#like we seem to be having a covid test shortage??

[baronessblixen]

Aww, sorry you're still sick! Here's a bowl of soup for you~ 🥣 :)))

Thank you so much ❤️ I'm not the biggest soup fan, but it's perfect for when you're sick, so i appreciate it.

I'm still sick, yes, but I'm feeling much better than yesterday. First day without a fever, so I'm really making progress. I almost feel human again 😁

[sniffanimal]

Going insane thinking about the state of public education rn (and probably private but I don't rly care abt private Ed lmao) and teacher burnout/shortage and covid and how society is structured around 9-5 M-F hours so education workers can't get important things done like doctors appointments without having to take time off work, and with the staffing shortages it spreads everyone thinner

This isn't the case at my school, probably because we have a lot of non-teacher staff (paras, office aides, etc) with teaching certs, but it seems like a common practice that if a school's got a teacher absent and can't get a sub, they have the Sped teacher sub and the paras watch the sped classroom, which is honestly illegal? Kids on IEPs have required legally minutes of teacher instruction time and having them lose 5-6 hours of teacher time is illegal but also it's just ableist? Like sure take the teacher away from the disabled kids they won't care 🙄🙄🙄 I'm just

I got a raise this month which is honestly gonna help a lot but it still puts me below living wage. Like after taxes I make $1,700 a month. The only way I can afford this is by having a roommate and not driving a car (tho I put gas in my roomies car sometimes). Some of my coworkers have families! One has 8 kids, one of which is severely disabled!!! I can only hope their spouses make bank bc I can't fucking fathom having a family on this wage

Anyways I just needed to yell into the void as I get ready for bed. I was trying to schedule my covid booster and there's no times available at any of the locations around me and it made me go insane that we're just expected to work like normal even though covid is ripping up our school right now. We don't have covid leave any more, we never got hazard pay in the first place. We don't even test students who are visibly sick, we just send them home only if they have a fever. Hello can anyone fucking hear me

[atlanticcanada]

'Telling us we are not important': Lack of permanent paid sick days making health-care crisis worse, say experts

Major viruses are impacting Canada’s hospital systems— and a shortage of staff at a critical time is being exacerbated by poor working conditions for the lowest paid in the health-care sector, several physicians and academics told CTVNews.ca

Those conditions include a lack of permanent paid sick days, and it’s only fuelling workers' desire to leave the field, they said.

When the pandemic led to lockdowns across Canada in March 2020, only two provinces offered any kind of permanent sick days. Prince Edward Island provided one day, and Quebec provided two.

Since then, only B.C. has been added to the mix. In January, it legislated that five permanent sick days be provided to all workers. Other provinces have offered paid leave, but they are temporary policies implemented due to the pandemic that come with expiry dates.

Kwame McKenzie, CEO of the Toronto-based health equity policy group Wellesley Institute, said it’s “very worrying” that permanent paid sick days are not available for these workers, especially at this point in the pandemic.

“We don’t seem to learn the lessons from pandemics, and we know that not having sick days caused problems. People went to work sick and they passed on COVID-19 to others, making workplaces hazardous,” he saidin an interview with CTVNews.ca.

More paid sick leave means less death overall, according to U.S. study

Stay home or work sick? Omicron poses a conundrum

Not having access to paid sick days prevented people from getting vaccinated, he said.

“It also meant people didn’t want to be tested because they thought, ‘If I test positive, that’s a problem, because maybe I won’t be able to pay the rent,’” he said.

Now, amid RSV and flu season and while COVID-19 is still spreading, we have a “triple threat” occurring, he said.

“Having paid sick days is a triple imperative, instead of a single imperative,” McKenzie said.

With hospitals overwhelmed, academics and public health experts say governments across the country missed another opportunity to ensure the most vulnerable workers are protected, keep patients safe, and retain health-care staff.

WHAT WORKERS ARE SAYING

Personal support worker Daniella works at two long-term care homes in Toronto.CTVNews.ca is granting Daniella anonymity due to fears she could face punishment at work.

She emigrated from Colombia in 2018, and was “starting from scratch” when she arrived in Canada, she said in a phone interview.

She was cleaning homes when she first moved, but then decided to take a course to become a PSW, along with learning English at the same time.

She said it’s not just herself that she has to provide for: “I’m living with my partner here and I have to send money back to my mother, I have to support her.”

With people to support and the inflation rate skyrocketing, Daniella says, she can’t afford to miss a single day of work. She works six days a week in order to pay her bills and send money to family back home.

As a contracted worker, her employers offer no paid sick days, under any circumstance. More than two-and-a-half years into the pandemic, caring for the most vulnerable older people in the long-term care system, many workers like Daniella still can't afford to stay home if they are sick, or if their children are sick, workers'rights organizations and academics tell CTVNews.ca.

Why doctors, advocates are calling for permanent paid sick days for Canadian workers

At the end of 2021, Daniella got COVID-19. She had to stay home for the 10-day isolation period, and she was not paid for any of it. Her employer did not let her know about the province’s three-paid sick days program, and by the time she found out about it, it was too late to apply, she said.

“It was really bad, I had to live under my savings,” she said.

Daniella said if she goes to work sick, the residents in long-term care could die, due to their fragile condition.

“I feel like the government is telling us we are not important for them. They want us to work for Canada, no matter how, and in what conditions. They are trying to tell us we are some kind of machine,” she said.

PAID SICK DAYS ACROSS CANADA

Though the discussion on sick days has focused on health-care workers, any enacted legislation would likely cover workers across multiple sectors.

There is no province or territory in Canada that offers 10 paid sick days in a calendar year despite recommendations from advocacy organizations over the last two years to allow that amount of time off.

Employers can offer more leave to their employees— but advocates want to ensure all workers are entitled to a minimum of 10 days per year under legislation.

Based on current sick days legislation, some jurisdictions are requiring businesses to shoulder those costs.

For instance, in B.C., legislation went into effect at the start of 2022 that mandated all workers in the province be entitled to five days of paid sick leave if they’ve been on the job for 90 days or longer. It's the only province that has provided five days permanently to its residents. B.C. instructs employers they will need to pay stafffor those five days.

Others have implemented policies that are temporary, due to COVID-19.

Working while sick: Will the pandemic eliminate presenteeism from the workplace?

However, the B.C. legislation does not cover those excluded by its Employment Standards Act.This includes unionized workplaces, independent contractors, and other workers,like a home care worker who is employed for less than 15 hours per week.

Currently, workers in Ontario are entitled to three paid sick days that were implemented in April 2021 during the height of the third wave of COVID-19, after calls from advocacy groups that said the lack of paid leave was fuelling what was one of the most devastating waves of COVID-19 in the province.

On Dec.5, the Ontario Conservative government voted against a bill introduced by NDP MPPs Jill Andrew, Peggy Sattler, Doly Begum and Sara Singh titled the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, 2022 or Bill 4. The legislation would have provided 10 paid sick days and 14 days during public health emergencies within a calendar year.

In the summer, Ontario announced it was extending the temporary three sick days program until March 2023. The program works by allowing employers to be reimbursed by the government up to $200 a day, for a maximum of three days, for pandemic-related absences including vaccination, isolation or caring for relatives.

In absence of mandated paid sick days, some companies are stepping up

In an emailed statement to CTVNews.ca, the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Skills Development said the province's COVID-19 sick days program has supported over 500,000 workers since it was implemented. As the program was extended to March 31, this will give workers the ability to "take time off when they needed," it stated.

In Prince Edward Island, a bill introduced by the Opposition Green Party that proposed 10 paid days a year was voted down at the end of November. Currently, the province mandates one paid sick day per year be provided to workers who have been at a job for at least five years.

And in Quebec, workers are able to take two paid sick days a year. That legislation was in place prior to the pandemic.

The federal government recently implemented 10 days of paid sick leave but only for the one million workers across the country who are employed in federally regulated private sector workplaces. The federal government announced in November that the policy was introduced so that those workers do not have to choose between their pay and staying home when sick.

While legislation would cover all workers, those in precarious jobs, especially contracted health-care workers would benefit from legislation—as would the health-care system overall, experts told CTVNews.ca

WHAT EXPERTS ARE SAYING

According to McKenzie, there is currently a “two-tiered” system, where some health-care workers, often in hospitals, are paid better and receive benefits like sick days, while others are low-wage, and work on contract.

“It makes very little sense to me, to be saying that this is the time where we ignore what is a basic public health imperative, if not a human right,” he said.

“They’re the people we really need to be focusing on, because they are the fundamental building blocks which the whole of the health-system is based, doing face-to-face care in the community or long-term care.”

'It's no secret': Union rep says paid sick days, COVID-19 vaccines needed to keep warehouse workers safe

In October, the Wellesley Institute published a report titled Thriving at work: A health-based framework for decent work. The report said that, according to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, more than 27,000 Ontario workers had been infected with COVID-19 on the job.

Neighbourhoods in Toronto that had the highest proportion of COVID-19 cases contained the highest amount of essential workers, who were more likely to be racialized and not able to work from home, it states.

The institute determined that in order for workers to thrive, adequate income, benefits, job security and inclusive work environments are critical for an individual’s health and well-being.

Maxwell Smith, a bioethicist and assistant professor in the faculty of health sciences at Western University said via a phone interview with CTVNews.ca last month that paid sick leave is a strategy that's not only a way to curb infection, but makes good economic sense too.

“It also reduces absenteeism, by preventing outbreaks and the chance of workplace closures that could come because there’s so much infection,” he said. This will protect the health of workers, communities and it’s good for businesses, said Smith.

“It seems pretty barndoor-obvious to me that it’s good from whichever perspective you want to take on it,” he said.

Without protections, it may be difficult to recruit new health-care workers into a system amid a pandemic as there’s a fear of becoming infected and repeat infections, especially with the threat of long-COVID, said Smith.

“It’s incumbent on the government to provide as safe an environment as possible for people to do these jobs,” he said.

If Ontario expects individuals to stay home when they are sick, and wear a mask if they are sick at home, as Dr. Kieron Moore has recommend, then provincial governments should give workers the tools to be able to stay home, said Smith.

In May 2021, the Ontario science table released a paperon the benefits of paid sick leave.Its research highlighted that in the U.S., introduction of paid sick leave was associated with a 50 per cent reduction in COVID-19 cases per state, per day.

The paper found that essential workers experienced “disproportionate rates” of COVID-19 infections. It also indicated that the economic impact of paid sick leave was a factor in economic stability and recovery, through increasing productivity, preventing absences and stopping workplace closures.

'Staying home is a privilege': Ont. government needs to implement paid sick days, doctor says

And according to a 2022 paper from the Decent Work and Health Network, a health and labour rights advocacy group, the lack of paid leave has impacted Ontario’s most diverse neighbourhoods the most, as immigrants and newcomers are more likely to take low-wage, precarious work due to employment barriers.

The lack of paid leave is also a factor in increased burnout among health-care workers, according to Decent Work and Health.

A report released in June from Statistics Canada that surveyed health-care workers found 86.5 per cent, including doctors, nurses and personal support workers, were feeling more stressed on the job during the period of September 2021 to November 2021.

But nurses were the most likely to report they planned to leave their job or change their job in the next three years, according to the survey.

A 2018 analysis of OECD nations found there will be a shortage of 120,000 nurses in Ontario by 2030, and a 2020 report from the RNAO found a third of nurses that provide direct patient care are approaching retirement.

At of the end of October, Ontario’s nursing college allowed nurses educated outside of the country to temporarily practice while they work toward being fully licensed in Canada, to help bring more nurses into the system.

But increasing conditions overall including leave policies would help as well, according to Decent Work and Health.

Dr. Naheed Dosani, a physician and member of the health network, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview that he was very disappointed the Ontario government had voted against the NDP proposed sick day legislation.

“It would have really helped a lot of people,” he said. “It will undoubtedly have negative impacts on workers across the province,” he said.

Dosani said he and his colleagues who are working on the frontlines are “very frustrated” and “upset” by the province’s inaction on more sick days. Workers need to be able to stay home when they are sick or when their children are sick, he said.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/hSx4Uvn

[kade22806]

How we survived the week- post holiday gatherings and germs… barely. But hopefully next week will be much better thanks to their daddy- the real MVP- who took all 3 little boys to urgent care this morning because 🆘 🏳️ I had to work 12 hours last night and a double today, but it’s been 2 steps forward, 1 step back all week and everyone seemed much worse last night and this morning so we had to get them in somewhere. We don’t have a village, but I’m so thankful for our little family we’ve created in times like this 🤍 @kadnev so helpful to Cash last night with his ear pain while Brent was up with Wallen. @laylaevans2917 helping this morning because she had plans and would be gone this afternoon/evening. Kaden rocking Wally, refilling drinks, getting snacks, and watching movies with them while Brent picked up their meds. Wiping all the snotty noses and drool. Changing diapers and clothes. Also thankful they tested negative for the more serious viruses and will hopefully be on the mend soon. ➖Covid ➖flu ➖RSV ✔️strep ✔️double ear infections ✔️conjunctivitis And FYI amoxicillin is on National shortage/backorder and is not available anywhere so wish us luck this week with Omnicef 🥴😩#iykyk https://www.instagram.com/p/Cludh1GreQU/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[dcdatwins]

The start of our journey

So the start of our journey was when we lost our previous baby through an ectopic pregnancy, it was scary and horrifying, I was told the original symptoms were IBS but in fact it was not. I nearly lost my life through this, my husband and I had to really consider another child ( we have two daughters already), then the delights of covid hit. We were both working in hospitality ( Him as a head chef and me as a front of house manager) Our income dropped rapidly. I took a job in the care sector to provide for my family. This was a very rewarding job but during the testing times of covid and a care staff shortage it was manic to say the least, long hours and the obvious risk of contracting covid and passing it on to my family. We found out we were pregnant in early November 2020, we assumed I was very early on in pregnancy due to me still running about at home and at work in size 8 jeans!! We decided to get checked straight away due to our previous experience and pregnancy loss. The thought of going to a hospital was so scary to us, as not only was Covid still very high in our area at this time but also the fear of it happening again, the fear of knowing the child we already loved was not to be, and could also endanger my life. The prospect of this was awful, I am not a person who usually suffers from any form of anxiety and for this I have always thanked by lucky stars, but walking in to that hospital I was almost hyperventilating with fear. Sat in the waiting room were quite a few women with similar looks on their faces, the fear of what being in this area with people you didn't know, people who you didn't know if they were testing for covid as regularly as they should, and who may have had their own personal fears as I did, this was evident behind the hospital issue covid masks and the noise of the TV in the background. My husband had been sent to a separate waiting room that was just for the partners of the expectant mums, this was so difficult my husband was not sat holding my hand while the tears silently fell down my face.

We eventually was called through to the sonographer, I laid on the bed and silently prayed for my little bean to be okay. The sonographer was concentrating so hard on the screen, the silence was almost deafening, I just wanted to scream please just tell me, but I couldn't, as secretly I didn't want to know. Another sonographer appeared at the door to ask a random question that I can't fully remember now what it was, the sonographer asked her to come and look at the screen, by this point I was starting to really worry. They both looked at the screen for what seemed like an hour but was more like 2 minutes., Eventually the words

'I'm sorry to tell you this'

Came out of her mouth, I grabbed my husbands hand not sure if I wanted to scream or sob, while my husband did the male thing of rubbing his thumb over my knuckles (I'm not sure whether this was to calm me or him) she continued with;

'It's twins and you are a lot further on than you suspected, you are measuring at exactly 24 weeks today!!

[queenshelby]

Oppenheimer (Part 15)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Fluff, Angst, Smut, Covid

Words: 2,418

Please interact and comment to keep it going. I always love to know what you think.

Your eyes immediately widened when you heard the all too familiar voice of your father from the hallway of the apartment building and Cillian quickly indicated for you to be quiet before he responded.

“Uhm…yes” he stammered before reminding your father that he had tested positive and was isolating. “I can’t really let you in Chris” Cillian told him but, luckily for you, your father had no intention to break the studio’s COVID-19 protocol.

“I know. I am just letting you know that I will be leaving some scripts at the door for you. We changed the filming schedule for next week” your father said and, before Cillian could thank him for dropping them off, your father went on to ask about you.

“Y/N isn’t with you by any chance, is she? She didn’t respond when I knocked on her door” your father said and Cillian couldn’t help but gasp as, the truth was, that he was still inside of you.

“Uhm… we are meant to isolate independently so…uhm…no” Cillian stammered, hoping that your father would leave but, unfortunately, he had one more comment to make.

“Hmm, I just figured that since, somehow, you both managed to catch the virus at the same time, maybe you got bored and decided to break protocol” he observed before concluding his mission. “You know, never mind. Rest up man. I see you next week” he said before making his way back out of the building.

***

The following week, you and Cillian indeed met your father on set and, by this point, you both had recovered and were well rested.

You had spent the entire time together and, since you were both almost symptom free for the most of it, it was rather enjoyable and relaxing.

You both explored new aspects of your relationship when you were in isolation, both intimately and emotionally. Cillian was very different to anyone else you had ever met before and your bond grew significantly during this time.

You learned more about Cillian’s life, his past relationship with his ex-wife and his two sons who were said to arrive in Los Angeles today. He trusted you and, with this growing trust, your concerns about other women on set, such as Anna, vanished into thin air and Cillian most certainly helped you with boosting your confidence.

Anna was still away, struck down by the virus and, in her absence, your father asked you to assist Cillian with his upcoming scene.

But Cillian didn’t like the idea of you being on set with him while he was re-filming the intimate scene with Florence Pugh and tried to reason with your father when he made this suggestion.

“I don’t think that’s part of her job Chris” Cillian tried to reason, telling your father that you were overqualified for this kind of work.

“Several members of the crew have COVID and, since you seem to get along, it seems sensible especially in light of your HR complaint against Anna” your father explained to Cillian. He knew that there was a staff shortage and that he lacked options.

“Well, yeah, but…” Cillian began to say but your father cut him off and, since you had overheard the conversation, you stepped in and reassured Cillian that you were fine with this arrangement.

“It’s fine Cills. Just think about kissing me instead” you whispered into his ear after your father left in order to prepare the set for the upcoming scene but, what you didn’t know was that he was still watching on from a distance.

“If I was to think about you while filming this scene then Florence might get an unpleasant surprise Y/N” Cillian chuckled quietly and you couldn’t help but laugh yourself.

“Well, we don’t want that” you said quietly before brushing his hand with yours and, it was at this point, that you heard a loud bang from around the corner of the facility.

As you walked towards where the noise was coming, you saw your father kneeling on the floor, collecting a stack of paper which he seemed to have dropped.

“Can I help you dad?” you asked and, of course, you wondered whether he had noticed your affection towards Cillian.

You knew that he couldn’t have possibly heard what you were saying too each other but, perhaps, he could see that your hands were touching all so lightly. Perhaps he could also see you smile at Cillian somewhat mischievously and, perhaps, he was even a little suspicious about your behaviour.

“I’ve got it Y/N, thanks. I was just….I got lost in my train of thought” your father stammered and all you could do was nod nervously.

“What were you thinking about? Is there anything I can help you with?” you asked, knowing that your father was rather stressed with production having come to a standstill and filming now being behind schedule.

“Not really Sweetheart. I just had to think about something your mother had said to me last week” he explained and you nodded again before he asked you whether you would be coming back home tonight.

“I was actually thinking about staying at the studio’s apartment facilities. It’s just more convenient this way” you explained.

“Right. Well, I suppose that’s fine” your father told you and, whilst you could tell that he was a little disappointed, you left it at that.

***

About an hour later, everything was set for the scene between Cillian and Florence and you were somewhat amazed by how professional they both were.

Florence’s self-esteem was unflawed and you admired her for that and Cillian was nothing but respectful towards her.

Without Anna being present, the fact that Cillian was touching and kissing another woman didn’t bother you but Cillian was worried about you nonetheless.

In between every take and every cut, he looked over towards you, seeking some reassurance from you that you were, in fact, okay with this and only when you looked at him with the kind of reassurance that he was after, did he proceed.

“Cut” your father called again eventually and you handed Cillian a robe and smiled.

“Are we done?” you asked your father and he nodded quickly before thanking everyone for the effort and work they had put into this somewhat difficult scene.

“Amazing work everyone. We will continue with scene 78 in about an hour, alright?” your father said after having cleared his throat and, just as he walked out of the set, you could see his eyes on you and Cillian.

He was watching you and you wondered whether he was, indeed, suspicious.

Regardless of that, you rested your hands on Cillian’s robe which was covering his bare chest and smiled.

“Go and get changed. I will see you later” you whispered and, whilst Cillian didn’t know what you had in mind, he nodded nonetheless before disappearing into the change room facilities.

***

To his surprise, when he stumbled into his trailer about fifteen minutes later, you were there, waiting for him.

“Y/N, what are you doing in here?” Cillian asked. He wasn’t expecting to find you there.

“Claiming what is mine. Now, lock the door” you ordered him with a devilish smile.

“Claiming what is yours, huh?” Cillian chuckled as he complied with your request before approaching you with caution.

You had some kind of strange desire in your eyes. It was burning right through him.

“You know why my father directed this scene the way he did?” you then asked Cillian, referring to the rather steamy sex scene which he had just re-shot with Florence Pugh.

“I don’t actually, but I trust that he had his reasons. Were you okay with the way it was filmed?” Cillian asked concerned, thinking that you were still struggling with the idea of him having to kiss and touch another woman, especially one close to your age.

“Yes, I was okay with it, Cills” you said with an almost seductive tone in your voice before carrying on.  

“You know that, according to some research, Mr Oppenheimer was a somewhat dirty minded man? He got himself a young mistress because his wife bored him. He liked to play games. Dirty games…” you said quietly before pushing Cillian against the corner of his trailer.

“Uhm, okay…games…right” Cillian gasped as, suddenly, he felt your hand wrapped around his throat.

“Yes, games…he liked to be dominated by his mistress but he also liked to dominate her” you explained, tightening your grip.

“Fuck Y/N” Cillian groaned. Clearly, he was aroused by what you were doing and his hardening cock immediately began to strain against his pants.

“You know Cills, I also began to watch this TV show you are in and the sex scenes in that show are quite delightful. Just like Robert Oppenheimer, Thomas Shelby appeared to be rather dirty minded, requiring a lot of sexual release, and I wonder whether you bring your own personal touch to these roles” you teased.

“Going by the hand you’ve got wrapped around my throat right now, you clearly got up to the end of Season 3 of Peaky Blinders, didn’t you?” Cillian gasped before explaining to you that he was an actor. That was just what does. He was acting like the characters he portrayed and he liked to indulge in his roles to make it appear real.

“And you are playing these characters so fucking well that, watching you doing it, actually turns me on” you smirked, tightening your hand before finally letting go.

“What on earth has gotten in to you Y/N?” Cillian groaned and you immediately dropped to your knees, right in front of him.

“Nothing yet, but no doubt that your cock will be in me soon” you winked as you loosened his belt and opened his zipper.

You pushed down his pants and Cillian let you take his cock in to your hands. He was rock hard already and you began fondling his length before taking it into your mouth.

“Fuck Y/N. You dirty girl” Cillian chuckled before his words turned into a groan once again. You stretched your lips wide and engulfed him whole, taking him right into the back of your throat.

You then deepthroated him for a few minutes before he pulled you up on to your feet.

“I have twenty minutes Y/N and, clearly, you need to cum during this time” Cillian told you, realising how needy and horny you were and, before he had any time to protest, you pushed him onto the sofa which was standing in the corner of the trailer.

“I do and, since my period has finished now, I am not even wearing any panties and my pussy is soaking wet for you” you teased before climbing on top of him and reaching for his throat again.

“Jesus Y/N” Cillian approved but this wasn’t all you had to say.

“I wasn’t wearing panties earlier either when you filmed the sex scene with Florence. I was literally dripping down my thighs as I watched you film that scene with her. The way you kissed her and touched her skin was just divine” you teased before you lifted up your skirt and sank down on his hard cock, eliciting a loud groan from him.

You tightened your hand around Cillian’s throat and began to ride him. Clearly, he enjoyed it as his mouth opened wide and he pushed his cock more and more forcefully into you, meeting your thrusts with his.

As your pussy opened up to his deeper thrusts, conversation began and he asked you to tell him your wildest and deepest desires.

"One day I want you to tie me up, and go about your day until you want to dip your cock into me. That's when you'll take what you want, my pussy or my mouth, even my ass, whatever you want. Then leave me again until the next time you want to use my body. I will lay there tied up, waiting to be force-fucked at your will and whim" you moaned as you rode him, hard and fast, while squeezing his throat.

“That’s what you want, is it? You want me to take you however I want and whenever I want?” Cillian asked and, when you answered “yes”, the power struggle began.

Within mere seconds, Cillian rolled you both onto the floor. You found yourself on your back and Cillian hovered over you. He plunged his cock into you and folded your legs up to your chest and fucked you some more.

"You were made to take my cock Y/N” he groaned, his hand now on your throat as he took you hard and fast.

"There is nothing I want more than your cock Cillian" you said as you held back howls of pleasure, mixed with a little pain. His cock was penetrating you so deeply that it pushed you completely to your limit.

"And I want your cum inside of me…all of it, every single drop” you gasped as your eyes looked deeply into his while you marvelled at this gorgeous man on top of you.

“God, I will fill you with so much of my cum that you’ll be leaking out of your pussy for days” Cillian groaned while he thrusted in and out of you and pushed up against your cervix on the big thrusts.

It wasn’t long until your orgasm ripped through you and, just as you screamed his name again, he covered your mouth.

“Shh!” he reminded you while he was watching your body tremble just as he slammed his cock into you again.

It felt like haven and Cillian couldn’t hold back much longer as your pussy began to contract around his cock, milking him.

“Fuck Y/N” he then groaned and you knew that he was close himself.

“Fill me up with your cum, Cillian. I want your seed inside of me” you moaned and, immediately, felt the warmth in your stomach as he came hard and fast.

As usual, it felt amazing and you could feel his warm cum flow into you, spurt after spurt until you had milked him dry.

“I love feeling it when you cum inside me” you told him before he leaned down and kissed you passionately just as, once again, you were interrupted by a knock on the trailer door.

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[howilearnedtocope]

Why we need masks for all

Okay, I am going to put myself out here: we need masks for all. If you live in a country that doesn’t have widespread use of masks in public, this one is for you.

Here is a graph of coronavirus trajectories by country. All those countries in blue have widespread public use of masks, in addition to other measures.

Obviously I am not basing all of this on a few countries that have managed to slow the spread. Here is a link to a summary of 33 scientific papers that show that masks (even handmade ones, we’ll get to that) reduce spread of infection for the general population. Many of these studies are themselves meta-analyses of data. The evidence is mounting that public mask usage is an important strategy to reduce COVID-19 transmission. I want to highlight this paper in particular which modeled that public mask usage could slow or even stop the spread of an influenza pandemic.

(The CDC and WHO still maintain that healthy people should not wear masks. Preserving them for healthcare workers is important, but that is a separate question from whether they work or not. It seems likely from the evidence presented above that they do help at least somewhat)

Of course, there is a nationwide shortage of masks in most countries. Medical grade masks must be reserved for healthcare workers (if you have some, look for local ways to donate them, many hospitals are accepting donations). So where do we get the masks for the public? We follow the lead of the Czech Republic and Taiwan and make our own. Here is a great summary of how the Czech Republic went from 0 to 100% public mask usage, in less than two weeks.

A person makes masks and a “mask tree” where neighbors could donate handmade masks to others. Note that masks (or anything really) can be effectively sterilized by heating above 70C (158F) either in the oven for paper masks or using regular cycle in your washer and dryer for cloth masks.

Studies have shown even basic household materials like t-shirts can be effective at blocking droplets that contain viruses.

Are they as good as n95 respirators? No. But outside of certain medical procedures, the disease mainly spreads through droplets, and these homemade masks are still pretty good (though not perfect) at blocking those. This goes both ways: the masks provide a layer of protection to protect you, but ALSO contain a lot of the droplets you could be spreading. Some people with the disease don’t have any symptoms at all, so wearing masks is also important to reduce the chance of infecting others.

Masks, like social distancing, don’t have to be 100% effective in order to help flatten the curve.

Here is a model from the Seattle area, which shows how small changes in social contacts can effect total case numbers. You can see that even reducing contacts 25% has a profound effect on case numbers after a few weeks. The same thing would be true if wearing masks reduced transmissions by just 25%.

I want to point out that as long as you don’t take risks you wouldn’t take otherwise and keep your hands off the mask, there is very little risk to doing this now as we wait for further scientific evidence. And the evidence is mounting that simple masks reduce risk and slow spread.

In the Czech republic, they went from no one wearing masks to 100% (it is now mandatory in public) in about 10 days. While the mandatory order to cover your mouth and nose is only a week old, they have seen a slower growth of cases than the rest of Europe despite lots of testing.

Basic masks can be made with just a t-shirt and scissors, no sewing required. This video shows you how, just wear your mask higher on your face than this guy. (Video is changed from original post to one that doesn’t require Facebook login)

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And a few more tutorials

DIY facemask with filter pocket from Maker’s Habitat (video)

Facemask with adjustable wire and filter pocket from Easy2Sew (video)

Craft Passion Face Mask Pattern (pattern & instructions)

A Dr Explains how to make a facemask from a HEPA filter (video)

Simple mask that can be made with a sewing machine, from Craft Passion

If you get good at making homemade masks, especially the ones with HEPA filters, some hospitals are now accepting donations of homemade masks as well. Check to see what is going on in your local area.

If the papers cited above are correct, wearing a mask now when you need to leave the house for essential chores will reduce the time it takes to bring our cases down, and public use of masks could be invaluable in keeping cases low when people start to go back to work.

We can change our culture from stigmatizing masks to expecting people wear them. It happened in the Czech Republic in less than two weeks. We can do it too.

If you have the time, please watch this video. It was the thing that really made all of this click for me, and it has a ton of great information. Here is a shorter video from the Czech youtuber who started the movement in his country which I also recommend watching & sharing.

Please reblog & add resouces, tutorials, or mask selfies! There are three main things you can do to help spread the word and normalize mask wearing: 1) share videos & other information on the topic; 2) take a selfie of you wearing a home-made mask; 3) spread the message, with hashtag #masks4all.

[mymedlife]

Guys, the pandemic has broken me. Every time we seem to be making any progress I feel like we get set back again.

Sorry for the long rant ahead, but I feel like I need to get it out of my head.

Back in the beginning, last March or so, when the state I'm living in shut down, I felt like I could do it. Daycare shut down for almost 3 months to prevent spread.

My husband's job changed his hours to 10a to 8p since everyone was working remotely so they could all be working on the same time zone.

My cofellows were generous enough to switch shifts so I could work all nights and weekends and watch my kiddo during the day. Which kind of sucked, because she doesn't play independently for very long, o was tired, hubby wanted it quiet, and everything was closed so there wasn't anywhere to go to break up the monotony.

Work was filled with frequent changes around what protective equipment we have and what is required to be worn where. I got fitted for 3 different N95s because we kept running out, despite having to check them out and have them sterilized between uses.

I had frequent discussions about how COVID is real with families who refused testing. Parents lied about their symptoms to be allowed into the hospital with their kids, including one who collapsed mid visit due to respiratory failure. Several people ended up having to quarantine because they weren't wearing their N95s during the resuscitation as it was unexpected (at the time we were only wearing N95s during aerosolizing procedures including bagging). This lead to a new rule on not stopping in to help until you have the proper equipment on (which makes sense, but but is so hard).

Early on I spent some time volunteering for the COVID hotline for my state. Most of the questions I got were people upset that things were closing. There were very few health calls.

My aunt died. My sister, a psychologist, argued with her boss she should get a raise for being a frontline worker. My other sister, who is immunocompromised, was mad that all her friends continued to party guilt free and we kept telling her to stay home. My husband began to enjoy his new schedule to the point that he would stay up until 3am playing games after work (the kid was asleep and I was working) and sleep until he had to work at 10 am. My friends talked about their new lock down hobbies, including my co fellow who spent her time creating a new lecture series for the residents. I felt like I was trending water, I started getting behind on fellowship things and I was so tired. My kiddo was happy that I was spending more time with her, and it all was temporary, right?

Eventually things started opening up again. Daycare returned. Two days later my husband was fired. Thankfully he found a job within a few months, but during that time was quick to anger and his staying up all night playing games and sleeping most of the day got worse. He dismissed anything I had to say about it and frequently promised to sleep earlier, later saying he had to stay up because the kid had a nightmare that I slept through.

During this time, many of my pediatrician friends were called to see adults due to high patient volumes and doctor shortages. Luckily I only had to see kids, but there was still a lot of mystery surrounding symptoms and the discovery of the multi system inflammatory syndrome.

My kiddo got sent home a few times from daycare for vague symptoms that necessitated a COVID test, and at one point she was at home with me for 2 weeks due to a COVID positive exposure in class. My husband's job was new so he couldn't take off time to help. At some point things shifted so I was now doing all the daycare pickup and drop-off as well as all the bedtimes (unless I was physically at work).

Following Breonna Taylor and George Floyd there were large scale protests around the downtown area, where my hospital is located. I wholeheartedly support the movement, but someone told my kid it was dangerous to go downtown, and she became fearful of me going to work. This combined with the break in at our home lead to sleep refusal. Something I had to help he with, leading to bedtime taking hours, because my husband would yell at her. Most nights I was too tired after getting her to bed to do much, which lead to more work piling up.

Job hunting was not as fun as I had hoped it would had been. I had one in person interview, everything else was virtual. Thinking about working at a place I've never seen was terrifying.

Many places simply ghosted me. Lots weren't hiring. A few went on a hiring freeze after my interview.

Every interview asked what hobby I developed during lockdown. I admittedly could have answered this question better, and explained that I survived the lockdown with a toddler and that was an accomplishment.

My home institution decided to go with my co fellow over me. When I asked my mentor why she said they felt she had more to contribute to medical education than I do. I'm convinced that in part this has to do with all the lectures she wrote during lockdown.

I was able to get a job, but it's at a smaller community ED where we have a few beds in an adult ED. I mentioned to my associated program director I was a little disappointed, and suddenly everyone is telling me to be thankful for what I have.

I can be thankful and disappointed at the same time.

I think the biggest thing is a fear that if I hate this job I wont ever be able to find another one.

I also kind of resent my kid and husband, if I had more support or time to focus on fellowship things may have been different.

But life goes on. The vaccine was created, things opened up, and now those who aren't vaccinated can stop masking.

The my body my choice people who previously refused to mask are pleased, and now there are barely any masks when I go out (despite a not great vaccination rate in my area).

My kid is 3 and cant get the vaccine, so we still wear them. She loves to whine about how the others don't wear their masks. "It's not fair."

No, it really isn't.

Masks are still required in the hospital, which parents complain about daily. Recently every time I recommend a COVID test it has been refused. The pandemic is over. Kids can't get COVID. And other nonsense.

Kids as young as 12 can get vaccinated. However there is real concern about post vaccine myocarditis. Now everyone who comes in with chest pain wants to complain, even if they are unvaccinated.

Things have been stressful, and my kid is picking up on that. She still has trouble sleeping and has started having tantrums. We recently had a meeting with daycare and they want us to have seen by psych to get her evaluated.

I've found that I've lost interest in most of my hobbies, not that I have a lot of time for them. Fellowship finished and I have the next two weeks off before starting my new job. I was planning on spending it sleeping, cleaning the house, getting out the baby stuff as we are expecting a new little one in a couple of months, and rediscovering my hobbies.

Today I had an awful migraine. I cant take the meds I usually take because of the pregnancy, and my OB wont prescribe anything because he is worried about masking signs of preeclampsia. My husband refused to get up to watch the kid because he was tired, so I pushed through until he was ready to get up.

I lay down to try to get a nap and I get a call that there has been a case of COVID at daycare, and they will be closing for 2 weeks. They will open up the day I start my new job.

And this my friends is what has broken me.

I was so looking forward to finally have time for self care, and now I get to play stay at home mom again with my kid who is in isolation.

After that call I got up and left the house. I'm sitting in my car at the park writing this, and while I know I will go back home eventually, I'm tempted to drive off and let my husband deal with this for a change.

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Life In These Pandemic States

Back in April, 2020, I made a post about being a street level essential worker. Here we are, nearing the end of January, 2022, and it seems like a good time, for posterity sake, for an update on life.

Of course, with my last post one of the first (and most distressing) things that happened when people started responding was that it turned into a 'whose grass is greener' pissing contest. So, before we get going, I just want to be 100% clear  - this isn't about who has the greener grass. No one's grass is green right now. If someone has green grass, it's AstroTurf or they bought a can of spray paint. Everyone's grass is dead and brown, it's just some people's has a kinda funky texture that has to be seen to be believed.

And then there are the medical workers. Their grass keeps catching fire.

Seriously, though, between people in quarantine whose cabin fever has gone terminal and essential workers - at all levels - who just break, I don't want to know what the suicide rates have been through this thing. That has to be ugly.

And it just keeps going. Delta became Omicron became who knows what comes next. People keep talking about the polarization of America, that includes the split between the people who think there should be a maximum two people in a store at a time with the surfaces fully sanitized in between customers and the people who think if they just act like the pandemic is over, it will be. I work in a stupidly large warehouse store that can easily see ~5,000 people a day. Half of them want you to sanitize their entire cart, including the wheels; the other half fight you over wearing masks.

We're short staffed. People will nod and go 'Ah, yes, people have quit in the infamous Staffing Shortage', but no. On paper, we're fully staffed. In reality, between Covid and the flu, we have more people out at a time than I can count. A couple of people are out on bonding leave and things like that, but most of it is illness and most of the illness is Covid. The internet is railing against the CDC saying asymptomatic carriers and people waiting for their tests can come to work, but honestly, if they don't, we don't have enough staff to run the business. I saw a post on the staffing shortage pointing out that businesses are using it as an excuse to see how much they can do on how little that ended with the OP bemoaning 'it's like they're trying to make the customer experience as unpleasant as possible'. You think having to wait behind nine other people in a line is bad, try being the cashier at the head of that line, buddy. I used to say that 98% of our customers were at least inoffensive, if not straight up nice people, and it was the last 2% that would ruin your day. That's crept up to at least 5% and let me tell you, 5% of 5,000 is not a small number.

But yeah. The customers are the most important part of retail. Everyone knows that. What is this ‘essential worker’ garbage? We’re not essential, we’re lucky to be able to serve someone who’s had to wait in a ten person deep line to buy stuff from us. Thank you for giving us this honour.

And then problems that you think would go away....don't. The rules keep changing. It's not as bad as when the whole thing started, but they're still shifting around a bit. People keep coming into the store who haven't been here since the first wave of shopping panic and somehow they expect everything to work the same. Even the ones who don't fight you need to have things explained, so you're explaining a million times a day how the new system works. No, we don't wipe the sanitizer off the cart handles. It needs to dry there to be effective. Yes, you do still need to wear a mask. The store is big, but it's also crowded, and it's still an enclosed space, so no, the state mandate isn't null and void here. Then something will disrupt the supply chain and oops, there's a limit on water again and, no, sorry, you can only have one case. I'm sorry that your religious function requires three, you can only have one. Because your religious function does not make your more important than the other 49,000 people who walk through that door. It’s called ‘sharing’ - but we can’t actually say that, ‘cause it’s rude.

We still can’t talk back. Some of us are starting to kick at that. Some of us are fraying enough that we’re testing to see how much talking back we can do before we get written up. But 99% of the time we still have to just sit there and take whatever the customers dish out, because if we aren’t the whipping posts for someone else’s bad day, we could get in trouble.

Of course, we're required to wear masks if we want to have jobs. It's not only a state mandate, it's a store mandate. The anti-maskers, though, all assume you're one of them. They'll come in an start making commiserating comments about what a nuisance they are, how hard it is to breathe, what a loser our governor is for making us wear them, about how we're all going to vote for someone else next election so we can finally take our masks off. Meanwhile I'm sitting there breathing through two layers of cotton for eight hours a day, wishing more than anything that people who just do the bare damn minimum so that I can stop. But I'm on the clock, so I can't just scream at them for daring to joke when they are literally the ones making me do this! Seriously, there was a month in summer of 2021 where if you were vaccinated - which I am - you could take your mask off at work. I didn't, unless I was outside, but I could if I needed to. Then numbers spiked again and here we are, right back where we were, because people don't want to do the basics.

Restricted breathing raises anxiety levels. It's a proven fact. So our lines are long, our customers are getting more assholish by the day, the internet is making staff shortages about the customer, and while we can breathe through our masks, we can't do it well enough to avoid massive anxiety. Most of us have had at least one minor mental break down, and we're all waiting for someone to just have a complete nervous melt down in the middle of the store.

When work is over and the mobs are gone, the isolation sets in. That's the massive bugger, at least for me. I'm at least lucky enough that my parents are close, so I see Mum daily (we live a block apart and are basically a two campus household) and Dad comes for lunch once a week. That's it, though. I don't go out shopping, just buy everything at work. I don’t go to the movies. My next closest relatives are being hyper paranoid about the whole thing and since I'm around so many people a day, I'm not allowed in their house. It makes me feel like Typhoid Mary, honestly. My friends aren't close and have jobs, so there is exactly one who I see once a month, period, no more. It's winter so standing around outside chatting to the neighbor across the street doesn't even happen. And it’s not just that I don’t want to, it’s that I can’t. Even if I wanted to, I can’t.

So I spend all day absolutely surrounded by people - so many people - too many people - and then I come home and face cabin fever and isolation issues.

I need social interaction outside of work, and all I have is social media. Social media is not mentally healthy. So I come home from work, which is long even on the good days. I get on tumblr hoping that I can relax and enjoy some cat pictures and maybe some fandom conversation with like minded individuals, but there's a 50/50 chance that instead I'll just find something that hits off a raw nerve which, hey! Super easy because all seven trillion nerves are raw af. At least here I can fight back when people piss me off. Of course, I know I should try and keep my stressed out, utterly shot temper to myself, because I know that everyone else is probably doing just as badly, but they all seem so normal compared to what I'm going through and so comparatively calm. And I know part of that is an illusion and part of it is because the people in really terrible situations - the abuse victims stuck at home with a partner who's going mentally awol, for instance - aren't online talking about their shit. But all of the posts and conversations and everything just seem so normal, so much like they've always been, and no one else seems to be transforming into an overly touchy bitch, and I want to know how the hell everyone is so OK. And I want to know because I want to be OK again. I want to be happy and fun to be around and fun to talk with. I want to have conversations with people where none of us are complaining about anything. I want to fucking enjoy something every now and again, instead of just talking about what’s wrong with it.

And spending time on tumblr makes me stressed and anxious and not being on tumblr makes me stressed and anxious and so we have this lovely vicious cycle that just keeps going in a lovely downward spiral and at some point something has to give.

This can't go on forever.

Something, somewhere, has to give.

I just hope it's not me.

[cornerstorebitch]

How are companies firing people over the vaccine mandate if there's already a shortage of workers. Doesn't this just make the problem worse? I'm so confused especially when it comes to places like hospitals, all I've been hearing about is how they are understaffed... do you have any thoughts on this? It just seems like everyones getting screwed over besides politicians

well, most people who are facing vaccine mandates are ultimately choosing to get the vaccine rather than lose their job. that, combined with the political atmosphere, is most of the justification i would think. but 50 or 500 people, why you would be firing anyone in a hospital particularly is beyond me when every other article is crying about how our healthcare system is teetering on the razor edge. i mean i know why its because they dont want to pay for covid testing. but its still dumb lol

i dont agree with vaccine mandates in general. i don't think anybody else should ever have the right to dictate your personal medical choices, for one. and there really are no other examples where this happens, even in life or death situations. the us had their first rabies death in like a decade due to a man refusing treatment. i dont think it wouldve been justified to force him to get treatment if he didnt want it, even if he was certainly going to die. if you can legally force somebody to receive medical intervention in one circumstance, any circumstance or procedure is now fair game.

in an odd strike of irony we got our flu shot consent forms yesterday and usually if you don't get one you have to fill out a declination form but they didnt ask me for one this year. yes covid vaccine is required by threat of termination lol

[giftofshewbread]

It’s Satan

By Daymond Duck    Published on: August 1, 2021

The writer of this article was recently asked, “Why do the globalists who are supposed to be very intelligent make decisions that are so clearly wrong?”

Most don’t realize it, but Satan is behind their evil.

He has blinded them to the extent that they don’t believe the Bible is the Word of God.

They push a godless world government, world religion, same-sex marriage, tracking everyone, etc., because they are not Christians (even though some falsely claim to be good Catholics, etc.).

Many were appointed by like-minded people, not elected by voters or nations.

They wouldn’t dare have an election because they don’t believe they can get elected.

The globalists overlook what the Clintons and Bidens have done because they share similar views on the issues listed above.

Their puppets impeached Trump twice because he opposed their views.

Their prosecution of Trump supporters for what happened at the capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while ignoring the rioting, looting, destruction of property, etc. by Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others, should concern every conservative and Christian because when the globalists get the upper hand (and they will), they will destroy the U.S. Constitution, and persecute and destroy those that disagree with them.

When they give their Antichrist power, he will go forth conquering and to conquer (Rev. 6:1-2; 13:4-7).

The following events indicate that the latter years and latter days, globalism, global pandemics, food shortages, persecution, etc., are on the horizon.

One, concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog in the latter years and latter days: on July 20, 2021, Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “The Iranians are progressing (on their development of nuclear weapons) at a dangerous pace.”

“Israel may need to take pre-emptive military action against Iran.”

“I’ve never been more worried about Israel having to use military force to stop the program than I am right now.”

Two, also concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog: it was reported on July 21, 2021, that Israel’s military and foreign intelligence agency said Israel needs a variety of plans to sabotage, disrupt and delay Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, and they will probably be asking for the money and resources to do that.

Three, also concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog: Israeli Prime Min. Netanyahu and Russian Pres. Putin agreed that Israel would give Russia advance notice of Israeli attacks in some areas of Syria, and Russia would not intervene.

Israel jets recently fired several missiles at Iranian targets near Aleppo, Syria, and a Russian official said Syria used Russian-made anti-missile systems to shoot down all of Israel’s missiles.

On July 24, 2021, DEBKAfile, an Israeli intelligence and security news source group, reported that a Russian official confirmed that Russia has changed its policy on not intervening in Israeli attacks in some areas of Syria because Russia has received confirmation from the Biden White House that the U.S. does not condone the continuous Israeli raids.

Thus, while the Biden administration is publicly saying Israel has a right to defend itself, it is telling Russia that some of Israel’s efforts to do that are unacceptable.

The Bible clearly teaches that the merchants of Tarshish and all the young lions (perhaps includes the U.S.) will not help Israel during the Battle of Gog and Magog (Ezek. 38:13).

Corrupt world leaders, deceit, and lying are also signs of the end of the age.

Four, on July 27, 2021, i24NEWS reported that Israel has notified the Biden administration that Iran is on the verge of crossing the nuclear threshold, and it could happen at any moment.

Because Pres. Obama sent Iran a planeload of money during his administration and seems to be influencing events in the Biden administration, notifying Biden might be a waste of time.

This may help explain the belief that the U.S. will not help Israel during the Battle of Gog and Magog (Ezek. 38:13).

Five, concerning famine: it is common knowledge that the Covid-19 lockdowns disrupted the world’s food chains (farmers and farmhands were quarantined; stores ran out of toilet paper, some foods, etc.; food processors closed or cut back; some trucks stopped rolling, etc.).

On July 23, 2023, it was reported that there are still bare shelves in some food stores in the U.K., the food supply chains are “at risk of collapse,” millions of workers have been ordered to self-quarantine, the food industry is running out of workers to keep the stores supplied, and the U.K. could be just a few months away from a major crisis.

Under the guise of stopping the spread of Covid, the U.K. government may be creating “food shortages and mass famine.”

Note: It was recently reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that there will be another lockdown in the U.S. if American citizens “don’t wise up and get vaccinated against Covid-19.”

Note: On July 28, 2021, in an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Stuart Varney said an important business group is predicting that supply shortages will last until 2023.

Some prophecy teachers believe that Covid-19 is a created crisis (a pretext, a set-up, perhaps an engineered cluster of catastrophes) that globalists are using to prepare the world for a world government.

According to the pro-liberty group, Brighteon, on July 22, 2021, “very few people are prepared to survive a multi-layered, engineered cluster of catastrophes that are unleashed on top of each other.”

God’s Seal, Trumpet, and Bowl judgments during the Tribulation Period will be multi-layered catastrophes (pandemics, famine, economic collapse, etc.) on top of each other, and very few will survive.

Note: This writer believes we could be watching the development (early stages) of those multi-layered judgments.

Six, concerning deceit: on July 20, 2021, Sen. Rand Paul said on Sean Hannity’s T.V. program, “I will be sending a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal referral (of Dr. Anthony Fauci) because he has lied to Congress” (about the involvement of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology).

Note: This writer does not know how to verify it but has seen reports that Fauci owns stock in one or more of the companies that have been approved to sell the Covid-19 vaccine (If true, he is likely profiting off forcing people to be vaccinated and opposing the use of Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin).

Second Note: It has been reported that Fauci could spend up to 5 years in prison, but it is the opinion of this writer that the globalists (also called the Shadow Government, Deep State, super-wealthy elitists, etc.) will protect him because they are pro-vaccination. They want him to keep using his ever-changing fake science.

Seven, concerning world government and open borders: on July 21, 2021, it was reported that keeping the U.S. border with Mexico open is costing about 3 million dollars a day in suspension and termination payments to contractors to guard steel, concrete, and other materials they have in the desert.

Eight, militant Muslims say Jews should not be allowed on the Temple Mount because the entire Temple Mount is an Islamic site and none of it belongs to Israel.

For this reason, Jewish officials have allowed Jews to visit the Temple Mount at certain times, but they have not been allowed to pray on the Temple Mount.

On July 17, 2021, the eve of Tisha B’ Av (a holiday for remembering the destruction of the first 2 Jewish Temples; July 17-18 in 2021), it was reported that Jews were praying (and some were teaching Torah, a name for the Scriptures in the first 5 books of the Bible) on the Temple Mount.

On July 20, 2021, Prime Min. Bennett came out in support of freedom of worship for Jews on the Temple Mount.

This may lead to more violence, but it is worth noting that the Jews have gone from not being allowed to pray on the Temple Mount to praying and teaching on the Temple Mount, and Israel’s new Prime Min. supports it.

According to the Bible, the Jews will eventually get permission to rebuild the Temple.

Update: On July 25, 2021, it was reported that the temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinians is fragile, may be coming unraveled, and another war could be on the horizon.

Nine, concerning pestilence: on July 22, 2021, Israeli Prime Min. Bennett said as of Aug. 8, 2021, Israeli citizens will not be allowed to enter synagogues and other facilities without a vaccine certificate or proof of a negative Covid-19 test.

U.S. citizens are not having to prove that they have been vaccinated to attend places of worship, but some companies are requiring it.

Ten, concerning natural disasters: on July 26, 2021, it was reported that June in North America was “the hottest in recorded history.”

Record high temperatures were broken in several western states.

On June 28, 2021, the temperature was 117 degrees in Salem, OR; 110 in Redmond OR; 110 in Quillayute, WA; 110 in Olympia, WA etc.

The southwest U.S. is experiencing the worst drought in 122 years.

It covers almost 90% of the southwest, and much of that is classified as severe to exceptional drought.

Reservoirs and rivers are drying up, fish are dying, wildlife is suffering, farmers and ranchers are hurting, crop and cattle production is down, some ranchers and dairy farmers are going out of business, water rationing is beginning to kick in, and more than 60 million people are impacted.

Lake Mead, a 112-mile-long water reservoir, is at its lowest level since it was built 85 years ago (It is now only 35% full).

Utah’s Great Salt Lake has reached a record low.

86 wildfires are burning in 12 states, drought conditions have made them worse, two major wildfires have merged, and more than 10,000 houses are in danger.

The long-range forecast is for the high temperatures to continue through the fall.

Call it what you want; some officials are already blaming it on global warming because it fits their globalist agenda. But natural disasters will be like birth pains (increase in frequency and intensity) at the end of the age, and this record-breaking event seems to qualify.

As I close, understand that as bad as things are right now, Satan and the Antichrist are limited or partly restrained (II Thess. 2:7-9).

But the time will come (the Tribulation Period) when Satan and the Antichrist will no longer be restrained, and the events will be worse than anything that has ever happened or ever will happen (Matt. 24:22).

Finally, are you Rapture Ready?

If you want to be rapture ready and go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

[tietensgo]

10 to 5 - 5

It was too long to make one post so I made two. Part 1 here.

1) The post doesn’t discuss the timing and motivation of the change. Others have suggested before now that 10 days was a lot. (This person recommended that you can test out of isolation early). But the CDC didn’t change from 10 days as the guideline until now. What struck me most about the CDC’s update was that it was right at the holidays and right on top of a virus surge. Like, in the middle of a situation getting worse, where tons of people were getting sick, the CDC’s statement wasn’t to stay home more, it was more like most people are only mildly sick, so let’s get as many of the mildly sick back into society (back to work) asap so we don’t have staffing shortages.

This MSNBC interview even suggests that Delta Airlines lobbied the CDC to change its guidelines, (see the letter here) and some flight attendants themselves don’t feel safe going back. I don’t know that the CDC issued changes /because/ of Delta Airlines (Dr. Fauci says they didn’t) or outside of science or anything like that, but Dr. Fauci openly said that the new CDC mandate is to help people get back to work (increase people’s ability to work despite it).

TLDR; the new guidelines were issued seemingly to allow people to get back to work sooner during an acknowledged rise in Covid cases, mostly from the more contagious Omicron variant. One letter in particular from Delta Airlines demonstrates that CEOs are in favor of the change while some of their employees are hesitant.

2) The suggestions in the post are not exactly what the CDC recommended. The guidelines don’t differentiate by vaccination status; both vaccinated and unvaccinated people get the benefit of the 5 day shortened isolation. If they are asymptomatic or with “resolving symptoms, no fever for 24 hours”, they get to be out in public with a mask. (If I’m reading that right, it means yesterday Day 4 I had a fever, today Day 5 no fever, tomorrow Day 6 I’m good to be in public). A negative antigen test is not required to come back to the public, only a mask. (Dr. Fauci says that an antigen test wouldn’t be as useful to tell if you are contagious after 5 days anyway. But I think you can see where not mandating a negative Covid test before leaving isolation* leaves the door open to be contagious and be out in public. That is, the exception cases who are contagious for the longest (> 5 days contagious) are precisely the cases being missed by saying no test is required. For these cases, I think what they’re saying is masking will cover it. But if just masking covers them when they’re contagious over 5 days, why didn’t just masking cover the other people who were contagious under 5 days? Why did the less than 5 days contagious asymptomatic group have to isolate at all if just masking covers the (rarer) over 5 days contagious asymptomatic group? What if someone’s peak contagiousness happens on Day 6, when they’re in public and asymptomatic? The post said it exactly: the CDC used 10 days at first to be safe (see tweet 7). Recently, it was changed to 5 days with 5 masking. (I think people also point out that 10 days was put in place near the start of the pandemic, and more of the public is vaccinated now and contagious periods are generally reduced (for the vaccinated), so 5 days makes sense in that way also. But I’d also mention that not everyone is (or can be) vaccinated (adults and children), so their contagious periods aren’t reduced, and now, vaccinated or not, the isolation time has been reduced to 5 days without a negative test at the end).

*It seems like at one time test availability might’ve been a consideration for not mandating a negative test to come back to public/work, especially because antigen tests have that ‘test repeatedly for best results’ caveat that needs to kept in mind. But it seems like maybe getting more tests would be part of the solution, not leaving a testing requirement out of the guidelines.

TLDR; the new guidelines focus on a period of contagiousness of five days, which, while usual, isn’t true for everyone, but there is no requirement of a negative antigen test to return to the workplace. That means conceivably, some people are returning to work while contagious.

3) The post doesn’t address noncompliance. With the masking, in particular. People may or may not mask properly, and even those who do wear it most of the time might take if off to eat with coworkers during a break at work or take it off while in the car by themselves but put it on just before they pick you up for uber or take it off because they’re technically 6 feet away or take it off because it’s just a quick dash to the mailbox in the apartment building, I’ll only be on the elevator for a minute, etc. If we are in a reality where anti-mask sentiment not only exists but can be high, it’s interesting to note that a key part (5 days) of the new guidelines will depend on peoples’ good will to mask up. This as opposed to what it used to be, which was a longer isolation period (which hopefully would be backed by paid sick leave or something so it doesn’t do harm to people to step away from work) so the mask doesn’t have to make up for what the isolation didn’t catch. (Btw, It’s possible if one is the type to ignore CDC rules about isolation in the first place, one isn’t the type to wear a mask anyway, and if one does strictly abide by CDC guidelines, there’s a chance one might be a great mask wearer).

There’s another really nice post/graphic about where masks should be in this fight based on the hierarchy of controls. It’s a bit blurry but it’s in order from top to bottom as most effective: Elimination, physically remove the hazard, Subsitution, replace the hazard, Engineering Controls, separate people from the hazard (isolate, emphasis mine), Administrative Controls, change the way people work, and PPE, protect the worker with personal protective equipment (mask up). Masking, while important (necessary), is less effective than isolation in controlling spread.

TLDR; the guidelines seem to have taken 5 of the original days of isolation and replaced them with 5 masking days. However, isolation is more effective than masking in preventing spread, especially when given the possibility of noncompliance with proper masking.

4) This one is more nebulous but. The post seems to skip over... idk trying to stop Covid from spreading as much as is possible. And moves on to trying to minimize its effect on work life/the economy.

Note: I use the words *feels like* a lot in the following. Dr. Jha actually has the position that the pandemic is here to stay and we should all adjust around it because there’s no going back to 2019. He’s not saying we should give up common sense measures like vaccination and masking, but he has said we should try to “manage the pandemic” and stop “pining for a past that isn’t coming back”. And this CDC guideline feels like a general acceptance of this, like a management decision or something, taking into account ideal medical isolation on the one hand and real people’s tolerances of isolation on the other and coming down somewhere in the middle. But it seems like that middle errs on the side of dealing with Covid as if it’s inevitable, not as if it’s on its way out or could be in the near future. It’s like the fight to win is taking too long, so some kind of peaceful coexistence treaty is being drawn up. The goalpost moved from ‘aim for Covid free’ to now ‘if the person has waited long enough (and seems fine)’, let them back to work. And it was proposed amidst/justified by a concern about getting people back into the workplace. But (hopefully this isn’t naive) isn’t... what gets people back to work good health? (and a good job?). People still need to eat, pay for rent, pay for gas, Covid didn’t change that. So if they’re healthy and feel like their workplace is safe, they will work, and the economy will take care of itself (hopefully).

It seemed like there was a problem of ‘people not being able to work’. But it was read as ‘people aren’t able to work because they’re being forced to stay at home by guidelines’ instead of ‘people aren’t able to work because they’re sick’. I guess it depends on how you read the problem (is the issue the guidelines of Covid or Covid itself), but you might approach the solution differently.

It brought to mind that one post on twitter which i can’t find the link to (I tried though) that said if you’ve gone all this time without Covid, you’re weird/different/the exception. And I was like???? No??? It’s about 15% in the US and best I can tell about 4% (3.7% or so) worldwide who have ever had it. Maybe Covid is around, but it’s not unavoidable or okay or normal. It might be difficult, but I think fighting Covid itself is valuable. As always, we have to think of those who are not vaccinated, or cannot be vaccinated (the immunocompromised, the very young, the religious exemptions) and need to go through other pills/therapies to get a defense. (I’m not one of these people who can’t be vaccinated, and I don’t mean to use them as like a shield to defend my thoughts about the guidelines; I just want to mention that it’s not only the vaccinated who are affected by the spread of Omicron). This is besides the ~5%-60% of people who experience long Covid (depending on who you ask) even after the infection is gone. Letting these attitudes proliferate feels like we’ve... given up or something, which is part of why I wanted to write this.

Also what happens if something more awful than Covid ever surfaces down the line and we don’t take the opportunity now to train ourselves to act right during a pandemic? To the extent that is reasonable, maybe we need to try to fight and fight well against Covid now and not be too quick to slide into an ‘acceptance/management’ mentality

TLDR; So many people sick with Covid that essential services are affected might be an indication that something might need updating about the current approach to preventing spread, infection, and sickness, not an indication that we need to tolerate its presence and clear people to return to work faster.

5) This one is again hard to put into words, but. The post seems to gloss over the idea of getting better from Covid.

Similar to above, I’m not sure where this leaves the discussion of like, healing completely from Covid. As the focus is on rapid antigen testing and contagiousness, are PCRs (which measure presence of virus in the body) just not relevant as The Test That Needs To Be Passed to go back to work? I’m hearing/reading 2 negative antigens 24 hours apart a lot. And that’s good, definitely; a negative antigen is great but isn’t a negative PCR better? Anyway, in the examples I tend to hear on the news, I think the CDC guideline helps someone who say, has one job and has to attend it in order to make rent, and they don’t have 10 sick days back to back saved up like that, and they’re cleared (no symptoms, no contagiousness) after 5 days, so why use a guideline that keeps them at home? Or someone who has an essential job that cannot be performed from home (like a doctor) who is cleared after 5 days. For these cases, sure, I see how the guideline helps. But I’m wondering, if someone is out sick with Covid, (in general) shouldn’t they be allowed to stay out until they’re not (PCR) sick anymore? Even if they’re asymptomatic?

I feel like there are some people out there who are itching to go back to work the moment their symptoms clear. But for others, it might be important to not just have ‘no symptoms’ but to have ‘no Covid’. I don’t know that this current wording of the guideline helps this second group of people. Instead, it seems to (not literally, but in some sense figuratively? colloquially? idk), changes the shorthand, the language about Covid from ‘10 days off’ to ‘5 days off and 5 days mask’, with an asterisk about being asymptomatic. I think the latter might not intend to, but it gives the employer ammunition to want someone back sooner than they might be ready to go. (Like the flight attendants who are not comfortable with going to work under the newer guidelines).

It’s weird how it’s possible the guideline could push people away from work by sending the message that their coworkers might be coming into the workplace sick and they themselves have less time to care for their health if they contract Covid (ie making people nervous to be at work might perpetuate the very problem the new guidelines were attempting to solve)? Again, yeah, it’s an interesting shift in the discussion to like go away from aiming for back to work after healing from Covid to aiming for back to work as soon as possible after infection.

TLDR; I’m not sure where the focus on antigen testing leaves the conversation about fully healing from Covid. Is 2 negative antigen tests 24 hours apart the same thing as being Covid free? Is it possible your body is finishing off the fight with the infection, so you could benefit from the rest and hydration that comes with staying home even though there’s not enough levels of virus to be considered contagious anymore?

6) This is just a curiosity, I wanted to check my understanding. It seems like the post really espouses/depends on the strength of the antigen test in detecting Covid contagiousness (See tweet 9, “antigen tests are contagiousness tests”). But while being highly useful and very accurate, they are known to give false negatives (you have Covid but test negative) I was wondering if the infectious period is defined as what is detectable by lateral flow/rapid antigen tests (they seem to overlap perfectly on the chart)? If so, then what happens if the antigen tests ever fails to detect a variant? Maybe another way to put it is does the shape of that graph’s curve change for Omicron v. Delta v. whatever variant might hopefully never come next? Is 5 days always okay?

FWIW, if it was possible and wouldn’t like hurt people or be outrageously expensive or something like that, I feel like we should switch our approach to Covid from like, mask up, wash hands, but generally ignore it unless it is happening to us/someone we know/we have to take a flight. A shift towards like, societally taking a wholesale get-this-thing-out-of-our-lives approach I think would be something to consider. Maybe:

In addition to doing what we can about vaccination and masking (making these things normal and available and data-driven and not an indication of your political leanings),

Make testing widely available so it can be not just a practice for those who feel sick (it appears you don’t need to feel sick to be contagious and by the time you do feel sick, contagiousness might already be on its way out) but like a regular check-in everyone can do, sick or not.

Make it easier for people to work and live (and be entertained and thrive emotionally etc) remotely. Nothing feels like in-person interaction, but give us the option? To be safe? Instead of insisting that in-person is the only path forward, thereby inadvertently giving our employers the tools to badger us into making unsafe decisions. (Obviously not every job can be done from home, so only to the extent we can).

If people are sick, essential workers or not, let them stay home confidently (no fear of losing houses, jobs, favor, falling behind in school etc) so that we can attack the Thing at higher levels of effective control, namely isolation, instead of depending on masking to cover them when they get back.

Generally speaking, and this is obviously long term, build a society (education, energy, transportation, city planning, food, etc) more resistant to pandemics.

TLDR; I like the post, the graph especially, because it explained where the 5 days comes from and gave context to the CDC announcement. It seems like the new recommendation was motivated by a desire to prevent unnecessary work suspension for people in essential working positions (hospitals, flight attendants, wastewater treatment, etc) due to rules about isolation. But the timing/motivation, to get people back to work in the midst of a Covid surge, makes me feel like the emphasis has moved from trying to stop individuals from spreading Covid in the first place to accepting that Covid is here and working through it (likely to the benefit of economic interests), instead. The conversation is shifting.

[hangrypa]

s/p first year as a PA

I was hired as a hospitalist primarily for the transplant service. However, in the setting of the pandemic and staffing shortages, I am all over the place now and work in almost everything non-pediatric and non-surgical. 

In my first few months as a PA, I was incredibly overwhelmed. I went from being a learner who switches specialties every month to a fully-fledged provider making life-or-death decisions on an hourly basis. Oftentimes I’d find myself in the room of a patient actively crumping, surrounded by the patient’s family and multiple nurses awaiting instructions on what to do to save the patient. I thought that I faced a lot of pressure in school, but it was nothing compared to this. 

And just when I started to get a hang of it all, the pandemic hit. What a nightmare. As mentioned above, I was hired to work with with transplant patients. Prior to the pandemic, my transplant colleagues and I were masking and gowning for almost every patient: 1 surgical mask and 1 gown per patient and per patient encounter. But once COVID hit, we were rationing PPE. 1 N95, 1 pair of goggles, and 1 face shield for the pandemic. 1 surgical mask per week, and 1 gown only if a patient had Cdiff or a history of MDRO bacteremia.

What did the pandemic mean for our transplant patients? 

Our patients are on immunosuppressant medications to prevent transplant rejection. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult for them to fight infections. 

Our department did what it could to prevent COVID. We'd test patients on admission for COVID, regardless of symptoms or exposure history. If they were positive, they went to the COVID team and quarantined on their unit for a period of time and had to test negative before returning to our unit and being transplanted. We took many other measures to reduce COVID risk to the best of our ability. 

People still died. To see someone get transplanted successfully and then die of a virus is horrifying. Unfortunately, despite our admission tests, sometimes patients contracted COVID within the hospital. Patients would be happily FaceTiming their family one moment, telling them all of their plans for once they were discharged- then the next day they'd be intubated. We tried Remdesivir, Dexamethasone, prone positioning, etc. But the virus moved through them quickly, and these efforts often were too late. No amount of hoping and praying brought them back. 

As a first year PA, I learned to go to an empty conference room, close the door, and remove my mask before calling to the family of the deceased. This way, as they gathered around the phone in their homes, the family could hear me unmuffled as I delivered the news. Also, this way my tears didn't ruin my mask for the rest of the week. 

I learned a lot this year. It's been a mixture of crying and laughing. There are times that I question why I ever became a PA, and then there are times when this career feels like home. In addition to transplant, I’ve also been working in the  ED, IMC, ICU, inpatient hospice, clinic, and infusion center these past 6 months. I’ve learned quite a lot along the way.

Lessons learned as a first year PA:

1. Check your pager hourly: This is in addition to checking it whenever you get paged. Sometimes I’ll get paged while I’m rounding, read it, and then forget about it. Now I go through my pager at every hour to ensure that I already responded to all my pages and then answer ones that I missed/forgot.  On a semi-related note, a while back I wrote about good paging etiquette.

2. Let people know when you're out: I work a rotating schedule. As a result, it’s hard to predict when I’m in or out of the hospital. Sometimes I’ll come back on service and find urgent emails or texts that are a few days old. Now I leave an away message with my return date and my supervisor’s contact information on both email and hospital text. If someone really needs to get a hold of me, my supervisor has my personal cell phone number.

3. Be conscientious of what time you consult: I generally try to get all of my nonurgent consults done before 3pm. Many services have only 1 resident covering after 3pm, so I try not to page/call unless I have an emergency. 

4. Call the nurse if something needs to be done urgently: Being a nurse means being the ultimate multitasker. Room 5 is due for his IV Amphotericin, Room 2's Foley is supposed to come out prior to void trial with Urology, Room 1's infusion completed and is beeping, and Room 4 is a bit altered and yanked out her PICC. Now I’m placing an order for Room 3 to get IV Lasix due to concern for pulmonary edema. However, the nurse may be preoccupied with Room 4 and not see the order in the computer for some time. If I really need to the patient to get the Lasix right way, I’ll place the order through EMR and then call the nurse and see what their situation is. If they’re crazy busy with Room 4 and likely to be unable to get to the Lasix within the next 15min, I ask whether they’re okay with me asking another nurse to give the Lasix now. Usually the answer is yes.

5. Value your nurses: Nurses know the patient best. They’re the ones answering call bells, giving meds, doing dressing changes, etc. Unfortunately they oftentimes bear the brunt of everyone’s frustrations, from patients to patients’ families to attendings to managers. Not to mention, they’re the ones doing the dirty work. Bedside nurses are the heartbeat of healthcare, but they also are high risk for burnout. Always support your nurses, whether that’s volunteering to answer a patient’s family member’s 17th phone call of the day or responding to a patient’s call bell yourself. 

6. Know how to get a hold of someone quickly: It’s less than ideal to page someone repeatedly. At my hospital, if I need to talk to an attending urgently, I call the operator and ask them to connect me directly to the attending’s cell phone. If a patient is crashing and we’re not in the ICU, I dial the emergency number and call a rapid response, which sends people running into my patient’s room. 

7. Plan your discharge meds from Day 1: The goal of every admission is to treat the patient and then discharge them safely. Send medications early for prior auth and call the pharmacy to make sure that they have medications in stock. (One time a patient’s insurance didn’t cover Levofloxacin, of all things.) 

8. Keep social work and care coordination aware of all needs from the start: Does your patient looks unsteady? Place a PT/OT consult and let social work and care coordination know that the patient might require home therapy services and/or DME so that they can start looking at services and companies that may be covered by insurance. Does your patient have a central line? They’ll likely need a home health service to teach them how to care for it daily at home. Do they seem to require frequent transfusions? They’ll probably need labs on discharge. Is the patient’s living situation safe (no heat/AC, possible abuse at home, financial difficulties, etc)? They may need alternative housing.

9. The attending is not always right: Generally speaking, the attending has the last say on how the team manages a patient. However, I’ve come across situations in which an attending’s decision put a patient in more danger. Sometimes asking them about their decision can help steer the care plan toward better patient care. Other times you just have to stand your ground and be okay with being on the receiving end of an attending’s misdirected rant. Report these instances to your manager and to other higher-ups.

10. Always have gloves in your pocket: You never know when you’ll find a mess. Or which part of the body someone asks you to examine. Or how hygienic a person is (or is not).

11. Verify weird vitals: I was very new when I walked into work, opened a patient’s chart, and promptly bolted down the hallway when I saw a patient’s O2 sats recorded as 15-20s. I found the patient sitting up in bed, eating breakfast, and bewildered by me bursting into the room. Turns out that overnight someone mistakenly recorded his respirations as the O2 sats.

12. Remove whatever tubes you can: Anything entering the body is an infection risk. Does your patient still need that Foley placed by the surgery team? No? Yank it (don’t actually yank because ouch). Is your patient A&O and able to eat without aspirating? Remove the NG tube. Does your patient have good veins and require infrequent transfusions/labwork? Pull their central line.

13. Take a buddy with you to emergencies: Two heads are better than one. Even if you’re a seasoned provider and well-equipped to manage an emergency, you might need another body to help with performing CPR, making urgent calls, grabbing supplies, etc. 

14. Ask your patients about premeds for procedures: We all have different levels of pain tolerance. A procedure goes far more smoothly if your patient is comfortable. Note: if you’re going to premed with Ativan or an opiate in the outpatient setting, make sure they have a driver.

15. Be good to your charge nurse and unit secretary: I don’t know how they do it. If I had to manage the unit’s signout, patient complaints, calls from other floor, being yelled at by providers, verifying paper orders, and finding beds for incoming patients- all at the same time - I’d lose my mind. 

16. If your patient is mad, just shut up and listen: There are many things that you can’t control: the time it takes for a patient to get a room, the temperature of hospital food, the dismissive attitude of your attending, etc. And oftentimes the patient knows this. My reflex is to want to apologize for things and overexplain why different things are happening. But sometimes the patient just needs to rant. Take a step back and just listen. That can make all the difference.

17. Fact check your notes: The framework for your progress note often is the note from the day prior. It sounds obvious, but make sure that you go through the note and make updates and changes accordingly. If today is 01/15, there’s a good chance that the Fungitell from 12/31 is not still pending. 

18. Try to learn some nursing skills: This is one of the areas in which I most envy my NP colleagues. If a patient’s IV pump is beeping or their central line need to be flushed, I oftentimes awkwardly step out of the room and look vacantly into the distance for a nurse. I’ve finally figured out how to spike a bag (albeit I do so very slowly, and it certainly makes the RNs giggle some). I talked to our unit’s nurse manager, and she’s willing for me to learn some nursing skills from the staff during a slow day- we’ll see when thing slow down!

19. Be kind: Generally speaking, being in a hospital is stressful. Patients are feeling out of sorts, and staff are working with constant dinging in the background. I rant plenty on this website, but I’m kind to everyone at work (with few exceptions) because it makes things more comfortable for everyone. Additionally, if you are always kind to your patients and colleagues, your reputation will speak for itself. One time I was walking down a hall with poor reception while on my ASCOM with a notoriously standoffish nurse from another unit. My phone cut out. She called my unit’s nurse manager to complain, and the nurse manager told her that I would never hang up on purpose. My interactions with the nurse going forward were always more pleasant in nature.

20. Support your team: The best colleagues are not the smartest colleagues; the best coworkers are the ones who have your back. Whether it’s a medical emergency or just a strange situation, it’s important to be supported and to give support.

I know that I’ve learned a lot more than this, so I’ll likely be adding to this throughout the year. Happy Snow Day, all!

[wasthereamassshootingtoday]

COVID- 3/12 Update

Wow! A lot can change in so little time, can’t it? But not all for the bad!

Almost 63,000 of the 81,000 cases in China have recovered! Around 3,000 people have died and the rest are still recovering. Those are very good numbers! Especially considering that cases in China appear to have leveled off. This is a good sign.

As of 3/12/2020 7:16pm EST, there are 1,315 active cases in the United States. 373 of these have been in Washington State and 216 in New York.

However, only 7,695 people have been tested for COVID in the United States. This is an alarmingly low number and signals to me that we have many more cases in the US that re not yet reported to due to the lack capability of our current medical infrastructure to perform COVID tests quickly.

Per capita, the US performs 23 tests per million people. Compare this to South Korea who is running 3,692 tests per million people. Our testing capability is only 16,000. This delay in testing is dangerous and will lead to further disease spread. We cannot be truly sure of how many people in the US have COVID right now and we likely won’t have true numbers until the outbreak has passed. Visit this link for more information.

Please visit this website for the most up-to-date information, maps, and statistics.

As you have probably heard, there have been some major COVID developments in the news recently.

Firstly, Italy has entered a nationwide lock-down. All nonessential travel and group gatherings have been halted through April 3rd in an effort to curb the outbreak. My friend in Italy tells me there are high fines for being outside without a good reason. Many “nonessential” shops and services have been shut down.

This is in response to the spike in COVID deaths in the country, which killed almost 800 people in 24 hours. The current death toll is around 1,000. There are about 12,500 reported cases in Italy thus far. This appears to be an extremely high mortality rate, especially when the rest of the world is hovering at 2-4% and for Italy it is around 8%.

There are many reasons this rate appears so high and why the outbreak there is worse that in so many countries and this article explains it all well. Basically, Italy is older than many other European countries, the fact that the disease was going around for a while without people realizing, and they tested a lot of people recently explains a lot of the high rate of disease there.

I have a feeling that the number of cases will continue to rise but the death rate will decrease. People with mild cases tend not to go to the doctor and there are asymptomatic carriers transmitting the disease as well. So in times like this were the disease is still relatively new and tests can only be done so fast, many milder cases no diagnosed. This makes the death rate seem higher than it is. So don’t panic. Italy is having a pretty bad outbreak right now, but the mortality rate will even out and the government has input good disease control measures.

Second thing in the news: no more travel from Europe to the US for a month! (Except Great Britain) Trump inputted this measure to prevent further disease spread after being called out for his inaction. I hate to agree with Trump on anything and I find just about everything he has said about the disease insensitive and borderline inane, but I think this was a decent move.

Thirdly, sports. I know nothing about sports, but apparently the NCAA Tournament was canceled, the NHL suspended its season, and the MLB is halting spring training. So there’s that. This is part of something public health workers call social distancing. Basically, you stop large crowds of people from forming as not to further spread disease.

Fourth, the economy? Apparently the DOW is tanking. I know less about economics than I do about sports so I will let someone else explain this.

Next, hoarding! This is not the apocalypse so please stop buying mass quantities of soap, hand sanitizer, canned goods, masks, and toilet paper. It is not helping and is causing shortages. You won’t need all of it. Please stop. This is creating further panic and creating more stress and disruptions.

Lastly, WHO has declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Don’t be alarmed. This is not a measure of disease severity, but rather just how far it has spread. This does not change the disease; it is merely a classification that will hopefully spur global action. We actually have several pandemics currently going on, such as HIV/AIDS and cholera, which has been ongoing for many years. The last declared outbreak was H1N1 in 2009.

Shout out to all my college kids out there! Following the lead of Harvard, many colleges around the country are shutting down, extending spring breaks, or moving to online classes. Personally, my university announced today that it is moving to online classes after spring break. I think this is an overreaction, but is is an effective means of stopping disease spread. So, there’s that.

Also, coronaviruses have existed for decades (they are the most cause of the common cold). Think of the term coronavirus like dogs, and COVID, SARS, and MERS and MERS are breeds of dogs. COVID is merely a sub-type of coronavirus. It is new and likely came from a live animal market.

So all those Facebook people declaring that coronavirus is governmental conspiracy because it appears on the back of a Lysol bottle are wrong. COVID was also not created in a lab, it was not designed to distract from an election, and it is not from bioterrorism.

Sometimes diseases just occur. It happens. It is actually very common for imaginal viruses to spillover and spread into humans. (COVID likely went from bat to pangolin to human, mutating along the way). It happens all the time; this virus just happened to be a bit more popular than the others.

Finally, the disease itself. It is not the flu. Please stop saying it is. COVID causes fever, cough, and shortness of breath. If you are young (<65) and not immunocompromised you will likely have a short illness and be fine relatively quickly. If you are in an at-risk demographic, then you have the possibility of developing pneumonia and having an extended hospital stay.

I know all of this sounds really scary! People are reacting very strongly, the media is stirring up panic, and our government is focused on the wrong things. But you will be alright. Just practice everyday precautions:

1. Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds after touching your face, using the bathroom, coming in contact with a sick person, handling food, etc.

2. Wear a face mask ONLY if you are sick.

3. Don’t hang out around sick people.

4. Don’t be around other people if you are sick.

5. Avoid large gatherings and unnecessary travel when you can.

6. And above all don’t panic. You will be fine. Just use reasonable precautions and use your common sense.

Stay safe and healthy everyone!

[kuramirocket]

It’s been more than a month since Frank Coronado got COVID-19, but the photographer from Oaxaca, Mexico, still gasps for air when he speaks sometimes. Although his illness didn’t put him in the hospital, his case was severe enough that he worried about suffocating in his sleep.

Coronado’s personal experience with the coronavirus has made the Oaxaca native sensitive to the pandemic situation in the state. As he watched case numbers continuing to rise, he also noticed more tourists defying widely practiced public-health protocols like wearing face masks in public.

On Feb. 25, Coronado posted a plea to his 171,000 Instagram followers: “Dear travelers, you are welcome in Oaxaca, but you should ALWAYS wear a mask when you are in public places.”

He wanted to publicly address the issue and encourage visitors to do better – particularly visitors who travel from Oaxaca City into smaller rural villages, where artisans are even more vulnerable.

“I get mad because I already went through (COVID-19) and know how bad it feels,” Coronado says. “I don’t want my people, the people of Oaxaca, to get sick.”

Unlike many of the world’s most-frequented tourism hot spots, Mexico never fully closed to foreign visitors. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said Americans should avoid all travel to Mexico because of a “very high level” of coronavirus, the country has remained one of the most popular destinations throughout the pandemic.

Still, Mexico tourism plummeted last spring as it did around the globe; according to the state government, Oaxaca recorded less than half of its 2019 visitor arrival numbers in 2020. Numbers picked up again last summer, but welcoming outsiders back as the pandemic continues to rage has been complicated.

While Oaxaca doesn’t pull in nearly as many visitors as Mexican destinations such as Cancún, Acapulco or Mexico City, tourism is a significant part of its economy. Those who work in the industry have suffered.

With business trickling back, Sánchez is elated. He took coronavirus prevention courses by the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) and guided his first tour again on Oct. 20. Now he follows precautions such as checking guests’ temperatures, requiring face masks, social distancing and providing hand sanitizer. He also helps Americans get their mandatory coronavirus tests.

Most of his returning customers have complied with his safety protocols. But that’s not the case with all of the tourists he sees around town, like the Americans who refused to wear a mask at the request of an ice cream vendor, or the people who regularly break coronavirus rules at Monte Albán, Oaxaca’s most famous archaeological site.

“As soon as they go through the checkpoint, 30 steps after that, they take their masks off,” Sánchez says. “And most of them are foreigners.”

Beyond Monte Albán and Oaxaca City, Oaxaca’s artisan culture is one of its strongest selling points. It’s common for tourists to take day trips out to remote villages to see how the state’s famed mezcal alcohol, and arts and crafts, are made. With little access to medical care, those communities have been particularly vulnerable during the pandemic. Many closed to outsiders to protect themselves, but some have started welcoming back visitors for income despite the risk involved.

Omar Alonso, who has run food and mezcal tours in Oaxaca for seven years, says visiting rural communities can be done safely with the small private groups he vets ahead of time. But he regularly runs into the kinds of tourists he fears.

For example, Alonso says he often sees maskless foreigners in the mountain town of San José Del Pacifico between Oaxaca City and the beach.

“If you are going through a town where there’s locals and older people serving you food because that’s what they do for a living, it’s very frustrating because (foreigners) don’t respect them,” says Alonso, whose uncle died of COVID-19. “I can tell you that yesterday, when we went to have lunch, out of the maybe 20 tourists that we saw walking around town, maybe two of them had a mask.”

Vera Claire, a U.S. expat whose nonprofit Cosa Buena works with local Indigenous communities to preserve their artistic traditions, says she believes some tourists’ perception of Mexico could be the problem.

“I think there’s a stereotype of (Mexico) being a place with no rules, a place to have fun and relax and enjoy yourself,” she says. She regularly receives messages on social media or emails from strangers asking for Oaxaca travel advice, noting that they need to get away and forget about their lives in the United States for a while, she says.

“That’s a really dangerous narrative, of course, because they come here with that mentality that there’s no rules,” Claire says. “Those of us who are foreigners living here all have a responsibility of shedding light on the severity of the situation. … Mexico is beautiful. It’s a wonderful place to escape to. But the same thing is happening here.”

The frequency of spotting maskless tourists in Oaxaca City is increasing despite the prevalence of signs encouraging masks and most locals complying with the practice, Claire says. It’s unsettling as the coronavirus seems to be encroaching on her community.

It’s impossible to know exact case numbers in the area as testing is limited. But it was reported in January that hospitalizations in Oaxaca for COVID-19 were rising rapidly, with 13 hospitals in the state at full capacity and facing a desperate oxygen tank shortage, a problem plaguing more than Oaxaca.

“It’s a dramatic situation, and it’s not something tourists are seeing,” he says. “This is a harsh reality that doesn’t show up on Instagram.”

Reyes said he thinks the worst offenders are young tourists. He has watched them come from around the world to travel along a well-worn party circuit through Mexico City, Tulum and Oaxaca, attending huge, mask-free gatherings and putting locals at risk.

“It sends a really sad, de-motivating message to locals who are taking care of each other,” Reyes says. “We are all trying to keep it together, and these guys are flying around the city enjoying themselves and not taking care of us.”

Many in Oaxaca City don’t have the luxury of isolating from tourists – like Aurora Tostado, who owns the downtown coffee shop Marito & Moglie with her husband.

“People in Mexico, we have to get out of our homes to work. It’s not like we can work remotely like most of the people in the U.S.,” Tostado says.

The couple made adjustments to Marito & Moglie, moving more tables to an outside patio and encouraging customers to keep masks on and social distance. Insisting on safety protocols is something that makes her and her employees feel more comfortable at work, and something most guests appreciate – but Tostado notices others around town behaving as if the pandemic is over. “This is not Disneyland,” she would like to tell them.

[magsgoestocollege]

Mags has gone back to school

Well folks. I done did it. I have managed to go back to school after more than a year and a half away, and boy, was it a little bit of a culture shock. I forgot how easily overwhelmed I get in situations with a lot of people, even more so with the pandemic.

I went to training in an auditorium with probably 70-100 people, which is the most I’d been around indoors in a non-socially distanced setting a long time. We were all vaccinated and masked, but still. By day 2 I was getting noticeably more overwhelmed, not helped by the fact that the moderator was BLASTING the fucking music right over my head at an ungodly volume. At a seminar about accessibility and inclusion no less. 

Still, though, training went great, and I got to welcome my new residents smiling and dancing on the front porch just like I dreamed. It was honestly such a joy. I’ve loved getting to know them and the other people in the house, and I’m hoping to bond with them a little more as the year goes on. 

I was talking to one of my international students and I told her I just wanted them all to be safe and happy and she said, “We are happy! Because of you!” and I almost teared up on the spot. Then, tonight, another of my first years knocked on my door with a few friends at 10:30 with homemade crepes with Nutella and banana and whipped cream to say thank you for doing a good job. I  actually did tear up. 

In terms of classes, I’ve only had one so far. A linguistics course targeted toward future teachers, of which I am not. But I love linguistics and I love the professor so I’ll take it for fun. I’m taking two intro courses that I didn’t take my first year because I was taking upper-level classes in other areas of study more targeted toward my major. And I just got off the waitlist for the course I really really wanted to take but didn’t get in to, so I’m THRILLED about that. It covers a very niche area of interest of mine that I’m outrageously excited to explore.

Plus, three of my closest friends are in the class, and I hope that’ll go well too.

Speaking of friends, it’s SO weird seeing them in person. People I only met on Zoom have real, physical forms. Who knew? Every time I see someone I recognize from two years ago during my first semester time seems to unfreeze a little more. Like clock gears gradually grinding away the rust. It’s surreal, honestly. Sometimes the relationship is just as I left it, and other times, I get awkward greetings and insincere smiles. (Namely from old housemates from when I moved early in spring 2020. No regrets at all.)

I’m auditioning for a musical this week that two of my best friends are directing, and I’m planning to set design a mainstage musical for the theatre department next spring which is a HUGE deal, especially considering I’m a sophomore and it’s a musical, which 1) our department simply does not do and 2) is notoriously challenging to design. Still, though, my other best friend is directing that, and I’m excited to work with her. 

Adapting to campus life isn’t quite as hard as I thought it was going to be. I think because there are fewer unknowns. At least major ones. There’s still the issue of not knowing what's open and closed due to COVID restrictions and whatnot. And getting tested twice a week isn't ideal, but quite literally better safe than sorry. The most annoying part is getting food just because the dining hall hours vary and half of them are closed, so the whole campus is squeezed into a few dining halls, creating long lines and some shortages. 

But things like class locations, laundry, and good outdoor study spots are still the same, and that’s nice. 

I got to go downtown today and explore a little, and it’s definitely weird thinking I haven’t been here in a year and a half and I still somehow have three years of college left to go. I’m excited to see where it takes me, but part of me is itching to get into the real world. The other part says savor this time while you can, and I plan on doing just that. 

Here’s a picture of the crepes my first year gave me because I’m still soft about it.