Dancing with Viruses
There are several in Waterloo Region. As of last week there were currently over in nearby Wellington/Guelph, and over 1,300 in Ontario since October.
Measles is like Covid in that there’s an incubation period in which people have no symptoms but are contagious. Viruses are stealthy! For measles, it’s 7–12 days from exposure to symptoms like fever or cough, so it’s really important to track cases and isolate if potentially exposed. For Covid, it can be 5–7 days before it’s picked up by a rapid test, and you can have it and spread it without any symptoms at all. Both cause serious complications, including brain infection, and leads to death in about 1 or 2 in 1,000 people.
Both can be prevented with an N95.
The biggest difference between these viruses is that getting vaccinated is extremely good protection for measles, but not for Covid. If you got your measles shots, you’re very likely completely protected. Unfortunately, vaccination rates are plummeting. We need to have of the population vaccinated to create herd immunity and keep measles at bay, and Ontario is since Covid started and anti-vaxx nonsense got a platform. Vaccination against Covid does a lot to keep people out of the hospital, but it doesn’t prevent getting and spreading the disease because, like the flu, Covid mutates all the flippin’ time. Measles is just measles, but Covid could be delta, or alpha, or one of many omicron variants, or whatever’s going on now. It changes so much I stopped keeping track. The more it spreads, the more it mutates, and we’re doing nothing to stop the spread.
Fauci explained all this years ago:
Yes, Covid is still here and spreading. Recently said he’s managing lymphoma (blood cancer) fine, but on dealing with long term effects of Covid: “My dance with Covid makes my cancer look like a piece of cake.” He caught the virus at the facility where he got his chemo. His is not an unusual case. Nosocomial infections are relatively common now that many hospitals dropped masks in all areas, even where they had worn them for decades, like the NICU. continues to try to teach her colleagues about the risk as she watches them get sick repeatedly, some with Long Covid. “I believe all doctors have a duty of care to learn about Covid.”
Wearing a mask is simply playing the long game.
A recent found that 18.7% of people with Covid had Long Covid symptoms causing work productivity concerns “comparable to the burden associated with chronic migraine, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.” The difference between Covid and these conditions is that Covid is preventable with N95s and air cleaners.
We know all this, but still so many don’t really get it. I still get Covid shots every year, and my pharmacists tell me the number of shots I’ve had, incredulously, and I ask why she isn’t also counting and commenting on the number of flu shots I’ve had in my life. It’s the same type of mutating virus with a shot that has a very short duration of effectiveness.
tells this story:
Got into a fight with a NURSE who we asked to give us a little distance when we were at a picnic table eating. We told her we’re were trying to be Covid safe because I’m at risk. She said I should have just stayed home. I said at risk people should be socially isolated and lonely? AND SHE SAID YES. AND SHE STARTED FILMING ME. You guys I am so upset. I just want to exist in the world. I just want to be able to have a picnic with my mom. We drove an hour to find a place that wasn’t crowded. And we could be granted even the TINIEST ASK of being given a little space for our safety.
The world just hates disabled people so fucking much. They just want us to not exist. They don’t want to see us or know about us. We’re just completely worthless to them and worse we’re a hindrance. They just want us to disappear. There’s no room for us in the world. My life has been completely ruined by COVID. Totally destroyed. I have very few friends left. My ability to exist has been diminished exponentially. And now I’m being filmed like some Karen throwing a privileged white lady fit because I asked to have a little distance for my safety. What are my fucking options!!?!!?????!?! What is left for me?!?! I can’t even drive an hour and find a less crowded park? So what I should just die and save everyone the inconvenience of my existence???? I WANT MY FUCKING LIFE BACK I WANT A FUCKING FUTURE I WANT TO BE ALLOWED TO EXIST IN YHE WORLD I just feel so fucking hopeless all the time.And worse because I couldn’t control my emotions and just quietly leave now I’m the one who’s hysterical. I’m the one who they’re laughing and pointing at and calling a crazy bitch. I just can’t take this shit anymore I just can’t. And I’m gonna lose followers now too because every time I post about disability people leave. Because you hate us so much you not only don’t want to see us you don’t want to hear us either.I don’t know how I’m going to get over this.
We’re all one Covid infection away from disability. But maskers are not alone. When the indie band Deerhoof went on tour, they posted this on all their social media accounts:
Indeed, Deerhoof requests that everyone mask at our indoor shows. But! It’s not such a bad idea to wear a mask at *any* band’s indoor shows, whether they request it or not… Catching covid from your fans means cancelling the rest of your tour, and eating the cost. Not being able to pay your rent. Developing long covid symptoms means not being able to work at all for maybe two years… It’s not just about us! We like our shows to be accessible to everyone, including the disabled. Stats say that right now 1 in 40 americans is infectious with covid. Our audience is usually between 150–500 people per night. Please wear a mask.
No Deerhoof isn’t special in this sense. It’s true we have an immunocompromised member, and that each of us takes care of our elderly parents. But covid is extraordinarily unhelpful to *any* musician’s ability to work! The CDC caved long ago to pressure from the Davos set (who still mask at *their own* events by the way) and don’t emphasize masks anymore. But until there is a vaccine that actually prevents covid, an N95 is still our best protection… Covid causes heart attacks, brain damage, it destroys the human immune system, and about 1000 americans are unnecessarily dying from it per week. It spreads by catching it… You don’t always know if you have it! Sometimes initial symptoms are mild or non-existent. But initial symptoms have no correlation to how severe it will be for whoever catches it from you, nor whether you develop long covid.
We love compliments. They are so fun. But if you come up to us after the show without a mask, don’t be offended if we keep our distance. We want/need to finish our tour and catching covid will make that impossible. Since Biden declared the pandemic “over” in a pathetic attempt to improve polling numbers, bands can’t require masks. All we can do is make social media posts. Public health is up to all of us.
We live in pretty weird times when some actors and musicians are on this in ways many medical professions are not.
