outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Yeah, the pandemic response has taught me that if some truly nasty bug gets unleashed into the population, humankind is just finished.

Yep. Not least because — in the U.S., anyway — our response to this pandemic has been to literally dismantle our public health infrastructure in a lot of places. We now have a much worse public health system than we did two years ago. Good job, everybody.

DeSantis's DOH is staffed w/ people who have literally tweeted "the pandemic is over" in response to critics. this was 3 months ago. and they go on the attack on anybody who tweets criticisms @ them. it's like taking crazy pills.

I got a flu shot, a booster, and a tattoo within 24 hours this weekend. Fuck you arms! Absolutely zero side effects, but previous ones weren't really that bad for me.

Boosted with Pfizer, to mix things up a little from the Moderna, and flu shot last night. Definitely don't feel 100% today, but nowhere near the side effects of previous boosters, mostly just a sore arm.

Also, re: some of the issues we ran into last week, saw an article last night that Moderna is way behind in ramping up with the bivalent vaccine, so some pharmacies that were relying more on that were struggling to open up spots.

Sigh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZQb5zSqq1A

new booster today. have tried to clear out the next two days to recover if necessary

It seems like everyone I know who got jabbed in the last five days endured less struggle this time.

here's hoping!

https://yalereview.org/article/spiritualism-covid-flu-puglionesi

The refusal of collective mourning reveals whose deaths and what kinds of death we consider worthy of honor. Men who perish on the battlefields of a great war must be mourned by the nation, but the sick, whose suffering has no grand purpose, are a reminder that we can’t always control our bodies—knowledge best pushed into the shadows. None of this is new. In 2020, when Americans groped backward to the 1918 influenza pandemic in search of his­torical solace, they found little more than a cloud of amnesia: a marble bench in Barre, Vermont, is among the few scattered mon­uments to flu victims. Journalists mining medical history pried open the closed box of the 1918 flu and found certain resonances: the closure of schools and churches, a desperate shortage of doc­tors and nurses, a push for fresh air and ventilation. In contrast to COVID-19, at first depicted as a disease of the elderly and then recognized as disproportionately afflicting heavily exposed racial minorities and the poor, influenza hit hardest among healthy young people, the group most “valued” by society. Like today, the public looked frantically to medical science for answers, but local efforts to prevent gatherings, close schools, and require masking often cracked under political pressure. Medical experts vacillated, and businesses demanded relief. People were left alone to protect themselves, and to mourn, as their resources allowed.

Faced with the bewildering devastation of World War I and the flu pandemic, many turned to Spiritualism, a nineteenth-century movement that promoted communication with the spirits of the dead. In early 1920, only a month after the last wave of influenza had passed, a West Coast writer complained about bad actors who were “‘cashing in’ on the epidemic.” By “epidemic,” he was refer­ring not to the disease itself but to “the spiritualistic and psychic craze” that followed on its heels. “A wave of spiritualistic investiga­tion is upon us,” reported a Chicago journal of the occult, pursued “by persons of cultivated intelligence as well as by unlettered and credulous followers.” Historians most often credit World War I for the resurgence of Spiritualism, but the flu’s dark cloud also looms large over the scene. Battlefield slaughter was inexorable; the ran­dom deaths of civilians left their families and friends haunted by survivor guilt. The war ended conclusively in victory parades and speeches, however hollow, but no one knew if the scourge of dis­ease would return. Through communion with the other world, mourners learned that their dearly departed were at peace—and they also sought the occult secrets of health that might protect them in the wake of modern medicine’s failure.

Spiritualism was widespread in all walks of life, from seedy stage shows to the halls of Congress. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the eminently rational detective Sherlock Holmes, had been dabbling in this “new American religion” since the 1880s, long before losing both his son and brother to the flu. Doyle, like many others, believed channeling the dead was a scientific practice that proved the immortality of the soul. Spiritualism and detection were twin engines of consolation: they appeared to solve the mys­tery of death, absolving the innocent and condemning the guilty. Both of these practices worked on the individual rather than the societal level, restoring uniqueness and agency to people swept up in events of an inhuman scale. Through the technology of mediumship, the dead were within reach; their words of comfort could make things right. Spiritualists promised a world freed from mourning, but that did not mean a world freed from tragedy. What if easy consolation allows the conditions for tragedy to fester?

Status update about 23 hours after my booster - I still don't feel sick or anything, but I am absolutely EXHAUSTED, like can barely keep my eyes open tired.

That's from following the political thread imo

I felt like that yesterday, just like useless rubbish. Today I woke up at 6 and have been going non-stop since then and I am weary but I have to finish some slides and write a quiz, so not too shabby recovery time imho

boosted 10 hours ago, feeling a little shaky tired and arm is sore. let's see how the night goes.

"Fauci admits that he knew the draconian measures could impact children"

Dude - you KNOW everything you say is going to be used against you, don't fucking give them shit like this, which is now Very Popular Indeed & still being forwarded as proof of something or other etc. JFC

what does it matter? On a personal level, he can be no more hated and nothing will ever change that. To great swaths of population, he is either a) corrupt and controlled by conspiratorial groups or b) totally incompetent and barely holding on at any given moment. He may as well just put a comedy villain outfit and hat on and talk like Darth Vader. He can’t possibly make people distrust or hate him more than they already do. Those people are long, long, gone, and when the next pandemic affects the most selfish and empthetically bankrupt , callous people in the United States, they will find a new person who is in charge to hate and distrust and connect to every conspiracy they can locate. It just doesn’t matter, and unless you’re related to these idiots (like so many of us are) it’s best to avoid thinking about the dumb ways that reactionaries react

of course, ymmv

But I just think of the tight pulled lips saying “I just don’t trust that...fow...Fochee, I can’t say his name. Doctor F!” - laughter in background about this ignorance - “I just don’t trust him. There’s something about him...”

exactly. at this point he's already been demonized and even if he doesn't give them fodder, they'll invent it.

That's how you win an argument in bad faith. Repeat the same invented or exaggerated bullshit for years and years on end, then the second someone comes even close to saying what they've been saying for years, they jump at it and go "see!?!? SEE!?!?"

Fauci is great.

Without a quote being given, there’s nothing to even object to in his phrasing. “Protective measures will also protect children” is not a bad thing to say?

One day of being tired and achy was my only negative on the new booster. Same for my partner. When it goes, it's like a light switch has been thrown.

Throwback for the thread OGs:

Ebola outbreak in Uganda:

- New cases: 3 confirmed
- In hospital: 24 (-)
- New deaths: 1 confirmed
- Total cases: 60 (41 conf.)
- Total deaths: 28 (9 conf.)
- Case fatality rate (closed): 93%
- Case fatality rate (all cases): 47%

— BNO News (@BNOFeed) October 3, 2022

And with my boss' kid and another coworker down with it, that's 15 new cases in my orbit I've learned about since just Saturday. Feels like the reported stats are further disconnected from reality than at any other point.

Interesting. We've entered a lull here. No new reported cases in my orbit for weeks, the quietest all year.

yeah, same here in Central Florida. my county is now considered low risk based on hospitalizations/cases for the first time in forever. positivity rate in single digits also for the first time in a while.

but it definitely varies by location.

Last week MDC dropped to moderate risk, whatever that means.

Looks like I see spikes in the Northeast and Upper Midwest without their looking like a wave.

State wide and county wide stats would lead you to believe we are in a lull, but our city stats are wild right now. For months we'd been ranging between 1-6ish new cases per day, never breaking 10 per day. Suddenly on the 9/20 we had 94 new cases and then 208 the following day, presumably some sort of reporting backlog involved somehow, but we've been over double digits in new cases per day since.

It's been betterish around here, but transmission is clearly continuing; we've never zeroed out at the hospital, even if it's been single digits for a while. Honestly based on the amount of people I saw at shows last week without masks -- I was in a distinct minority when it came to masking up at indoor shows -- I have to wonder, but no way to know for sure quite yet unless there's a clear spike. As it is it may just be a flowing miasma at this point.

Masking in my classes is down to single digits: three in a class of 50, for example.

Nine of 10 colleagues no longer mask.

I'm the lone masked holdout in my building. Could live without having to hear comments on it every week.

Almost nobody but me is masking, but also nobody comments about it.

Granted, it's usually from one of the same three obnoxious people, but I can't get through a week without some sarcastic comment about it.

They're not libs, are they?

One of them is 100% straight up conservative, one claims to be liberal and seems to be on some issues but really haaaates masks and the third is just a weirdo who comments on everything and I can't figure out their actual position on anything at all.

"Tonight on Crossfire"

Lol

haha it would be entertaining for about five minutes before the entire audience starts looking for the cyanide pills

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxqgdU1QI5g

listen, can someone help joe gonzales understand something here

https://i.imgur.com/wV88xrH.png

Federal officials have spent the past year urging Americans to get booster shots to bolster their protection against the coronavirus, which wanes over time. In early September, they rushed out the first new shots — reformulated to target the still-dominant omicron variants — to give people time to get inoculated before a likely cold weather surge, when respiratory infections increase as people head indoors, and recommended that all Americans 12 and older receive a third and fourth dose of vaccine.

But the campaigns have lagged badly. Only about 105 million U.S. adults — roughly 40 percent — have received the third shot of vaccine initially offered a year ago, according to federal data, a far lower rate than countries like the United Kingdom, where more than 70 percent of adults have gotten a third dose. That figure is also well behind the 200 million U.S. adults who completed their primary series of shots.

Early data shows that just over 11 million Americans — or about 4 percent of those eligible — have received the new bivalent booster shots. A third of adults say they eventually plan to get those shots, according to KFF polling.

For public health leaders, the low booster rate is startling in a nation that financed the shots’ development, offers them free and touts them as the best way to protect against a virus that has already claimed more than 1 million lives in this country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/07/covid-booster-winter-surge/

The case for not getting the (widely available, free) omicron booster for people who are already vaccinated is one I don't understand. Like, 40% of adults get their flu shot each year. What's the reasoning for "I'll get my annual flu booster but I won't get the omicron booster"?

What's the reasoning for "I'll get my annual flu booster but I won't get the omicron booster"?

I had a in-person doctor visit on Sept. 22. They asked if I wanted my flu shot. I said yes. I asked if they could give me a covid booster. They said 'we don't have any'. That was my reasoning.

I think they made a strategic mistake restricting (officially) who could get the last booster. Yeah, I know, you could always jump the line or lie or whatever, but I didn't, which meant almost a year between shots, which meant almost a year with I assume reduced protection. I got the bivalent the first day I could, but hadn't really altered my behavior the preceding several months. And I'm one of the very compliant ones. Everyone else, the great unwashed, even those open to vaccines? I wouldn't underestimate the impact of inertia.

My parents finally got their bivalent booster this week, despite resistance, because their doctors told them to. The reason for my mom's resistance? "Walensky said it hadn't been tested on humans."

my dad is biv boosted. yesssssssssss. whole family is DONE.

the whole 'not tested' thing, like....it isn't like they made a whole new vaccine, they took the existing one and tweaked a few things.

this isn't gonna be like the shitty I Am Legend remake

got mine on Thursday, flu and COVID, one in each arm. still feeling a bit achey and sweaty, and awake at 03:30. i just walked in to a chemist 10 minutes away, was no need for an appointment

I got my bivalent booster Monday, no problem at all, besides the sore arm. A minor sniffle Tuesday, that could have been anything else.

Bivalent just becoming available to all adults in my area. Will get sometime. Has the thing been updated yet to the hottest new strains?

and like most other under-65, relatively healthy people here that will be my 4th total. got 3rd (first boost) back in January