This is heart-rending but I relate on so many levels. I am not a musician, nor do I suffer from long covid. I have pre-existing health conditions that make me want not to get sick with something potentially worse. I guess I'm just a ghost. And you can't count ghosts.
"When your subculture leaves you behind with Long COVID"
"Friends texted their fears to me frantically: “Is music over? Are shows done?” I thought back to informal and unconventional gigs, the freedom and potentiality those moments held, and reassured my friends, sequestered in our separate biomes. I said and believed: “Music always finds a way, youth culture always finds a way, underground culture always finds a way.”
thesicktimes.org/2024/11/15/mi…
@askazero
@auscovid19
#Covid #covidIsNotOver #YallStillMasking #EllieKPosts
Missing the gig: When your subculture leaves you behind with Long COVID - The Sick Times
“Maybe now vocalists will finally start bringing their own mics,” I tweeted in the first days of March 2020. My virtual audience was mostly friends I met by participating in subcultures in and adjacent to the DIY tendency of hardcore punk rock.Beck Levy (The Sick Times)
bird feeders and bird flu --
extra precautions needed?
👇 
mstdn.ca/@likelyjanlukas/11348…
Likely Jan Lukas (@likelyjanlukas@mstdn.ca)
Anyone know offhand whether we should be taking special precautions for #BirdFeeders this year? I presume a mystery case of #AvianFlu in #BC means there are likely non-identified infections here, too. 😢 #yegMastodon Canada
Conspiracy of Silence?
There seems to be a conspiracy of silence around COVID. How did everyone get this memo but we didn't? We noticed it beginning a couple of years ago. This is how it goes:
No one can say they have COVID. If you mention that C word, people go quiet and change the subject or turn away, acting as though they haven't heard. You're allowed to say you have something (flu, summer cold, persistent cough, some virus) as long as you minimise it. If you see someone wearing a serious mask, pretend you haven't seen them. If someone asks you how you are when you're not well (with one of those mystery illnesses) you say you are feeling fine now. You pretend not to notice that so many people around you are falling sick. And you put down the rise in serious health issues in your friends to aging.
And no one talks about it. So I'm breaking the taboo. I'm saying it out loud.
@askazero
@auscovid19
#covidIsNotOver #CovidIsAirborn #Covid #NotInDenial #YallMasking
#EllieKPosts #conspiracy
Canadians! Interested in helping out? (It's super quick)
COVID and flu monitoring
For the 2024-2025 surveillance season, the FluWatchers program continues to track cough and fever activity in the community, to help monitor flu, COVID-19, and other seasonal respiratory illnesses. The FluWatchers program gathers data on healthy participants as well as those experiencing cough and fever, so it's important that you try to answer the questionnaire each week whether you are healthy or sick. That will allow us to calculate more accurate rates of illness each week.
I just answered this week's FluWatchers survey! My weekly responses contribute to monitoring flu-like illness in my community. Help out by becoming a FluWatcher today! cnphi.canada.ca/fluWatcher/reg… #FluWatchers
#COVID #covisIsNotOver #YallStillMasking @auscovid19 @askazero
That's great! The survey is super easy and quick, no trick questions, takes no more than a couple of minutes.
@askazero
is there a covid-safer events group, like for @askazero ?
I guess not, because without being split by geography it's be too much irrelevance?
reshared this
A hypothetical scenario might be getting a very small infectious dose, the virus replicates a few times and just barely makes it to the detectable level, her body slaps it down, she tests negative again (and, one would hope, clears the virus for good). In theory, sometimes the immune system does rack up a swift and thorough win.
I dunno how likely it is.
reshared this
reshared this
Is there anything wrong with fear? Healthy fear has saved many lives. Think about it.
I get accused sometimes (or it's implied) that I'm living in fear as I take precautions to avoid catching COVID. I mask using a great quality N95, I avoid crowded locations, concerts, use curbside pickup, don't eat indoors in restaurants etc.
I do these things because I have chosen to educate myself about the risks (long-term as well as short term) of catching COVID, as well as the ways to mitigate those risks.
Is that living in fear? On the contrary. I can relax, knowing that as far as possible I am protecting myself according to the best scientific recommendations.
But I suppose it is a level of fear in the sense that my awareness has instigated these behaviors. I think of it as a healthy, informed fear. I have the same healthy fear of getting run over crossing the road. I have educated myself and know that crossing blindly, anywhere, without looking, will put me at risk of being hit by a car or truck. So this healthy fear makes me look for a crosswalk, press the button if there is one, and wait for the traffic to stop, before taking my life in my hands and stepping off the curb.
People would think I was stupid (and they would be right) if I ignored the risks, listened to the calm, authoritative voice of people, even friends, telling me that there is little chance a vehicle will be coming along this road at this time, so the risk is small, and I got hit. Is this living in fear? No one would think that.
So why is there not the same attitude to being fully informed and protecting yourself against a disease which continues to seriously affected the lives of hundreds of millions around the world and has even killed many millions?
It's a mystery. A bit like the 'mystery virus' affecting so many I know. Why are they all stepping blindly off the COVID curb, so many getting hit, so to speak? Because they don't want to know?
@askazero
@auscovid19
#covidIsNotOver #EllieKPosts #COVIDcautious #COVID #FearCanBeHealthy #healthyFear
I never saw the reply to my post from that person as it was deleted on our server.
But thanks to all for the rational, science based replies.
@themaskerscomic @askazero
SnowshadowII
in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •Oh yes! I agree!!
@askazero @auscovid19
Pollinators
in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •bread haters (ignore pfp/name)
in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •Keith Dawson
in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •When my wife and I both had Covid last spring (after 50 months as Novids), I didn't have the opportunity to tell anyone face-to-face — because I didn't see anyone other than her until we both tested negative. The conspiracy of silence you point out may be an evolution from the earlier phenomenon of shunning.
suddenlyathome.net/shunning/
#CovidIsNotOver #CovidIsAirborn #Covid
Shunning – Suddenly at Home
suddenlyathome.netCara Bruar
in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •Ellie Kennard
Unknown parent • • •I feel for you.
During my visit to my doctor this week (where I was obliged to lower my mask) and he had his face up close to mine, he was not wearing any mask at all. In a province where (in theory) masks are mandatory for healthcare workers in a healthcare setting.
I held my breath, lowered briefly, sprayed HOCL inside the mask before replacing it, on the outside of the mask and my face. When I got out outside I sprayed inside my nose and mouth, too.
He knows I'm vulnerable (age, asthma and autoimmune conditions).
I posted this because I'm so tired, too.
@askazero @auscovid19
Dave 🚀
in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •I’m continually frustrated by people doing this, especially amongst my wider family group and friends.
The virus doesn’t GAF, and the effects of it all can’t be wished away. So it just looks like they’re accruing compound interest in cognitive dissonance and denial, as well as all the negatives of continual reinfections.
If I say the quiet part out loud, they just ignore me. I wish them all the best with the outcome of this 🫠
Jacqueline Jannotta
in reply to Dave 🚀 • • •Dave 🚀
in reply to Jacqueline Jannotta • • •@JacquelineJannotta
Psychological cost - About $150 NZD an hour with my therapist, for not a lot of gain
It’s damaged the relationship to the point of just feeling like a tattered thread, for me
Jacqueline Jannotta
in reply to Dave 🚀 • • •Ellie Kennard
in reply to Jacqueline Jannotta • • •We're not alone. We're just so few and so scattered.
I have friends who have deemed the psychological costs too high.
@dave @askazero @auscovid19
Jacqueline Jannotta
in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •KeepingMySanity
in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •Ellie Kennard
in reply to KeepingMySanity • • •But did you say it?
It's like asking someone if they have an STD.
@askazero @auscovid19
KeepingMySanity
in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •eswillwalker
in reply to KeepingMySanity • • •Ellie Kennard
in reply to eswillwalker • • •And masking.
I don't know anyone (apart from us for specific reasons) who have not been vaccinated. Nothing stopped the spread to or from them (more than once), despite the vaccinations.
Being sensible and wearing masks would have done a lot more for them.
@GeorgiaOnMyMind @askazero @auscovid19
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in reply to Ellie Kennard • • •