#stop spreading covid

[feminist-space]

"Boston COVID Action Winter Surge Hotline:

(617) 652-0022

What is the Surge Hotline? Who is it for?

The Surge Hotline is a temporary, volunteer-run text and voicemail-based hotline for people in the Boston area created to respond to the Winter 2023 COVID surge.

Please only contact the hotline if you are in emergency need of high-filtration masks and/or tests due to a COVID infection or exposure. All supplies will be provided for free as soon as possible. We ask those without an emergent need to use our standard Request Form in order to keep the hotline responsive to needs that can’t wait more than a few days.

*If you are unsure whether you should contact the hotline, contact us!*"

[rathockey]

on my hands and knees begging my book club to mask

[checkoutmybookshelf]

...well crap, we DID romanticize tuberculosis. Let's not do that with Covid OR Twitter. I am Sisyphus, screaming for people to wear masks at all times indoors and outdoors when distancing isn't possible is my rock.

Please please please wear n95s, guys. Take it from someone with an autoimmune disease and asthma, you don't want to get sick and never get better or struggle to breathe. Wear the mask.

I miss interacting with John and Hank on Twitter since they’ve left but now I’m not on Twitter either much so I guess that’s a good thing.

Hi, limeshy dash blog. I am a big fan of tumblrs with -blog usernames.

Sometimes I hear people say, like, "Those early days of the pandemic were so beautiful--just being at home with family" blah blah blah blah. Like, humans can romanticize anything.

I mean, we romanticized tuberculosis, a disease that forces you to drown yourself. We were like, "Oh, sure, it strangles you from within, but it gives you such rosy cheeks. It makes you so delightfully thin. It quickens the human wit. The only reason Moulin Rouge Lady was so beautiful is because of tuberculosis. The only reason Keats was so great was because of tuberculosis. Oh, the glory of suffering!"

Our capacity for sentimentalization is simply unparalleled.

There are things I miss about twitter, too, but I do not miss the thing itself. God help me if I ever look back on twitter with fond wistfulness.

[otherbombdotcom]

Accepting that we are all going to repeatedly contract a virus that causes cumulative vascular damage, is accepting that the most vulnerable among us will die. Layered covid mitigations, starting with wearing a high quality respirator, says no to preventable infections and "acceptable" death.

Image Description: Dark grey and red text over a grey scale background. The background is an image of an N95 respirator. The dark grey text reads, "Say NO to preventable infections". Red text offset behind the grey text reads, "Acceptable death".

[olive-nothere]

It’s kind of insane (and unfortunately predictable) how western society acts when it comes to public health, specially after the pandemic. The amount of times I see people not wearing masks when they’re visibly sick or see people say they don’t want to wear masks because it’s uncomfortable to wear… you know what’s actually very uncomfortable and outdoes your feelings about wearing masks? BEING SICK.

Seriously, it should not be controversial or considered weird to wear masks when you’re sick; it should be THE BARE MINIMUM TO WEAR A MASK WHEN YOU’RE SICK, COVID OR NOT. How any of these people are able to go outside while sick and not care about other people’s health is insane to me. Despite the obvious fact that being sick affects everyone’s health, what about the people who are most vulnerable?

Wearing masks while sick should be the norm and honestly we as a collective should shame people who are sick and not wearing a mask in public.

[covid-conscious-and-silly]

masked selfie time!! first pic looks a little weird because i'm trying to figure out how much anonymity i want on here hehe

yes, i made the top i'm wearing in the second pic! and both masks are from WellBefore; i really like the coverage of their KF94-style KN95s!

Image Descriptions:

Image 1: Mitchie walking outside wearing a white KN95 mask, white headphones, and black floral romper. There is a black bar drawn over their eyes, and the background is blurred.

Image 2: Mitchie lying on a blanket wearing floral sunglasses and a white KF94-style KN95 mask. They are also wearing a necklace made of tiny shells and a cream-colored crochet top.

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

Hiii I hope youre doing alright. <3 I remember you mentioning you use a certain mouth wash to help with covid protection and Im just wondering what mouth wash it was? Im not sure what ingredients to look for so I figured Id ask. Tysm for the help! I hope this isnt too annoying to respond to. 😅🙈

Hi I love asks like these bc I love sharing information and this is straightforward n easy to answer!! I hope you don't mind me answering publicly bc I think more people should know about this!!

Cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) is the mouthwash ingredient that kills covid virus in the mouth and upper throat!

Ideally paired with other preventatives, it can drastically reduce risk since it reduces the amount of live virus at the point of infection. I use it right after being around people I don't live with, and during long events I have a travel bottle in my purse to refresh every couple hours. I use this mouthwash (under $4 for a big bottle): https://www.walmart.com/ip/Equate-Alcohol-Free-Multi-Action-Antiseptic-Oral-Rinse-Zesty-Mint-33-8-fl-oz/26441079

(If you end up buying it elsewhere, double check for "Cetylpyridinium chloride" in the active ingredients. Some search results are misleading.)

Nose sprays can also help mitigate covid risk: https://www.okdoomer.io/nose-sprays-offer-a-last-line-of-defense/?ref=ok-doomer-newsletter

Fun fact, even if you DO get covid, studies have shown the fewer virus particles you're exposed to when you first get infected, the less severe the infection itself is likely to be for you!!

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

note: i was thinking indoor spaces in particular, but forgot to mention it in the question itself in time!

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

fauci saying “vulnerable people will fall by the wayside” and that some will die but that’s ok because we’re not going to see the “tsunami of cases” we’ve seen before is so dehumanising. so babies with no immune system, elderly people, disabled people, and people without adequate access to healthcare can all die of covid. but it’s ok guys because actually they’re just falling to the wayside and everyone else will go back to normal and be fine (sarcasm).

my death or the deaths of my family or friends wouldn’t be us “falling by the wayside”, it would be us being failed by our government, healthcare systems, and communities who have refused to take coronavirus seriously despite mounting anecdotal and scientific evidence of the harm this virus does. fact that people can accept the deaths of vulnerable groups just because they want to eat in a restaurant or don’t want to wear a mask is horrifying

[affixjoy]

I’m trying so hard to balance protecting my family/educating my extended family and friend group about Covid, and giving my kiddo as normal of a childhood as I can manage and not gonna lie guys, it’s tearing me apart a bit. I think it would be easier to go full Covid cautious and see no one ever or to give it up entirely like everyone else. I’m in this weird middle where we do more than anyone else we know but I know it’s not nearly enough. I exist in this space where I’m always compromising one way or another and it’s really fucking hard.

Things that are bothering me today:

My grandmother in law in her late 90s has Covid and doesn’t understand where she got it. I’ve talked to her a little about wearing a mask before but she was never especially interested so I just kept sending her n95s every now and then and not talking about it much. Today I explained to her how it’s airborne and a lot of spread is asymptomatic and she was shocked. She’s smart! She wants to protect herself! She lives in a nursing home where people should be looking out for her! How many lives could doctors save just by educating people like her on what to do?

My pregnant sister who has already had Covid twice this pregnancy is going back to teaching until she goes into labor. She won’t wear a mask or borrow one of my hepa filters. I’ve explained that she could still catch one of the other variants or any of the other germs her class brings in. She doesn’t care.

Same sister is planning on taking her brand new fresh baby to a wedding about 2-3 weeks after they’re born. She’s said repeatedly that she’ll babywear to protect the baby from germs. As if there aren’t going to be 200 people there breathing on them. And what can I do when her doctors are telling her it’s fine? I feel like even before Covid was a thing it wasn’t smart to take a brand new baby to a huge event like that. But here we are.

Public health has failed us miserably and I’m so sad and angry about it. We need a massive campaign to explain airborne transmission and how to stop it, and it needs to come from the WHO and the CDC and doctors because people like me just get looked at like conspiracy theorists.

[macbxth-pdf]

The worst part about being a Covid conscious queer is the taste of saline + xylitol nasal spray migrating to ya mouth! The things I do to not get sick🤮

[transmascwoman]

it's just depressing how many pride events and whatnot are not practicing any form of covid safety.

[crimeronan]

in a weird place with my illness currently wherein i feel fundamentally alienated from the majority of the online spoonie community because the things happening to my body are so far beyond the scope of chronic fatigue and/or general joint pain that it's like. mindboggling. like we are living fundamentally separate lives like there is very little overlap in our fears or experiences, even when we have some shared symptoms. and at the same time i am fundamentally excluded from online Very Serious Disease (TM) communities because i do not have cancer or a terminal diagnosis and my organ damage has not been quantified yet (even tho several medical professionals have agreed it for sure exists in some form) so i'm not really sick.

i'm just so tired. there's, like..... there are tiers of Feeling Sick when you're chronically ill, and from what i've seen online most spoonies are at a tier of "coping day to day, strategizing," and then people talk about the tier of "if you suddenly unequivocally know that you're going to die extremely soon, you HAVE to go to the hospital, because you are probably right"

there's a middle tier that's more along the lines of "i am not going to die tomorrow but i am going to die. i am helpless and if i don't get help from a doctor i am going to die and i am getting slowly worse because my body is eating itself and/or shutting down because i am going to die. i am in desperate need of immediate medication that i cannot get because i have to wait to see a specialist prescriber and my body will continue to slowly shut down in the meantime and i will continue to slowly die but it will be so slow that nobody will really care"

like where do i go with that what do i do with that. what am i supposed to do about the five-year survival rate for vasculitis being 78% and most of the deaths being people who couldn't see a doctor in time to get the medicine they need. while i'm waiting to see a doctor to get the medicine i need and i'm feeling things get worse and worse. i don't have any community that's going through the same thing because i'm not sick enough but i'm also way way way too sick simultaneously.

i dunno i dunno i dunno. i'm overtired which means that my emotions are fried and people are talking about disability pride month starting tomorrow and that just made me cry because some of my physical issues are so common/widespread that i Should have a community but i just. don't. i don't have a community that's specifically Mine i'm just alone out here or at least that's how it feels. like don't get me wrong i have my family and friends and support network i'm not ALONE alone and all of that is wonderful i just. feel very alone. as far as the current experience goes.

[toytulini]

god im not starting shit on the post but "medical and pharmaceutical companies thank you for your long term patronage" really does not work as a thing to shame anti maskers. this is not a system i get to opt out of even by masking. unfortunately, i really dont think masking is pwning the predatorily priced healthcare system in the usa. especially considering how many of the ppl who are still doing it are unfortunately beholden to it anyway for some other fucking reason. fuck, even if i didnt have medications i take everyday anyway, the company i buy n95s from is a fucking medical /surgical supply company? its such a weird. just. no.

[casperillion]

biggest way i know twt keeps giving me posts that arent relevant to me is that i keep getting served posts saying people should still be masking and that you're risking so many peoples lives if you dont constantly mask

then i went outside today to a hospital and didnt see a single person masking, so i check my local numbers and no where within even like a 4 hour drive has cases over 0.2 per 100 people and no where within 2 hours has anything over 0.08 per 100

and its peak flu season here

[golvio]

Me yesterday night: Huh! I feel a little tired after my COVID shot, but not that bad. Maybe the hangover will be a little easier to deal with this year?

Me, emerging from beneath my weighted blanket this morning: