#airborne disease

[labelleizzy]

[imdnews1]

HMPV Virus : नवीन संकट की अफवा?

HMPV Virus : आजच्या घडीला चीनमध्ये ह्यूमन मेटा न्यूमोव्हायरस (एचएमपीव्ही) विषाणूच्या संभाव्य प्रादुर्भावामुळे जगभरात चिंता पसरली आहे. कोविड-19 महामारीच्या आठवणी अजूनही ताज्या असताना, या नव्या विषाणूबाबत जागतिक आरोग्य समुदाय सज्ज झाला आहे. चला या व्हायरसची माहिती, त्याचे परिणाम आणि प्रतिबंधात्मक उपाय यावर सविस्तर चर्चा करू.

[dsudis]

Help win cleaner indoor air!

The Airborne Act (H.R. 9000) creates incentives to clean up indoor air! It offers tax credits to commercial building owners for conducting indoor air quality assessments and making upgrades to ventilation and air filtration.

Indoor air quality upgrades can reduce substantially airborne diseases—protecting our health and decreasing health care expenses, lost wages and lost productivity.

[todaysbird]

note for people writing disaster type stories about airborne viruses/pollutants/etc: the birds will die first.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

I posted the study about this yesterday: More than 2/3rds of people with long covid were still disabled by symptoms two years after infection. Mask up. Don't let peer pressure kill or disable you or someone else.

[verschlimmbesserung]

Masking is community care and public health care.

Illinois attempting to codify right to mask into law:

Now this is the way to Make America Healthy Again - the Right to protect yourself from airborne pathogens.

[ladyshinga]

IDK why celebrities fuss so much about being recognized IRL post-2020. WEAR A MASK. WEAR A FACEMASK and some GLASSES or something and BOOM, face hidden with a reasonable social excuse for hiding it.

(Sidenote it also irritates tf out of me seeing TV shows or movies made after 2020 where "wear a mask" would be an incredibly easy solution to something and NO ONE EVER THINKS OF IT)

[liminalweirdo]

COVID is airborne. Airborne transmission is different from droplets, which are large particles containing the virus, expelled when you speak, cough, sneeze, etc. Droplets are heavy enough that they will eventually drop to the ground or nearby surfaces, meaning it’s relatively easy to contain: any physical barrier — like a cloth mask or plexiglass — will block these droplets before they can reach another person. “Social distancing” is a concept that applies to droplet transmission, under the presumption that the virus-containing droplets will fall to the ground before reaching someone 6 feet away. Sanitizing surfaces kills any viral droplets that have landed on them before someone can touch them and then touch their orifices.

However, COVID is not confined to droplets. We have known for years that it can spread through aerosol as papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Emerging Infectious Diseases, and Risk Analysis demonstrate going back to 2020. Aerosol is composed of much smaller particles that bounce around between air particles, and can stay suspended and infectious in the air. Picture someone smoking: the behavior of the smoke is much more akin to the behavior of viral aerosols. Can you still smell the smoke behind a plexiglass shield? How about if you’re six feet apart? In a crowded, enclosed space, how many people would breathe in the smoke of one smoker? Measures designed to protect against droplets aren’t exactly pointless against COVID, since it also spreads via droplets. But just because you’re not spewing COVID-laden spittle in someone’s face does not mean you’re keeping your germs to yourself.

[pandemic-info]

The Doctor Who Championed Hand-Washing And Briefly Saved Lives : Shots - Health News : NPR

This does not have a happy ending.

But it's important.

[playingplayer2]

Just thinking about how if the world had kept masking, like seriously masking, from 2020-now how different everything would be. Like if you treated a deadly pandemic like a deadly pandemic, instead of downplaying it and gaslighting the people affected by it, if you didn't spread misinformation, if it being airborne wasn't hushed up from the fucking get-go. Just fucking everything.

I haven't hung out with people since late 2021. Basically all my friends stopped masking and started acting like I was being paranoid about a "minor cold." Like the actual fuck?

"when you feel safe going out again" LIKE BIRCH HOW TF AM I GONNA FEEL SAFE WHEN YOU'VE BEEN GOING AROUND UNMASKED to sports games and your job and family events and fucking weddings and restaurants and bars? HOW

How am I going to feel safe when you gaslight me in every conversation and fallout ignore me for literal days if I send information about covid and its effects? Literally how.

It causes people permanent, chronic heart, lung, brain, and other organ damage! It causes fertility issues! Chronic fatigue- I already HAVE chronic fatigue! It makes things like POTS and hEDS worse! A mild case now could mean a sudden stroke or heart attack in your near future!

Babies being born with glass lung, babies being born with covid- COVID fucking COLONIZES your body! It HIDES INSIDE YOU. And dear gods! The toxic work culture of work even when you're sick, go to school even when your sick!! Spread it far and wide to everyone WHEN YOU'RE SICK.

Politicize HEALTHCARE- it's been happening for for-fucking-ever so let's do it some more!

It's a FUCKING VIRUSSSSSS THAT CAN EVEN CHANGE HOW YOUR BRAIN WORKS

It can make you become more violent, more impulsive, aggressive, fucking SUICIDAL.

Cognitive issues GALORE, including L I T E R A L L Y losing braincells!!! Literally!!!

So yeah. It's great. I'm fine. This is fine.

I'm not massively depressed or angry over this. I mean, I, and everyone else, have only lost the last 4-5 years. I turned 18 after the pandemic started. I'm now 22. And it's still ongoing! I definitely don't feel suicidal because it doesn't seem like it's gonna fucking end, not at all. It's fantastic even! I get to be scared that by wearing my mask out in public, I could get attacked. I've certainly been harassed over it enough times.

It's not like how the world has mishandled covid has led to the mishandling of majorly infectious diseases (*cough* Monkey pox *cough* H5N1 *cough*). No, of fucking course not.

It's not essentially LIKE AIDS- IT'S NOT LIKE CHINA WAS GONNA CALL IT SAIDS - AS IN: SARS-AIDS!!!! BEFORE THE FUCKING WHO SHUT THAT DOWN. NOOOOOOO

It's not like it was caused by lax bio & security measures in fucking Canada— because they didn't fucking vet they're employees and their BSL standards WERE FOR SHIT!!!!!!!!

It's not like everyone in my house is at a higher risk of getting it. It's not like we'd be totally screwed over if even one of us were even slightly less able-bodied. It's thin fucking line most days but I'm terrified of what would/could happen if I am unable to make meals and do laundry, I already have to spend most of my days sitting or laying down. I don't fucking know what I'd do if I couldn't do that. I don't know what my family would do.

My family is trying to get OUT of an unsafe household where extended family belittle and gaslight and get violent regularly because we need, need, NEED, for us and them to keep masking. Said extended family has literally threatened to kill us before! So it's great.

It's fantastic.

[challahbeloved]

Before My Surgery

G-d of health and healing,

I surrender myself to the physician’s hand,

The anesthetist’s protection against suffering,

The nurse’s care,

Placing my body in the cradle of others,

Just as I place my soul in Your loving arms.

Bless my doctors with a steady hand,

Keen vision

And a passion for healing.

Bless my body with strength,

My spirit with courage,

My thoughts with hope

And my life with renewed purpose.

Guard me from nosocomial infections.

Source of life,

Bless us with Your guidance,

Make us all Your partner in healing

And grant me a full and speedy recovery.

Remember me.

— Inspired by a prayer poem on the page of Alden Solovy, but edited for my needs tomorrow afternoon.

[haltandcatchfiretothemax]

FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2025 #3: In which Cameron and Donna are out for a drive

[CN: interaction with an immigration officer]

.

Donna sighed in exasperation as she inched their car forward. “This is way too much traffic for 10:15 on a Wednesday morning. Something must be going on.”

She and Cameron had decided, after weeks of being stuck at home, to take what was meant to be a quick trip to their local, non-chain drug store and their favorite bakery, which were next door to each other. They’d woken up, eaten, and gotten dressed early, with Donna especially excited to put on something other than her daytime pajamas. The weather was sunny, the air looked clear, and there were no reported wildfires in the county, and it had seemed like a good day for a brief outing. But they’d only been en route for a few minutes when they were forced to slow to a crawl.

Cameron sat up in the passenger seat, and craned her outrageously long and gorgeous neck, trying to see up ahead. “It looks like they’re stopping people. Like, a traffic stop?”

“A traffic stop?” Donna said incredulously. She sighed again, and then she put on the parking break, reached into her purse, and pulled out a new, lavender-colored KF95 that matched her blouse. “I swear,” Donna griped, as she pulled the loops around her ears, “if they make us open the windows and blow their rank fuzz breath into this car….” She looked in the rear view mirror, anxiously checking to make sure that the edges of the mask lay flat against her cheeks, and that her hair hadn’t been disturbed.

Cameron, who was still looking up ahead, glanced over at Donna. With just a hint of smugness that was not concealed by the black N95 she was wearing, she said, “That’s why I just put mine on before I leave the house.”

Donna stopped in the middle of trying to mold the wire in her mask to the bridge of her nose to snap, “Oh, well, forgive me for wanting to feel the sun and fresh air on my face and remember how life used to be before our dear leaders bungled their pandemic response and abandoned public health for a whole minute as I walk out to my driveway!”

Cameron snorted despite her shared outrage and disappointment. “Seriously,” she said, shaking her head. Then, she said, “Don’t make me laugh! It messes with the seal.” She pulled down the visor and looked in the mirror.

When they were four cars back from where uniformed people were stopping vehicles and looking into their windows, Donna saw a pair of men, in navy p*lice uniforms and kevlar vests, standing by the side of the road with their guns. She noticed the letters ‘I’, ‘C,’ and ‘E’ on their vests.

“Cameron,” she said. Her eyes were still on the letters, unable to look away. Finally she looked over at Cameron, who had also noticed the letters, and whose eyes were wide. Donna whispered, “What are they doing here? We’re no where near the border! Either border!”

Still looking at the officers, Cameron’s eyes narrowed, “We’re in the border zone, though. If you’re within a hundred miles of the border or the coast, you’re in the border zone.”

“Since when?” Donna demanded.

Cameron shrugged. “I don’t know. I could probably look it up, though.”

Donna looked at Cameron, who was still glaring out the window. The last time they’d driven past l-w enf-rcement, Cameron had joked, “My favorite thing about wearing a mask is that these fuck ass brown shirts can’t see me mouthing ‘fuck off’ at them.”

The car in front of them moved, and Donna focused her attention on moving up. After she’d stopped, an officer began to approach her window. Donna looked at Cameron again, who was still glaring. “Cameron!” she hissed. She pulled her sunglasses out of her cupholder and offered them to Cameron. “Your mask doesn’t hide your eyes, put these on. You look like the end of Taxi Driver!"

Cameron accepted the sunglasses without argument, and put them on carefully, making sure not to bump the temple arms into the head straps of her mask.

The officer approached the window. “Ma’am?” he asked.

Forcing her most pleasant and docile looking smile, Donna pressed the button to lower her window, waited until it had gone down about halfway, and then said, “Hello, officer.”

“Where are we headed today?” he asked. He peered in at Cameron, and then into the backseat.

“Uh, we,” Donna looked at Cameron and then back out the window, “are on our way to the pharmacy and then the bakery.”

“Okay. Well, you both have a nice day,” he said.

Leaning toward the window, Cameron asked, pointedly, “Are we free to go, then?”

“Uh, yes? You’re free to go, he said, flatly.

“Thank you!” Donna said quickly. Eyes back on the road in front of her, she stepped on the gas pedal again, and drove up to the next light, which had just turned red, while Cameron, looking back over her shoulder, raised a middle finger and held it up in the direction of the traffic stop.

When Cameron turned to face front, she said, “We should tell Dahlia.”

Dahlia, the pharmacist who owned the drug store along with her parents and her brother, and whom Cameron and Donna always addressed as Dr. Sarif, had immigrated with her family to the U.S. from Gujarat when she was five years old.

Donna frowned. “We should mention it at the bakery, too, if we go in.”

“We’re definitely going to the bakery,” Cameron said. She took her phone out of her pocket, and said, “Should we tweet that there’s a traffic stop?”

Donna thought about it. The light turned green, and as she started driving again, she said, “Maybe text Joanie? She’ll tell the mask bloc, and they’ll get the word out.”

Cameron started swiping. “Good thinking, boss.”

Donna sighed again. “Yeah, let’s hope.”

[ricisidro]

Could the H5N1 BirdFlu

Become Airborne?

Scientists were slow to recognize that Covid-19 spreads through the air. Some are now trying to get ahead of the Avian Flu.

It took 2 years for the World Health Organization (WHO) to officially acknowledge that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/health/bird-flu-airborne-covid.html

[meeedeee]

Avoid COVID Reinfections

"But there is also growing evidence that in some people, getting COVID-19 the first time may compromise the immune response in a way that makes the body less likely to respond effectively the next time it sees the virus. That could leave certain organs and body systems, such as the brain, weaker for months after infection—and subsequent ones."

“Each time you get hit, it does impact your body, so let’s try not to get it too many times,” says Smith."

"Data also continue to show that even vaccinated people can get Long COVID—although the risk may be lower—since the protection provided by vaccines wanes over time, just as it does from infections. Vaccines are therefore a strong but not absolute barrier to the virus."

"In the meantime, Smith says it’s important for people to understand that they still need to do everything they can to avoid getting COVID-19. That means staying up to date with vaccinations and taking some basic precautions, such as wearing high-quality masks indoors when cases are high, especially in crowded places and on public transportation"

[verschlimmbesserung]

From above link:

"False narratives are being used to dehumanize people and criminalize a basic preventative health practice.

In reality, most of the people still masking are among the strongest, most self-assured people I’ve known.

They are the least concerned about other’s perceptions, the most concerned about others/our collective well-being, are embodying self-care by protecting their health (and mental health), willing to interrogate their choices and motivations, and are committed to accepting and integrating data and new information - even when they want desperately to be wrong about what they learn.

They are also among the most alienated, judged, ignored, harassed, invisibilized, and forgotten."