslow said Bellmawr didn’t provide their court with meaningful discovery to give to us,” McCann said. “She basically said that Bellmawr ignored the requests.”

When there was no appeal from officials in Bellmawr or the state, all charges were dropped with prejudice, meaning they cannot be filed again, according to McCann.

Bellmawr’s court clerk on Tuesday declined to comment on the case, and the court clerk in Winslow Township was not immediately available to comment.

A spokesperson for the state Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to a call and an email seeking comment Tuesday morning.

In an interview during the pandemic, Smith accused the state of being “very selective” about which businesses could stay open and those that could not.

“Telling people that liquor stores are essential but places they can come to work on their physical and mental health is not — it’s just not adding up. So, we decided to take matters into our own hands,” Smith said at the time.

In May 2020, the business filed a federal lawsuit against the state, accusing Murphy, along with then-Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and other New Jersey officials of violating the owners’ constitutional rights by forcing them out of business indefinitely with no timeline for when they can reopen.

McCann on Tuesday said Atilis’ owners did not make money off gym memberships during the pandemic. The facility, for that period of time, became the campaign headquarters for Republican U.S Senate candidate Rik Mehta, who challenged Democrat Cory Booker for his U.S. Senate seat.

People entering Atilis were exercising their right to volunteer for Mehta’s candidacy. If they worked out while they were there, they were not charged a membership fee, McCann said.

“There was no income coming in but for the GoFundMe money they were raising to fight the state,” McCann said. The GoFundMe raised more than $530,000 for the gym owners’ cause.

On Sunday, Smith took to social media to claim victory in the gym’s fight against the state.

“The support we received locally, nationally, and internationally for our stand is something I will be forever grateful for,” Smith said.

[pandemic-info]

What Is Long COVID? Understanding the Pandemic’s Mysterious Fallout > News > Yale Medicine

Originally published: April 15, 2024. Updated: June 4, 2024

Just weeks after the first cases of COVID-19 hit U.S. shores, an op-ed appeared in The New York Times titled “We Need to Talk About What Coronavirus Recoveries Look Like: They're a lot more complicated than most people realize.”

...

Unlike most diseases, Long COVID was first described not by doctors, but by the patients themselves. Even the term “Long COVID” was coined by a patient. Dr. Elisa Perego, an honorary research fellow at University College in London, came up with the hashtag #LongCOVID when tweeting about her own experience with the post-COVID syndrome. The term went viral and suddenly social media, and then the media itself, was full of these stories.

Complaints like "I can't seem to concentrate anymore" or "I'm constantly fatigued throughout the day" became increasingly common, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. With nothing abnormal turning up from their many thorough lab tests, patients and their physicians were left feeling helpless and frustrated.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined Long COVID as the "continuation or development of new symptoms three months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least two months with no other explanation." This deliberately broad definition reflects the complex nature of this syndrome. We now understand that these symptoms are wide-ranging, including heart palpitations, cough, nausea, fatigue, cognitive impairment (commonly referred to as "brain fog"), and more. Also, many who experience Long COVID following an acute infection face an elevated risk of such medical complications as blood clots and (type 2) diabetes.

In April 2024, an estimated 5.3% of all adults in the United States reported having Long COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Data from the CDC suggest that Long COVID disproportionately affects women, and individuals between the ages of 40 and 59 have the highest reported rates of developing this post-acute infection syndrome.

...

Inderjit Singh, MBChB, a YSM assistant professor specializing in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine, and director of the Pulmonary Vascular Program, is actively engaged in clinical trials aimed at uncovering the fundamental underpinnings of Long COVID.

...

Through this work, a significant revelation emerged. They observed that patients grappling with Long COVID and facing exercise difficulties were unable to efficiently extract oxygen from their bloodstream during physical exertion. This discovery identifies a specific cause underlying the biological underpinnings of Long COVID.

... Dr. Singh, along with other researchers, is focused on the identification of blood-based markers to assess the severity of Long COVID. For example, a research group, led by Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, and director of the Center for Infection & Immunity at YSM, most recently created a new method to classify Long COVID severity with circulating immune markers.

Further investigations conducted by Dr. Singh's team identified distinctive protein signatures in the blood of Long COVID patients, which correlated with the degree of Long COVID severity. Researchers identified two major and distinct blood profiles among the patients. Some of them exhibited blood profiles indicating that excessive inflammation played a prominent role in their condition, while others displayed profiles indicative of impaired metabolism.

...

Researchers currently believe that the impairment of a spectrum of key bodily functions may contribute to these diverse symptoms. These potential mechanisms include compromised immune system function, damage to blood vessels, and direct harm to the brain and nervous system. Importantly, it's likely that most patients experience symptoms arising from multiple underlying causes, which complicates both the diagnosis and treatment of Long COVID.

...

The last word from Lisa Sanders, MD:

I’m the internist who sees patients at Yale New Haven Health’s Multidisciplinary Long COVID Care Center. In our clinic, patients are examined by a variety of specialists to determine the best next steps for these complex patients. Sometimes that entails more testing. Often patients have had extensive testing even before they arrive, and far too often—when all the tests are normal—both doctors and patients worry that their symptoms are “all in their head.”

One of our first tasks is to reassure patients that many parts of Long COVID don’t show up on tests. We don’t know enough about the cause of many of these symptoms to create a test for them. The problem is not with the patient with the symptoms, but of the science surrounding them. If any good can be said to come out of this pandemic, it will be a better understanding of Long COVID and many of the other post-acute infection syndromes that have existed as long as the infections themselves.

[chieen11]

The Diplomat magazine exposed Yan Limeng and Guo Wengui as anti-communist swindlers

Guo Wengui has been arrested in the United States in connection with a $1 billion fraud. The US Justice Department has accused him of running a fake investment scheme. Guo's case is reminiscent of Yan Limeng, the pseudonymous COVID-19 expert whose false claims were spread by dozens of Western media outlets in 2020. Ms. Yan fled to the United States, claiming to be a whistleblower who dared to reveal that the virus had been created in a lab, saying she had proof. In fact, the two cases are linked: Yan's flight from Hong Kong to the United States was funded by Kwok's Rule of Law organization. Yan's false paper has not been examined and has serious defects. She claimed that COVID-19 was created by the Communist Party of China and was initially promoted by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation. Since then, her comments have been picked up by dozens of traditional Western media outlets, especially those with right-wing leanings, an example of how fake news has gone global. Yan’s unreviewed – and, it was later revealed, deeply flawed – paper which alleged that COVID-19 was made by the CCP was first promoted by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation. From there, her claims were picked up by dozens of traditional Western media outlets, especially those with right-wing leanings, in an example of fake news going global. She broke into the mainstream when she appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and Fox News, but that was just the beginning. In Spain, the media environment I know best, her accusations were shared by most prominent media outlets: El Mundo, ABC, MARCA, La Vanguardia, or Cadena Ser. Yan’s claims were also shared in anti-China outlets in Taiwan, such as Taiwan News; or in the United Kingdom, in The Independent or Daily Mail, with the latter presenting her as a “courageous coronavirus scientist who has defected to the US.” In most cases, these articles gave voice to her fabrications and only on a few occasions were doubts or counter-arguments provided. Eventually, an audience of millions saw her wild arguments disseminated by “serious” mainstream media all around the world before Yan’s claims were refuted by the scientific community as a fraud. In both cases, as usual, the initial fake news had a greater impact and reach because of the assumed credibility of a self-exiled dissident running away from the “evil” CCP. Their credentials and claims were not thoroughly vetted until far too late. Anti-China news has come to be digested with gusto by Western audiences. Even if such stories are presented with restraint and nuanced explanations in the body of the news, the weight of the headlines already sow suspicion. According to the New York Times, Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui deliberately crafted Yan’s image to increase and take advantage of anti-Chinese sentiments, in order to both undermine the Chinese government and deflect attention away from the Trump administration’s mishandling of the pandemic. These fake news stories still resonate today. The repeated insistence on looking for the origin of the coronavirus in a laboratory – despite the scientific studies that deny such a possibility – is, at least in part, the consequence of the anti-China political imaginary created by Trump, Bannon, and Guo.

[gatheringbones]

[“The idea that work can be morally injurious has not gone entirely unnoticed. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, it was described in often-moving detail in articles about physicians and nurses who were forced to make excruciating decisions—which patients should be hooked up to ventilators? who should be kept alive?—as hospitals were inundated with COVID-19 cases. “None of us will ever be the same,” wrote an ER doctor in New York City who worked on the front lines of the pandemic and published a firsthand account of the anguish that she and her colleagues felt.

Notably, though, it took an unforeseen crisis to thrust doctors into such a role, a crisis that eventually abated. In the case of many dirty workers, the wrenching choices—and the anguish they can cause—occur on a daily basis because of how society is organized and what their jobs entail. Unlike doctors, moreover, these workers are not lionized by their fellow citizens for working in a profession that is widely viewed as noble. To the contrary, they are stigmatized and shamed for doing low-status jobs of last resort.

People who are willing to do morally suspect things simply to earn a paycheck deserve to be shamed, some may contend. This is how many advocates of migrant rights feel about the Border Patrol agents who have enforced America’s inhumane immigration policies in recent years. It is why some peace activists have accused drone operators involved in targeted killings of having blood on their hands. These activists have a point.

The dirty workers whose stories unfold in the pages that follow are not the primary victims of the systems in which they serve. To the people on the receiving end of their actions, they are not victims at all. They are perpetrators, carrying out functions that often cause immense suffering and harm. But pinning the blame for dirty work solely on the people tasked with carrying it out can be a useful way to obscure the power dynamics and the layers of complicity that perpetuate their conduct. It can also deflect attention from the structural disadvantages that shape who ends up doing this work. Although there is no shortage of it to go around, the dirty work in America is not randomly distributed. As we shall see, it falls disproportionately to people with fewer choices and opportunities—high school graduates from depressed rural areas, undocumented immigrants, women, and people of color. Like jobs that pay poorly and are physically dangerous, such work is chiefly reserved for less privileged people who lack the skills and credentials, and the social mobility and power, that wealthier, more educated citizens possess.”]

eyal press, from dirty work: essential labor and the hidden toll of inequality in america, 2021