#everyone is vaccinated.

[aashiqeddiediaz]

you know what boils my blood.

over the last 2 weeks, i've seen countless patients walk into my urgent care center, symptomatic for so many things, refusing to get tested for covid and flu, citing that they don't want to knowingly bring it to their holiday tables. i had a patient tell me, verbatim, "i don't want to test for covid, because i don't want to be the asshole who brings it on a plane."

i understand that - i understand that holidays are times where people look forward to meeting loved ones that they might only see once a year, or where they get a break from the hectic back and forth of their lives.

but here's the thing - whether they get tested or not, they will bring whatever they have to their holiday tables. it's pure recklessness to know that you're sick, and walk into someone else's house spreading the disease.

today, january 2, i saw 91 patients, many of them who have tested positive for covid and flu. many of these patients are the same ones who didn't want testing 3 days ago, until their events were over, and now, they will have to reach out to everyone they know to let them know that they were positive because they were showing symptoms well before their event.

the next week or two? we're going to see many, many more, all people with symptoms that started around christmas. these are the only two viruses we test for rapidly in our office, but they are potent and can be fatal in many people.

so here's why i wrote this post, and maybe it's a little late, but - if you care about your loved ones, please get tested if you know you're sick. it doesn't have to be at a clinic if you don't want it to, because the over-the-counter tests work just fine too (if you test within 5-7 days of symptom onset). just...please don't try to run from the knowledge that you might have covid, because immunocompromised people, elderly people, people with co-morbidities like asthma, pregnancy, diabetes, etc...many of them may not recover. and they may not be sitting at your holiday table in the future because of it.

[perfectlyasymmetrical]

The Pentagon ran an anti-vax psyop in the Philippines at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic

Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China (usatoday.com)

Please read this article. It makes me sick.

TLDR: The US is directly responsible for the over 60,000 people who have died from COVID-19 in the Philippines since the summer of 2020. The pentagon made at least 300 fake social media accounts on twitter targeted at making Filipinos believe that the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine was dangerous. The Sinovac vaccine came out before any US-made vaccine and was widely available in the region before the smear campaign started. They used lies that the vaccine contained pork gelatin (which is considered haram to Muslims—Islam is the second largest religion in the Philippines). Their aim was to harm China's reputation and to sell more American-made vaccines in the developing world for high prices.

[centrally-unplanned]

General pet peeve of mine that I know is going to be relevant in the upcoming political times, all the lies so many tell themselves about the covid lockdowns. The CDC never shut down schools, and didn't even really push for it. State governments generally didn't either! Parents and teachers shut down schools; they were scared of a virus and didn't want their kids to be in contact with others, and teachers felt the same. People were very uncertain about the effects of covid on children, and no one wanted to take chances.

And so on down the line - the US didn't have lockdowns, not really beyond the first ~month or two. The federal government definitely didn't, some state governments had partial shutdowns but even then they were scattershot. Your workplace went remote because your employees and bosses wanted to.

But I am definitely gonna have to sit through 4 years of bullshit about "federal overreach", so occasionally I am gonna eyeroll about it.

[salt-2-negotiations]

AU where the ARK raid doesnt happen and Maria gets cured and they all live in space YIPPIE

[snackugaki]

fun new fucking challenge, you don't have to comment on the quality of next mutation

[fala-alfredo-pasta]

A very self indulgent tatted and pierced up Ichimatsu thas it

[themissingmango]

[paging-possum]

A spare onyx lumiere to draw perhaps?

ILY TRINYVALE TRIPLETS ‼️‼️

[fourgottencoast]

Sorry but if you’re a leftist who isn’t masking you’re a performance artist not an activist lol

All that talk about collective liberation doesn’t amount to much when you won’t do the bare minimum of community care by doing your part to mitigate a deadly and disabling disease that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable/marginalized in ur community!!

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

i think the most annoying part of dog food discourse is how many people will act as though proplan/hill’s/Royal canin diets aren’t extremely and prohibitively expensive and that THAT is the reason so many people look into healthy alternatives.

People complain about corn being in the first five ingredients on most of those feeds because, regardless of other factors here, that is not an expensive ingredient. But it makes up a large chunk of the dry food. So the dry food should be fairly affordable, right?

Oh… with tax you’re spending about $100 for one 45lb bag of food where the third ingredient is wheat and the fourth and fifth ingredients are corn.

Oh… well! It’s slightly cheaper! But the second ingredient is rice, third is wheat, fourth is corn, and then fifth is poultry byproduct. None of those are very expensive so this just must be the low end cost of dog food unfortunately. The vets recommend it so surely that means prices aren’t inflated, right?

Oh? This one has similar ingredients with the only real difference being no corn? And it’s half the price?? Well surely that’s just a fluke.

Oh. Oh no.

This one even has CORN in it and it’s $20 cheaper?? Wow!

Like listen at some point I don’t care if your dog food has the ichor of the gods in it, I’m not spending $100 every five days if there are cheaper options with just as many “good” ingredients in it. If you think I’m a dog abuser because I can’t afford this overpriced garbage, that’s too bad. I don’t care. My dogs are perfectly healthy with the food I give them. Great weight and great coat. People giving dog food recommendations that aren’t those top three hyper-expensive dog foods aren’t trying to epic own those dastardly vets half the time, but I really don’t blame the ones who do lose trust in vets when the only heartworm protection they recommend lately are expensive triple-action brands like Simparica Trio that costs $120+ as opposed to the other heartworm protections that are only about $40-$60 on average, which is still cheaper even if you add on a $20-$40 flea and tick protection separately, and only recommend dog food that costs $85+ a bag even if your dog doesn’t have specialized dietary needs.

Those top three foods are GREAT at making competent prescription diets, I don’t deny that. I do still have to criticize the pricing of those prescription diets though because I have spoken to DOZENS of people who had to pull their pets off of a prescription diet and struggle to find something comparable because they couldn’t afford the food, and that’s terrible! These are not poor companies! Purina, Royal Canin, and Hill’s can ABSOLUTELY afford to lower their prices to make their food accessible to people who need it for their animals but they don’t. They probably never will. Because at the core they are run by greedy corporations. It doesn’t matter how many good nutritionists are on board if the company is run by people who put profits over customers and make the food impossible for people to afford.

[mareastrorum]

I hope Sam is recovering, and man, I hope he gets to think about something else.

At the end of his video, Sam said he was most looking forward to not thinking about cancer. I get it. There is a certain kind of dread and despair that comes with those diagnoses, and it lingers for a long time. I had a cancer scare, and while it turned out that I had another medical problem, I think it took me about a year from the first symptom, through tests and diagnosis, surgery, recovery, confirmation that I didn’t need radiation, and then months of nothing before I finally stopped being plagued by that weight. It’s psychologically debilitating. “They were wrong before—what if they were wrong again? What if it is cancer? What if it’s not gone?”

On one hand, I hope Sam stays off social media just so he doesn’t have to see that word or any other reminders of how horrible treatment is. On the other, I hope he sees how much support and well wishes we’re all sending his way.

[eowyndy]

So Bertuzzi will wear a neck guard but thinks vaccines are witchcraft?

That tracks.

[akhuna]

After successfully dodging it for four years, I got Covid from my gran, who got it from my grandfather, who "got" it for his 95th birthday (probably from someone who coughed at him at the supermarket or wherever) ... My grandparents are both fine, thank God, and I'm isolating in the yarn room where the man keeps me plied with tea and food, like this excellent noodle soup.

Featuring my gran's WIP basket in the background which she gave me a few years ago.

[quaranmine]

unintended consequence of introducing my mom to reddit in 2019 is that 5 years later she is 10x more of a redditor than anyone i know now, and also has zero concept of the general reputation of reddit among normal people. everybody stares blankly when this woman in her 60s starts talking about this post she saw on reddit. she brings it up CONSTANTLY. like nearly every conversation. i'm like mom please. these people only know reddit as the incel site, if they know what it is at all

[orgyofthedamned]

learning that the broughtons are being sued by kevin francis for signing off cushings likeness to disney for 33k

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Wait..... There's nothing stopping me from giving the QSMP eggs their own Digimon.

...

Hey digimon fans-