#how to safely go to the gym

[uncanny-tranny]

My biggest piece of advice for folks who want to get into fitness would be: Do not follow fitness influencers (or do so very sparingly).

Please be very critical of what is being said when people talk about fitness. It's important that you learn how to exercise properly for your body, and to learn safety and harm reduction, and that isn't what I mean when I say not to follow influencers.

When you want to get into fitness, think about what piques your interest. Do you want to do cardio? Weightlifting? Yoga? Running? A mix of any of that (or none of these examples)? Think about what you think would spark interest and joy, and learn to do that fitness in a safe manner.

I think the biggest reason I even have a healthy relationship with fitness over food is because I haven't followed any fitness influencers, and out of all the ones I've seen, I would only follow one of them, maybe two. Out of all the ones I have seen, and there have been plenty. What I have done instead is research what I want to get into to make sure I am not accidentally harming my body, then, I think of my own goals and work toward them.

I'm sure this won't work for everybody, and that's okay. I wanted to make this post because I think there can be this pressure to "look fit" when you're into exercise and I think that can be a slippery slope.

[pilonciillo]

lol didn’t think someone giving money would give me anxiety

[zorciarkrildrush]

I really get and support conscientious objection to military service, but I think it's also worth reminding mainly Americans but definitely not only Americans that Israel's wars are not comparable to things like Vietnam (where dodging the draft was, obviously, the thing people like me would be supporting), and definitely not Iraq and Afghanistan or any other damn overseas conflict they grew up with. I get that you did not, and will likely never experience actual frequent attempts to invade and destroy your country and your people. That's good! I get why for you, military service seems morally indefensible. You wouldn't catch me calling you wrong, or a weak hearted liberal, or any other damn thing. You think the service itself is wrong, that serving an armed force in any capacity is wrong, and I really get that!

But Israeli troops - conscripts in compulsory service (which of course, they would go to jail for dodging) and reservists and NCOs and so on, aren't opting for overseas operations done purely for funsies and capitalism and fear of the USSR. You must recognize this false equivalency is very prevalent, even when your criticisms of the Israeli government and the IDF are very true and important. God knows I have a lot of criticism for both, jesus fucking christ do I. In the mind of every 18-year old dumbass kid, getting their first letter of conscription (which is again, compulsory and will be enforced with jailtime) - and also their parents, and their grandparents, is actual and real danger to their lives. Our neighbours invading with the real, publicly expressed intent of killing us, of demolishing our homes and driving us to the sea as a whole. This isn't a proxy war overseas, where they can just not go and be fine with it - there are actual people with guns and they're firing actual rockets aimed at your mom and everybody else you know. People with guns are breaching the fence with the express purpose of murdering you and your family. Not random Palestinians or other Arabs just trying to live their life - actual governments with actual armed forces, who use those armed forces to kill you. Hell, you probably know someone, either directly or one step removed, who violently died because of it. This was true since Israel's inception, and the staggering amount of times it happened is not something you can just solve with "well they shouldn't have done so and so!". Because yes, certainly, the Israeli government shouldn't have done a lot of things, and maybe you'll say those dastardly Zionists should have never wanted to come here, seeing how nice and safe and wanted they felt back home. But discussing what people shouldn't have done is very nice, especially when it doesn't personally affect you, especially when you never lived with the frequent and real danger of violent death - but I'd also suggest it doesn't really help anyone. Certainly the person currently launching a rocket aimed at my house shouldn't have opted to do that, and certainly the person who chose to pick up a gun and fire at me shouldn't have done so either, but I'd really prefer to talk about what we should do now - what the actual solution is for both Palestinian and Israeli parents to stop losing sons and daughters to violence every fucking year of their lives. Is that okay? Is that allowed? Or is it more effective to just say an 18 year old kid, commanded to pick up a gun and watch for someone coming over to kill their mom, which is a constant and real threat and has been for decades, is a mindless murder monster? That he's doing it for funsies and due to brainwashing only? My answer might surprise you.

[adore-gregor]

🙄🫠

[loverboybrightsideghost]

i was so caught up in trying to tell a funny story that for a second i wasn’t living in a world where my family are capitalists and think gender is a biologically determined fact 😔

[bookwormcheerleader]

coworker: “so a transgender is on the volleyball team” (at her daughters school)

me, trying to rein in my excitement for this trans girl because i know where i live: “oh?”

coworker, obviously upset and looking for me to take her side: “and is going to be changing in the locker rooms”

me: “oh yeah? i don’t know i spent a lot of time in queer spaces so it doesn’t really phase me”

coworker, now almost back tracking but still obviously mad: “apparently they sent an email out. but like hell they did…i’m only uncomfortable because my daughter is”

me internally: show she doesn’t have to be uncomfortable. literally just show her. tell her it’s nice that her school is acknowledging this girl and letting her just be a kid. ffs. she’s uncomfortable because you’ve told her this isn’t normal

[phagodyke]

tried putting on my radiator for the first time this winter (we've had snow this week.... its focking cold) but it trips the fusebox for the entire flat lmfao. I'm fuuuucked 😐

[problemcore]

honestly, the barbie movie came out exactly when i needed it most.

for a while now I've felt really sad and ugly and hollow. and this movie comes out and i feel . loved and wanted. and heard. and understood.

and i can look at my own reflection and admire my face without feeling repulsed. and i love my cheeks and my wrinkles and my acne. and it all takes time and effort but im willing to do it to love myself more .

[hard--headed--woman]

i'd love to go to the gym to get stronger and muscular but i know there's gonna be a lot of men and 😐 why isn’t there a female only gym. i would go without question

[todayisafridaynight]

psst for my stream regulars

How does the idea of me starting streams at like 1:30PM (EST) sound. i’ll still plan to run them to like 5:00PM (EST) but now its more definite it’ll actually end then opposed to accidentally going on until like. 7:30PM (EST)

Also im on mobile so i cant make a poll so you gotta let me know through like a comment or somethin ok ty

[youaremysunshine-court]

Highkey gonna cry I looked up this uni I have to go to on Insta and literally it looks like the worst fit for me

[fakecrfan]

I know most people on here don't like to go to the gym because you're all gay nerds. I like to go to the gym. For the purpose of understanding this post please try to imagine that you, too, enjoy going to the gym so that you can empathize with my point here.

Anyway, so imagine you are going to the gym. You're pumped about the concept of getting some muscle on you. Plus, the gym has this "lift weights every day!" challenge with a feasible plan to slowly and safely increase the amount of weight you can lift by the end of the month. Cool!

So anyway you go there, and you're having a good time. But then you notice something. Some people are coming in with these guys in shirts that say LIFT FOR HIRE. You're curious, and you notice over time that some people are actually paying these guys to come in and do the lifting challenge for them.

"Huh," you say to your mega hot, muscled gym buddy. "That's so weird. What's in it for the people paying these guys?"

"Dunno," says your friend, mid bicep curl.

"Um, actually!" says the gym owner. "Some people are disabled, so the only way they can lift weights it to pay LIFT FOR HIRE, inc."

"But wait," you say. "They still aren't lifting the weights though? Paying someone else to lift for you doesn't mean you've lifted the weights."

The gym owner gasps. "How could you SAY that?"

"Because... it's true?" you say. "Uh, if you pay guys to lift your weights, that's probably really good for the guys you are paying. But it's not going to develop your ability to lift at all. Your muscles aren't going to grow, you're just going to lose money and get no results."

"That's ABLEIST," they say. "How DARE you! Some people are LITERALLY paralyzed, did you think of that?"

"Well, yeah, some people are, and that means definitionally they can't lift weights," you explain. "And paying someone else doesn't change that. Maybe if they wanted to like, move something in their house it would make total sense to hire these guys! But if you hire them to do your workout you get nothing, because the purpose of a workout is personal development. I'm not morally condemning people who do it, but it seems like a waste of money when this event is, again, about improving one's personal abilities."

"This is absolutely DISGUSTING, CLASSIST rhetoric!" the gym owner roars, and then turns to one of the LIFT FOR HIRE guys, "Pay no attention this disgusting person, dear sponsor, we support your business and we totally want you to keep funding our gym!"

"Sponsor?" says your hot muscled friend who was way too busy actually doing their workout and getting gains to engage in dumb discourse. "Oh, now it makes sense."

"Shut up, you don't understand our love!" says the gym owner, before sloppily making out with a LIFT FOR HIRE guy in front of you.

Anyway, that's what learning about the whole AI nanowrimo controversy was like for me.

[fellator]

being fat when lifting weights feels like a cheat code though. so happy to have my starting weight around 35kg when my roommate's around 10kg 🤭🤭

[csuitebitches]

Start planning 2025

Make a list of all the emotions you want to feel at the end of 2025.

Now work backwards and write down all the tasks you need to do in order to feel that way.

Make a separate list of all the “gaps” - what do you currently not have in order to do those tasks to make you feel the way you want?

And lastly, write down how you can fill those gaps. Do you need a gym membership to become fit to feel good about your yourself? Do you need to learn how to cook better meals in order to feel healthy and energised? Do you need to start applying to jobs, in order to secure one, in order to feel financially safe? Do you need to buy an old school alarm clock that’s going to wake up your entire apartment building in order to wake up early? what do you need to DO?

also, make a list of all the things that worked out for you in 2024. Learn to celebrate and appreciate, even the smallest of wins.

For the next two months start the trial and error process of this program. Let’s say you decide that you want to work out 7 days a week in order to feel good about your body. Now halfway through November you realise that 7 days is probably too much, and 5 days would be better for your schedule. Or you decide to read 3 books a week, but realistically, maybe a chapter a day is better.

November and December are your trial months. By the time January starts, be ready with a program that is built for you, works for you, and can be completed by you.

Don’t forget about keeping a reward mechanism. If you complete your daily tasks for 1 month straight, buy that little purse you were eyeing, or take yourself to a spa. Reward yourself in ways you like so that :

a) you’re not in an endless cycle of never being satisfied

b) you don’t drop everything for a man or a friend who shows you the slightest bit of affection because you won’t show it to yourself

c) it encourages you to work harder for yourself.

[damiansgoodgirll]

Hiiii!! I hope you’re doing amazing! I’m sorry you’re having a bit of writers block at the moment as I know how difficult that can be!! I saw you opened your requests to see if that would help so I figured I would request something!

Maybe Rhea x Reader, where Reader is also a wrestler and her aesthetic is super girly and cute and bubbly (kinda like Tiffany Stratton) and something about it just draws Rhea in. Like she tried to act like she hates it and doesn’t like Reader, but eventually she just can’t and caves to how adorable Reader is and it brings out Rhea’s sweet side! 🩷

rhea ripley x reader

likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated!

‼️nothing major, rhea’s sexual thoughts tho…a lot of fluff and sweet moments, reader being a tease (let’s pretend rhea is still champion here) ‼️

heartbeat

rhea hated when someone tried to take her title away. but she hated even more when you became her main opponent for a title run.

you and the dark haired woman were completely the opposite. you were a face, she was a heel. you wore pink, she wore black. you were kind and loved backstage, she was a menace with anyone who dared to even look into her eyes.

she hated the idea of having to fight with you. she already handled a liv morgan, a tiffany stratton and now she had to face you.

she absolutely despised having you as her main opponent and no matter how many times she tried to resonate with adam, he said that you deserved that title run more than anyone. and she knew it too. she observed you. you were good, you were smart, you worked more on psychological fights than physical fights and for the first time, rhea was afraid.

you and her never really talked outside of the company. she wasn’t in your group and you weren’t in hers.

so the first time you got to share a few words was when you two had a promo and even if rhea looked so intimidating, you were ready for a challenge and you showed her who you really were.

“so you think you can take my title?” she shouted into the mic, staring at you. she looked for something that could have scared you away but she find nothing.

you simply laughed, taking a few steps forward her “i’m damn sure i can” you stated making the crowd cheer.

she was ready to reply back. she was so ready to put you in place but having you so close to her made her freeze. your vanilla scent intoxicating her. your challenging eyes never leaving her face. something about you made her even more interested into this feud. you made her heart beat fast and she couldn’t understand why.

“cat got your tongue, mami?” you teased her, hearing even more chants from the crowd.

“stay out of my way” she said coldly before dropping the mic to the ground and leaving the ring.

as days passed, rhea moved cautiously around you. observing you at the gym, observing the way your body moved inside the ring as you trained. she couldn’t help the filthy thoughts running in her head when she saw the sweat dripping down your body.

watching you fight other opponents and she hated admitting it but she found you extremely attractive. she never imagined herself being attracted by some barbie doll prototype but here she was.

you, flaunting your pink gear, your perfect make up and curled hair, ready to fight liv morgan - once again.

you knew it was going to be an easy match. you fought liv multiple times and you always won but somehow it didn’t go exactly as you planned. sure, you got your win but liv managed to injury you.

rhea watched all the match behind the scenes and a lump form in her throat.

how the heck did liv manage to injury you? she was supposed to keep you safe inside the ring just like you did with her and instead she fucked up and probably costed you a title run.

she should be happy that you weren’t her opponent any longer but she was actually looking for a chance to fight you.

you struggled walking back, helped by some trainers, they let you sit comfortably in the medical area as a doctor checked upon on you.

sprained ankle.

a couple of weeks of no fighting, no training at the gym and no title run opportunity. this was definitely not what you were expecting.

as you slowly walked back to the locker room, you were stopped by the infamous rhea ripley.

“hey…” she greeted you, making you look at her with a confused expression.

“i’m out of your way now, are you happy?” you sarcastically asked her but you saw how serious she was.

“no, not really…i was really looking forward to fight you, can’t believe im stuck again with that mid morgan girl” she said, clearly mad.

her words made you laugh “it won’t be for too long, give me a month to recover and then i’ll happily pin you down the floor” you teased, seeing her blush.

her strong facade fell when you talked dirty to her. she felt her cheeks burn but she tried to keep up with you “i can’t wait for that moment to come then…”

you were absolutely in for whatever rhea was trying to do with you “challenge accepted then, see you in a month” you winked but as soon as you tried to walk again, a sharp pain rang through your foot, making you flinch a little.

“hey, you okay?” rhea immediately asked when she saw the pain expression in your eyes.

“i have to get used to walk with just one foot” you laughed.

“here, let me help you…” her hand softly moved around your hip, helping you back to the locker room so you could gather your belongings and then go straight to the hotel. she walked slowly, never forcing you or your body.

“i didn’t know rhea was a kind one” you joked, making her laugh.

“i’m not. i never liked you y/n…this bubbly energetic person you are, i always hated it…too much pink, too much kindness” she whispered.

“why is it in the past?”

“because somehow your annoying personality caught my attention” she confessed, making you look at her with a teasing face.

“that’s good to keep in mind next time i’m facing you in the ring…” you said making her roll her eyes.

once you got to the locker room, rhea packed all of your stuff. your make up, your clothes, your perfume - the vanilla perfume - and she took the bag over her shoulder.

“do you need a ride to the hotel?” she offered and you couldn’t turn her offer down so you agreed.

as you were settled in her car, you found her to be a comforting presence. maybe she really wasn’t the mean one everyone talked about.

before you could speak, metal songs blasted through the speakers and it took you a couple of minutes to realise that you and rhea couldn’t be more different “do you really listen to that?” you asked, a little confused.

“yeah…it’s amazing” she happily said as she drove.

“it’s giving me a headache” you complained, making her roll her eyes for the second time that night.

“what do you listen uh? let me guess? taylor swift?” she said almost too annoyed.

“hey! she’s a good artist! and no, i listen other people too! i listen to people who actually make music and not scream into a microphone for three minutes straight” oh you were so in for a tease right now and seeing how she scrunched her nose made you feel like you were hitting the right buttons.

“let’s not start or i’ll drop you here in the middle of the road” she joked, clearly amused by the whole situation. you ended up sitting there and watching her driving fast around town.

she helped you with the bags and only left your hotel room once she made sure that you were okay. she even left you her phone number so you could call her in case something happened - as she said.

a week has passed and you couldn’t even lie to yourself - you were actually enjoying texting rhea and having random conversations in the middle of the night with her. you remember texting her once you got home and asked her if she wanted to come over as you were bored and reluctantly she accepted.

she would be lying to herself but you attracted her. you were like a magnet and she couldn’t get enough of you. she would help you any time you asked her.

randomly going through your tiktok, you heard the bell ringing and without thinking twice, you slowly got up and opened the door, finding an adorable rhea ripley with junk food in one hand and a pink fluffy blanket in the other.

you looked at her for a second, too stunned to speak.

“you letting me in or are we going to stare at each other all day long?” she asked, her usual sarcastic tone lingering with some sneaky jokes too.

“oh sorry, yeah, come in…i wasn’t expecting you with food and a pink blanket…i actually wasn’t expecting you at all” you joked, trying to ease the tension a little bit because you had no idea why was rhea in your living room now.

“i was at the supermarket and i had my day off, i saw the blanket and i thought you would like it…here” she handed you the blanket almost as she was annoyed by it, trying to maintain her dark and mean side but deep down you knew that she was a softie.

you gladly accepted the gift and invited her to sit on the couch with you “what about the food?” you teased her, seeing her rolling her eyes at any remark you made was now a habit.

“i was hungry and i thought you would like some food too…” she tried so hard not to go soft with you but your smile and bubbly personality were making it hard for her.

“rhea ripley thought of me? i feel honoured” you laughed making her giggle.

“shut up and eat while i pick a movie…” she stated as she started swiping movies catalogue on netflix.

she chose something fun, something romantic, knowing that it was your favourite genre of film.

“i’m pretty sure you’re studying me so in two weeks you know how to make me lose against you for the title run” you joked, making her laugh.

“honey, there’s no way you’re gonna beat my ass during that run, that’s my title and my title only but i’ll happily pin you down” she turned her face to you, a sneaky smirk on her face as her mind fantasised about the idea of having to pin you down, under her body.

“you so sure about that ripley?” you tested her “what if i am the one to pin you down?

rhea wouldn’t mind having you over her to be honest. in any other situation she would have let you being in charge but not when there was her title on the line.

“we will see in a couple of weeks” she winked “now watch the movie before i put some freaky horror on” she teased you knowing how much you hated horror movies.

“okay mami” you whispered making her roll her eyes - again. you displayed the pink blanket over your body and over rhea’s body too “before you say anything, it’s cold outside and i don’t wanna hear you complain for the next two hours” but rhea definitely wasn’t going to complain. she never had you so close, your body was like a magnet and was so close to hers that it was enough to keep her warm. your head softly laid over her shoulder and even if you couldn’t see her, you felt her body relax against you.

maybe she was going to pin you in the ring but you knew who was really in charge outside of the company and seeing her so calm and relaxed in your presence made you feel something different about your friendship, as if there was something more but you couldn’t really point it out.

spending the rest of the night in each other’s company, joking and laughing about the smallest things.

as the second movie of the night ended, you really needed to stretch yourself out as you grew a little uncomfortable sitting for almost four hours in the same position. she helped you standing up and you slowly tested the water, instead of putting your hands around her shoulders as you always did, you put them around her waist.

the height difference between you two was pretty obvious but that didn’t stop you to have your way with her “i have a feeling you feel something for me” you teased her watching her in her eyes.

“i don’t know what you are talking about…” she tried so hard to maintain her composure but she was struggling, especially when she had you so close.

“so what if i asked you to kiss me? would you back up?” you always been a tease but this was something else even for you.

“no…” she whispered, her eyes softly looking down at you.

before she could make any move, you kissed her. your lips meeting her soft ones, a smile pressed on her face as you kept kissing her “i’m definitely gonna pin you rhea” you whispered, making her chuckle.

“keep dreaming barbie” as she grew more comfortable, her hand moved behind your back and pressed you against her body “remember, it’s always monday night mami…” her devious look was back as if you helped her gain her confidence back around you.

“you know…i’m always in for a challenge…”

yeah, maybe she was the rhea ripley but you knew how good you were and being able to tease her and make her so flustered around you was definitely a weapon in your sleeve.

“we will see pretty girl…” falling in love with the enemy wasn’t definitely her plan but somehow you managed to make her heart beat faster anytime you were close and now she felt like she couldn’t get enough of you.

————————————-

i’m receiving a few requests and i’m trying to overcome my writer block 🤞🏼🩷 thank you for your patience and kind words 🩷🩷

[infiniteglitterfall]

know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)