Health Expert Compares Pfizer-BioNTech And Moderna Covid-19 Vaccines, Goes Viral

So someone pointed out to me recently that in a few years, maybe a few decades, the history of the us during covid is probably going to get twisted. The fact that we all had to make and wear cloth masks is going to be hailed as a symbol of how we “"came together as a nation”“” or whatever the fuck propaganda spin they try to put on it.

So I just want to say, for the record, the time of the corona virus pandemic was not a time when america came together.

This was a time when people hoarded toilet paper and sanitizing supplies either for themselves or to sell at absurd prices to the desperate people who didn’t get to the store soon enough during the shortages

This was a time when scared parents were sending their kids to finish school in the spring in plastic trash bags because they couldn’t think of any other way to possibly keep their families safe

This was a time when grocery store and retail and service workers were forced to keep working whether they wanted to risk their health or not because they couldn’t make rent otherwise and the people with enough privilege to have remote jobs tried to repay them with applause instead of fair wages

This was a time when nurses had the hold the hands of multiple dying people every day as their families watched their loved ones die over a video call because the hospital couldn’t risk having visitors

This was a time when city governments had to handle so many eviction hearings that they rented out convention centers and called in the national guard instead of doing a rent freeze to stop predatory landlords

This was a time when racism and police brutality were so unbearably horrible that people protested in the streets for months even though there was a god damn pandemic that our federal government wasn’t doing shit to stop and the cops were so mad that they were being asked to stop beating up black people that they were beating up everyone

This was a time when schools being forced to reopen in the fall or lose their federal funding had to draft templates for letters if a teacher or a staff person or a fucking child died from exposure to corona at school

This was a time when the president of the United states demanded that the cdc stop releasing data about all the people who were dying because of the warnings he ignored for months were making him look bad

This was a time when some state governments didn’t mandate masks and forced businesses to reopen because they didn’t want to pay unemployment to people trying to stay safe at home anymore

This was a time when Jeff Bezos was on track to be a fucking trillionare because everyone was ordering things on amazon instead of going to the store and the people he worked to death to get it didn’t see a single cent of it

This was a time when instead of providing homeless people with housing, we painted boxes on the ground to show homeless people how far away the had to be on the street to maintain social distancing

We did not come together to make cloth masks. Cloth masks represent nothing less than the absolute and utter failure of a nation’s government to inform and protect its citizens

This was not a time when we came together. This was a time when we survived, and not all of us made it.

This was a time when people casually talked about how many human lives the economy was worth without considering the evil that had just come out of their mouths.

This was a time when thousands of us died for profit and the ego of a cheating narcissists con man who scammed his way into the white house

This was a time that we survived. Most of us tried to do the right thing, stay home, limit trips to the store and socializing, wear a mask. And still, so many of us were lost. Thousands every day.

But that wasn’t a good enough reason for some people, for those among us who were too selfish to recognize the responsibilities we have toward one another as human beings.

This was not a time that we came together

This was a time that we survived

Not all of us made it

And those of us who did survive will never forget the evil we saw daily in our politicians and those around us

it’s 2023. despite the near-eradication of covid-19, crowds of masked antifas march in the streets, six feet apart. you can see them in the distance, fear in your heart but not on your face. they are coming to install gender-neutral bathrooms and teach your children about birth control. it is the law now.

a rumble arises from the mob, low at first but gaining. the melody turns the blood in your veins to ice.

“what are they singing, Father?” asks your daughter, Melania.

you pat her morally-correct long hair. “sea shanties,” you whisper, trying to sound brave. “they’re singing sea shanties.”

Bezos, McConnell, and COVID Capitalism

As a former Secretary of Labor, I often receive mail from workers with job complaints, who apparently believe I still have some authority. But the email I received a few days ago from a worker at Amazon’s Whole Foods delivery warehouse in Industry City, Brooklyn, New York, was particularly distressing.

She said that six of her co-workers had tested positive for COVID since October 22, because “safe social distancing is not only being ignored but discouraged,” adding that “when we express our discomfort to management, we are yelled at about filling orders faster, or told that we can take a leave of absence without pay.”

She ended by noting “we work for a trillionaire.”

Well, not quite. Jeff Bezos is worth $180 billion, making him the richest person in the world. And his corporation, Amazon, which also owns Whole Foods, is among the world’s richest corporations.

Bezos has accumulated so much added wealth over the last nine months that he could give every Amazon employee $105,000 and still be as rich as he was before the pandemic.

So you’d think he’d be able to afford safer workplaces. Yet as of October, more than 20,000 U.S.-based Amazon employees had been infected by the virus. That estimate comes from Amazon, by the way. There’s been no independent verification, nor has Amazon revealed how many of them have died.  

Decades ago, employees in most large corporations could remedy unsafe working conditions by complaining to their union, which pressured their employer to fix the problems, or to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (founded in 1970), which levied fines.

Alternatively, they could embarrass their companies by going public with their complaints. As a last resort, they could sue.

None of these routes is readily available to Amazon warehouse workers – nor, for that matter, to warehouse workers at Walmart, or to most workers in other super-spreader COVID workplaces such as meatpacking plants and nursing homes.

Amazon’s workers have no union to protect them. (Throughout its 25-year history, the corporation has aggressively fought union organizing.) Nor, for that matter, do 93.8 percent of America’s private-sector workers. Fifty years ago, more than a third were unionized.

And OSHA? Since the start of the pandemic, it’s been useless. Although receiving more than 10,000 complaints of unsafe conditions, it has issued just two citations.

Amazon employees who go public with their complaints are likely to lose their jobs. The corporation prohibits its workers from commenting publicly on any aspect of its business, without prior approval from executives. So far during the pandemic, it has fired at least two white-collar employees who publicly denounced conditions at its warehouses, as well as several warehouse workers who raised safety concerns to media outlets.

Amazon isn’t alone. A survey conducted in May by the National Employment Law Project showed that 1 in 8 American workers “has perceived possible retaliatory actions by employers against workers in their company who have raised health and safety concerns” about COVID.

The final option is to sue the company, but lawsuits against employers over COVID have been rare because of difficulties proving that the employee contracted the virus at work. A Washington Post analysis found that since the pandemic began, just 234 personal injury or wrongful death lawsuits have been filed due to the virus.

All of which reveals the utter fatuousness of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s and his fellow Senate Republicans’ demand that any new COVID relief package must include a corporate “liability shield” against COVID cases.

Even if such lawsuits were successful, corporations already have limited liability. That’s what it means to be a corporation. In the unlikely event Amazon were sued and plaintiffs won, Jeff Bezos would remain comfortable.

The heinous resurgence of COVID makes clear that corporations need more – not fewer – incentives to protect their workers from the virus.  

As millions of Americans lose whatever meager income they had, they should not have to choose between taking a risky job – such as in an Amazon warehouse – or putting food on their family’s table.

Bezos, as well as every major employer in America, can easily afford to protect their workers. And as Mitch McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans should know, the richest nation in the world can easily afford to provide every American adequate income support during this national emergency.

That they’re not doing so is disgraceful.

“Experts have raised questions about the rush to implicate obesity, and especially “severe obesity” (B.M.I. greater than 40), as a factor in coronavirus complications. An article in the medical journal The Lancet evaluated Britain’s inclusion of obesity as a risk factor for coronavirus complications and retorted, “To date, no available data show adverse Covid-19 outcomes specifically in people with a BMI of 40 kg/m2.” The authors concluded, “The scarcity of information regarding the increased risk of illness for people with a BMI higher than 40 kg/m2 has led to ambiguity and might increase anxiety, given that these individuals have now been categorised as vulnerable to severe illness if they contract Covid-19.”

“Promoting strained associations between race, body size, and complications from this little-understood disease has served to reinforce an image of black people as wholly swept up in sensuous pleasures like eating and drinking, which supposedly makes our unruly bodies repositories of preventable weight-related illnesses. The attitudes I see today have echoes of what I described in “Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia.” My research showed that anti-fat attitudes originated not with medical findings, but with Enlightenment-era belief that overfeeding and fatness were evidence of “savagery” and racial inferiority.

“Today, the stakes of these discussions could not be higher. When I learned about guidelines suggesting that doctors may use existing health conditions, including obesity, to deny or limit eligibility to lifesaving coronavirus treatments, I couldn’t help thinking of the slavery-era debates I’ve studied about whether or not so-called “constitutionally weak” African-Americans should receive medical care.”

It’s Not Obesity. It’s Slavery. – Sabrina Strings, PhD

Is fatness a risk factor for severe illness or death from COVID-19? 

Media and even some health agencies are warning that fatness is a risk factor for severe illness or death from COVID-19. That is some scary shit, especially when combined with the rampant medical discrimination that fat people already face and the threat of resource scarcity triggering “service rationing”.

However, this is not an accurate reflection of the science. 

Two smaller-scale studies from China identified “obesity” as a risk-factor. Yet those results may be based on incomplete health records of patients and they have not been reproduced among larger samples in other countries.

For example, @drjoshuawolrich on Instragram summarizes the results from a larger-scale UK study like this (images are his as well):

Despite these findings, in their coverage of this exact study, The Guardian claimed that “Excess weight also appears to be a significant risk factor; over 70% of patients were overweight, obese or clinically obese on the body mass index scale.” 

(Of course, among the age groups represented in the study, roughly 70% of the population is overweight or obese to begin with in the UK, so it makes sense that we would also comprise a similar percentage of people hospitalized… but good to know you hate fat people)     

Some health agencies are also warning people with BMIs over 40 to take extra precautions and self-isolate. Why are they doing this when fatness is not a reliable risk factor? Perhaps because many of the risk factors that have been identified by the research are associated with higher weights, including older age and comorbidities like hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Of course, lots of fat people don’t have any of these conditions, and lots of thin people do. Weight is an invalid indicator of health. Maybe these health agencies think it is more efficient to stigmatize  scapegoat  warn fat people generally, rather than focusing on actual health indicators, which may be confusing to the general public. (I think you all know what I think about that strategy [insert fart noises]).

So what are the reliable risk factors for severe illness and death from COVID-19? To be frank, we don’t really know yet. As a recent editorial in the BMJ states: “As yet, there are no good data on how the risks associated with underlying comorbidities might vary in different population groups or settings.” 

In addition, I think we should all ask ourselves why we care about this information so much. In an ideal world, perhaps knowing the risk factors would allow us to offer the most supports to the people who (statistically) need it the most. But in reality, this kind of information is used to blame people for their own illnesses, to deny healthcare resources to people who “won’t benefit” from them, and to provide a false sense of security to those precious few who happen to have the “right” healthcare profile. Right now, at this moment, none of those things are helpful.

Breath deeply my friends. Protect one another. And tell the fat haters to fuck right off.

And if you need it: How to Survive COVID-19 Service Rationing (UK based)

Thanks to Christy Harrison (MPH, RD) for her excellent work debunking the fat phobic nonsense surrounding this pandemic. Here are some choice excerpts from her MUST READ article on the topic: Covid-19 Does Not Discriminate by Body Weight :

Reminder than when health agencies or governments start attacking fat people for causing high mortality rates from COVID-19, it is generally an attempt to distract from the social conditions that leave marginalized people at risk. Most politicians would far rather tell people to lose weight than acknowledge that their racist and classist policy decisions literally kill people (I’m looking at you Boris).

It’s Not Obesity. It’s Slavery. - By Sabrina Strings, PhD

Watching my neighbors across the street having a block party during a literal time of pandemic makes me wonder if several hundred years ago there was another person looking out their window watching their neighbors congregate during the black death like verily forsooth, thou art truly ass-headed knaves.

Dude the marina where I live reopened its restaurant and there are hundreds of people just dancing and partying on the deck every night it’s so surreal like the level of cognitive dissonance is staggering. When I walk by in a mask the regulars tease me.

“The taverns are fair full of gadabouts making merry this eve. Though I may press my face against the window like an urchin at a confectioner’s, I am tempted not by the sweetmeats within. A dram in exchange for the pox is an ill bargain indeed.” –Samuel Pepys, 1665

I am so very sorry.

From Seth Tobocman and Tamara Wyndham.

Hello all you beautiful people! Participants, prompters and readers 💚❤

We live in weird times, and we’d like to let you know that feeling down or unmotivated or just numb and unable to get things done or even to read fic and comment is totally alright and understandable. 

The submission deadline for LCDrarry 2020 was yesterday. And we’ve received so many beautiful works already! Many others have asked for extensions and we are looking forward to seeing their creations. 

Whether you are still working on your fest submission or you are thinking about dropping out, please know that either is completely fine. We won’t be angry with you, we won’t exclude you from future fests or anything. Just drop us a message at [email protected] and let us know how you’re doing. We’re happy to give you an extension if you want one 💚❤

Our fest starts posting on 1 May and normally posts throughout May. Reveals are on 15 June 2020.

We send you all lots of virtual hugs! 

Be kind to yourself & stay safe 💚❤

Your LCDrarry Mods Tami & Suzi ( @celilasart & @erin-riwen )

idk who needs to hear this but nurses who work 16hr shifts aren’t heroes. they’re horrifically exploited workers& they don’t need thanks or applause, they need more colleagues and better labour protection

As a nurse I will say that it’s sad and has been a rude awakening to know that in times of widespread hardship, people will expect you to put your life on the line- and anyone you love and interact with- just to make up for the government and medical field’s greed. We have little staff, either because people are sick or just afraid to come in due to the fear of getting sick. We have little to no protective gear. The ONE face mask they give us per shift doesn’t do CRAP! Administration is no help for us on the actual field and these hospitals are trying to cover up new cases of COVID-19 to hide the fact that their “protection” for staff and patients is inadequate. This week alone, two of my patients have been confirmed cases and 3 medical staff have been confirmed too. It’s not heroic to see your fellow colleagues catch a deadly virus. It’s not fun to see young people my age, OR ANY AGE FOR THAT MATTER, be on a damn ventilator. IT’S TRAUMATIZING! And to think there are people who aren’t taking this seriously still!

i feel this on every level. two of my co-workers tested positive, i’m seeing healthcare professionals in all the areas i’m operating coming down with it, my mother and high-risk father are both showing symptoms thousands of kilometres away from me and the rest of their family but can’t get tests because there’s a shortage, i’m constantly at risk because i haven’t ppe to cover my shifts properly, and it’s all because people are 1) not staying at home because they don’t give a fuck about it/think it’s all a big overblown hoax; 2) not staying at home because they have to work to pay their bills even if they’re sick; or 3) are already sick despite staying at home because of the long incubation period of SARS-CoV-2 and it’s only just now presenting.

we need governments around the globe to take this seriously. we need bill freezes. we need universal healthcare, even if it’s just for a few months. we need ppe in the medical community. we need ventilators, blood donations, and beds. we need makeshift hospitals. we need food and saline and sanitation/cleaning supplies. we need manning. we need more testing kits for fuck’s sake.

and we need all of this now, so people stay at home and the rest of us can do our jobs protecting you.

this isn’t a joke. it’s not funny. it’s not a hoax. it’s not an ‘old people lulz sorry boomers’ problem. this is a major health crisis, and we are losing this fight because of politics and capitalism.

just you wait, if this keeps up and it gets even more terminal than it already is, there’s going to be a general strike, not just in america but all around the world. and for all of you people who will inevitably scream “WhY wOuLd YoU dO tHaT iT’s A pAnDeMiC aNd YoU hAvE tO wOrK tHE hOsPiTaLs WhAt If I gEt SiCk?!?!?!?!1?”, all i can say is can you fucking blame us? it’s like the safety briefings you get on an aeroplane that all of you karen’s ignore: you put on your own oxygen mask before you assist others. why? because we have to protect ourselves first, because if we’re all sick, then who in the fuck is going to take care of you? and right now, we can’t take care of ourselves because we have no ppe, let alone enough life-saving ventilators and testing kits.

call your representatives. donate money if you can to reputable charities. call your representatives. donate blood if you’re healthy through the red cross. call your representatives. volunteer or donate to local food banks. call your fucking representatives and tear them a new arsehole.

Another great graphic from @popsci

This is so great for people with hypochondriasis! This is a rough time for everyone but we don't need people like me getting all anxious over nothing and clogging the system.

If you can’t breathe, go to the hospital. If you can, drink some tea and get cozy with Netflix. (And take appropriate hygiene procedures like staying away from public spaces and vulnerable loved ones, etc.) Much love to other people with health anxiety, try to keep it simple.

Translated into Spanish for those who want to share this with their friends and family / Traducido al español para quienes lo quieran compartir con familia y amigos ❤️