As we approach the five year mark of the first known case of covid-19, as we contemplate a half decade of watching a novel virus rip through our communities, our countries, our world, I wanted to do a retrospective on the pandemic.
For a society to function it needs trust. I've lost trust in my friends and a good part of my family because of their refusal to mask. I've certainly lost trust in all levels of governance.
Daily I am confronted with people exhibiting poor judgement. I thank my gene pool for my introvert tendencies, since avoiding contact with others is the best survival strategy.
However, the fools that rule us may feel that pandemics are not culling this overpopulated planet quickly enough. Fomenting a nuclear war can fix that.
I get that people can’t keep up with the science re covid. That is the job public health was supposed to do. So my fury is with the establishment that knows better, but kowtows to capitalism. As a member of society, I am being forced to live on a metaphorical island despite the technology available to mitigate the viral threat. Yes, I am an introvert, but even introverts have social needs.
Can we please start treating public air like we treat public water. Every single indoor space should be filtering the air at a viral level. The infrastructure cost will be much smaller than the healthcare cost.
Forcing individual solutions on people is less effective in the long term than systemic solutions. Imagine if we relied on everyone to filter their own water? You would see so much class fracturing like we saw with masks.
Vaccines and masks are only two pieces of much larger societal solutions.
And that makes so much sense considering Covid won’t be the only airborne virus we have to deal with. There’s the regular flu every year, and the bird flu in the future at the rate we’re going preventing (lol) that.
Did you see what Boston Public school has? It’s not exactly what you’re talking about because they’re not cleaning the air, but at least they are monitoring the quality of the indoor air.
Some of the schools show more information than others but in some of them you can look at the individual classrooms at specific hours of the day and see what the air quality reading was.
All resistance to a proper public health response to Covid has been rooted in the profit motive — all of it. From the haste to reduce the period off work after a diagnosis from initially 10 days, to 5 to “when symptoms subside” (never mind asymptomatic spread) all the way to a refusal to take seriously the need to improve indoor air quality infrastructure paralleling the great public works efforts which eliminated the scourge of waterborne diseases all across the Western world over 150 years ago.
And do you know what’s really creepy? There’s a podcast called Swindled and one of their episodes was about a listeria recall for ice cream made in Texas. Bluebell I think? Anyway, in the podcast they were playing old news clips and people were demanding the ice cream be back on the shelves because they were not going to live in fear of ice cream, listeria only hurts the weak anyway. The recall was in 2014 or so, so not that long ago, but it was creepy AF to hear the same ignorant lines we heard about covid.
And you’re right, that was also 100% about mega-corporations’ revenues (and probably tax $ since the governor got in on encouraging people to demand bacteria filled ice cream.)
Thank you for this article Nate - you touched on so much that needs to be said - and I’m grateful you put it all in one place.
I hope people read and take it to heart. I hope they recognize the ongoing devastation being caused by COVID and our refusal to acknowledge that we are still IN a pandemic.
I hope they stop allowing themselves to be inured to the numbers of dead and disabled people - and remember that each one represents someone’s mother, father, grandparent, sister, brother or spouse. Each one was a loved one. A person. A part of society. Someone who deserved our protection
Thank you for continuing to right about the most important issues in our white christian patriarchy society.
All of the distraction why Harris is lost, is exactly that, distraction.
Ask any Black woman in America.
I knew Harris would lose the minute they nominated her. She could have promised everyone 40 acres on the coast of California and a Porsche, electric or gas, suv and she would have lost.
She lost for the same reason my bff isn’t ceo of General Mills or P&G or Colgate or Unilever…(She is the only Afro-Latina CEO of a publicly traded company)
Misogyny and racism.
Regarding abortion. My college roommate, Mexican American, (there weren’t many at UCSB in the early 1980’s) had an abortion shortly after graduation. She and her boyfriend didn’t have the money to raise a child.
She went on to have a successful career, marry someone else and raise 2 amazing daughters who both went to UC Irvine. My roommate’s life would have been drastically different if she had been forced to have the baby.
Not everyone who has an abortion is young or single or in a marginalized group. Or all 3.
There is information on the economics of abortion-
The covid orphans. No one cares about them. They are living in single parent households, being raised by older siblings, relatives, or are in the foster care system. Lost.
Maternal deaths. No one cares about them either. Women. Babies. Unfortunately, there wasn’t and there isn’t a public health campaign about covid and pregnancy.
In the baby loss reddit community, the women post that no one knows why they lost 3 babies in a year. Yes, yes we do know. Covid is deadly to fetuses and pregnant women. The families are begging for money on the internet to pay for healthcare, travel money (premature babies maybe in a hospital hours away from the family’s home) and funerals.
The post covid death numbers are unknown. The people dying from the diseases caused by covid, like cardiac arrest, diabetes, cancer, sepsis, etc. Which are creating more covid orphans.
And next we will have the bird flu. The fda has approved a vaccine, that is not available to the public. Seems like we should start vaccinating now…
My stock of n95 masks has shrunk. I participate in the long covid reddit community and the zero covid community. Often, we are the only people masking. Some mask wearers are mocked by people in healthcare. Dentists don’t wear masks. 😷
Well…I could go on about sars2, maternal deaths, and covid orphans- but it is too depressing and my body can’t make serotonin anymore…cause I had sars2, once.
I wish I could recall which epidemiologist it was who said, early on in the current pandemic, that this wasn't even "the Big One" that had been predicted for years; it would just be the warmup act. And now, with the possibility of a flu pandemic on the horizon, most people have forgotten or thrown away the early lessons learned from COVID, encouraged by trash pseudoscience supported by reactionary politics and dark money. We're all passengers, willing or not, on a ship of fools... Thanks for this timely and articulate piece. You've just gained a new follower.
Thank you for this. It’s maddening. Absolutely maddening. Five fucking years of this that feels like it’s taken 10 years off my life. Our lives have been turned inside out. And we’re still not getting the healthcare we desperately need.
I've noticed myself taking fewer and fewer COVID precautions even though I'm genuinely scared of the virus and understand the risks. Social needs are real and can't be sacrificed indefinitely and the pressure not to mask is overwhelming. I know others who are aware of the risks but take even fewer precautions. Obviously, and as you've been saying for years, we need a collective approach to keep us all safe because as individuals we're incapable of even keeping ourselves safe.
I didn’t forget that I felt like my MECFS was in remission in the spring of 2020 when I didn’t have to run around to doctors appointments every week and I could just do them from home.
I started LDN at the same time so that gets a lot of credit for my “remission”, but now that my providers resist telemedicine I don’t feel remission anymore.
In the US do they get paid less for telehealth visits or are they just cruel and hateful? We are supposed to have extended telemedicine benefits with Medicare until the end of 2025 yet every month I find it harder and harder to get them to do telemedicine.
Not only that but I had a dermatologist at a full body skin check refused to look at any part of my face unless I removed my mask which I refused to do. I won’t be seeing her again, but WTF? I can’t get a second skin check this year unless I want to pay out of pocket so it’s a good thing I wasn’t worried about my face.
Am I still logged into Substack? This post is such nonsense, I am wondering whether I have slipped into another dimension, one in which everyone is full of fear porn and fakery!
You surely don't believe in viruses still? What? After everything we have shown you for 5 years? Are you crazy?
There is no Covid19 virus. There is a mass reaction to the roll out of 5G and that is being misnamed Long Covid or vaccine adverse reactions.
How is it that you have failed to realise that you have been terrorised? Throw out your useless masks and switch off your tell-lie-vision, Smart devices and wifi.
For a society to function it needs trust. I've lost trust in my friends and a good part of my family because of their refusal to mask. I've certainly lost trust in all levels of governance.
Daily I am confronted with people exhibiting poor judgement. I thank my gene pool for my introvert tendencies, since avoiding contact with others is the best survival strategy.
However, the fools that rule us may feel that pandemics are not culling this overpopulated planet quickly enough. Fomenting a nuclear war can fix that.
I get that people can’t keep up with the science re covid. That is the job public health was supposed to do. So my fury is with the establishment that knows better, but kowtows to capitalism. As a member of society, I am being forced to live on a metaphorical island despite the technology available to mitigate the viral threat. Yes, I am an introvert, but even introverts have social needs.
Can we please start treating public air like we treat public water. Every single indoor space should be filtering the air at a viral level. The infrastructure cost will be much smaller than the healthcare cost.
Forcing individual solutions on people is less effective in the long term than systemic solutions. Imagine if we relied on everyone to filter their own water? You would see so much class fracturing like we saw with masks.
Vaccines and masks are only two pieces of much larger societal solutions.
And that makes so much sense considering Covid won’t be the only airborne virus we have to deal with. There’s the regular flu every year, and the bird flu in the future at the rate we’re going preventing (lol) that.
Did you see what Boston Public school has? It’s not exactly what you’re talking about because they’re not cleaning the air, but at least they are monitoring the quality of the indoor air.
Some of the schools show more information than others but in some of them you can look at the individual classrooms at specific hours of the day and see what the air quality reading was.
https://bostonschoolsiaq.terrabase.com/
A wonderfully written essay. Clear and to the point. I wish everyone would read this. :)
Very kind thank you
All resistance to a proper public health response to Covid has been rooted in the profit motive — all of it. From the haste to reduce the period off work after a diagnosis from initially 10 days, to 5 to “when symptoms subside” (never mind asymptomatic spread) all the way to a refusal to take seriously the need to improve indoor air quality infrastructure paralleling the great public works efforts which eliminated the scourge of waterborne diseases all across the Western world over 150 years ago.
All. Of. It.
And do you know what’s really creepy? There’s a podcast called Swindled and one of their episodes was about a listeria recall for ice cream made in Texas. Bluebell I think? Anyway, in the podcast they were playing old news clips and people were demanding the ice cream be back on the shelves because they were not going to live in fear of ice cream, listeria only hurts the weak anyway. The recall was in 2014 or so, so not that long ago, but it was creepy AF to hear the same ignorant lines we heard about covid.
And you’re right, that was also 100% about mega-corporations’ revenues (and probably tax $ since the governor got in on encouraging people to demand bacteria filled ice cream.)
It was Blue Bell
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/swindled/id1308717668i=1000576972658
Thank you for this article Nate - you touched on so much that needs to be said - and I’m grateful you put it all in one place.
I hope people read and take it to heart. I hope they recognize the ongoing devastation being caused by COVID and our refusal to acknowledge that we are still IN a pandemic.
I hope they stop allowing themselves to be inured to the numbers of dead and disabled people - and remember that each one represents someone’s mother, father, grandparent, sister, brother or spouse. Each one was a loved one. A person. A part of society. Someone who deserved our protection
Thank you for continuing to right about the most important issues in our white christian patriarchy society.
All of the distraction why Harris is lost, is exactly that, distraction.
Ask any Black woman in America.
I knew Harris would lose the minute they nominated her. She could have promised everyone 40 acres on the coast of California and a Porsche, electric or gas, suv and she would have lost.
She lost for the same reason my bff isn’t ceo of General Mills or P&G or Colgate or Unilever…(She is the only Afro-Latina CEO of a publicly traded company)
Misogyny and racism.
Regarding abortion. My college roommate, Mexican American, (there weren’t many at UCSB in the early 1980’s) had an abortion shortly after graduation. She and her boyfriend didn’t have the money to raise a child.
She went on to have a successful career, marry someone else and raise 2 amazing daughters who both went to UC Irvine. My roommate’s life would have been drastically different if she had been forced to have the baby.
Not everyone who has an abortion is young or single or in a marginalized group. Or all 3.
There is information on the economics of abortion-
I found a landmark study called the turnaway study- https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study
The covid orphans. No one cares about them. They are living in single parent households, being raised by older siblings, relatives, or are in the foster care system. Lost.
Maternal deaths. No one cares about them either. Women. Babies. Unfortunately, there wasn’t and there isn’t a public health campaign about covid and pregnancy.
In the baby loss reddit community, the women post that no one knows why they lost 3 babies in a year. Yes, yes we do know. Covid is deadly to fetuses and pregnant women. The families are begging for money on the internet to pay for healthcare, travel money (premature babies maybe in a hospital hours away from the family’s home) and funerals.
The post covid death numbers are unknown. The people dying from the diseases caused by covid, like cardiac arrest, diabetes, cancer, sepsis, etc. Which are creating more covid orphans.
And next we will have the bird flu. The fda has approved a vaccine, that is not available to the public. Seems like we should start vaccinating now…
My stock of n95 masks has shrunk. I participate in the long covid reddit community and the zero covid community. Often, we are the only people masking. Some mask wearers are mocked by people in healthcare. Dentists don’t wear masks. 😷
Well…I could go on about sars2, maternal deaths, and covid orphans- but it is too depressing and my body can’t make serotonin anymore…cause I had sars2, once.
A truly frightening scenario. As nice as it would be, I don't think we will remember anything.
I wish I could recall which epidemiologist it was who said, early on in the current pandemic, that this wasn't even "the Big One" that had been predicted for years; it would just be the warmup act. And now, with the possibility of a flu pandemic on the horizon, most people have forgotten or thrown away the early lessons learned from COVID, encouraged by trash pseudoscience supported by reactionary politics and dark money. We're all passengers, willing or not, on a ship of fools... Thanks for this timely and articulate piece. You've just gained a new follower.
I remember that. If it wasn’t Eric Feigl-Ding I think I saw it when he re-tweeted it.
Excellent piece. Very well done.
Thank you for this. It’s maddening. Absolutely maddening. Five fucking years of this that feels like it’s taken 10 years off my life. Our lives have been turned inside out. And we’re still not getting the healthcare we desperately need.
I've noticed myself taking fewer and fewer COVID precautions even though I'm genuinely scared of the virus and understand the risks. Social needs are real and can't be sacrificed indefinitely and the pressure not to mask is overwhelming. I know others who are aware of the risks but take even fewer precautions. Obviously, and as you've been saying for years, we need a collective approach to keep us all safe because as individuals we're incapable of even keeping ourselves safe.
I fully understand and agree
I didn’t forget that I felt like my MECFS was in remission in the spring of 2020 when I didn’t have to run around to doctors appointments every week and I could just do them from home.
I started LDN at the same time so that gets a lot of credit for my “remission”, but now that my providers resist telemedicine I don’t feel remission anymore.
In the US do they get paid less for telehealth visits or are they just cruel and hateful? We are supposed to have extended telemedicine benefits with Medicare until the end of 2025 yet every month I find it harder and harder to get them to do telemedicine.
Not only that but I had a dermatologist at a full body skin check refused to look at any part of my face unless I removed my mask which I refused to do. I won’t be seeing her again, but WTF? I can’t get a second skin check this year unless I want to pay out of pocket so it’s a good thing I wasn’t worried about my face.
Am I still logged into Substack? This post is such nonsense, I am wondering whether I have slipped into another dimension, one in which everyone is full of fear porn and fakery!
You surely don't believe in viruses still? What? After everything we have shown you for 5 years? Are you crazy?
There is no Covid19 virus. There is a mass reaction to the roll out of 5G and that is being misnamed Long Covid or vaccine adverse reactions.
How is it that you have failed to realise that you have been terrorised? Throw out your useless masks and switch off your tell-lie-vision, Smart devices and wifi.
https://francesleader.substack.com/p/there-is-no-virus-there-is-no-lab
😷