Lessons Not Learned: Triumphant Covid conspiracy theorists, Radicalized youth, and more really bad news

Bonus How to be (and make others) sick less often

Feb 21, 2025

focused photo of a snow flake — Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The worst part of this dystopia is that almost no one understands that we are living in a dystopia

What are we doing? Where are we headed? How do we move forward?

Trump bars federal funding to schools with COVID vaccine mandates but WTF, there aren’t even any states that have Covid mandates anymore? But maybe just ban the Covid vaccine all together! Are we even going to bother vaccinating our kids anymore in school?

But never mind, we don’t seem to need any of those pesky disease detectives & surveillance experts anymore anyways. It’s not like we have anything to worry about with Bird Flu. Right? Right?

Not surprisingly, the mini-theme this week is politics. Political pressure is pushing us towards death and disease from all directions. Surviving and thriving requires its own kind of political pressure and I hope that the items this week can help us understand where we are and inspire all of us to move society somewhere else.

Actor Matt McGorry did a great short video recently that I think could be effective in “Covid is not over” messaging within our networks. Check it out.

The good news is that there are a bunch of wonderful new items that I’ve added to my “Must Read” list starting this issue. I might even have to start trimming that list down a bit, there’s so much wonderful new things out there!

How to be (and make others) sick less often by T. Ryan Gregory / T. Ryan Gregory’s Substack
What to do if you get COVID by Arijit Chakravarty and T. Ryan Gregory / Monkeys on Typewriters
Yes, We Continue Wearing Masks—Here’s Why: Common Questions Answered / WHN

Revenge of the Covid Conspiracy Theorists by Justin Ling / Wired (non-paywall version)

In a flurry of tweets last week, Elon Musk declared that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was “a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America” and was pure “evil.” One of the prime sins of the international development body, he said, was its alleged role in starting the pandemic.
“Did you know,” he tweeted, “that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including Covid-19, that killed millions of people?”
Several of Trump’s other senior appointees have also touted this theory that Covid-19 is not just the result of a lab leak, but is a genetically engineered virus—and perhaps even a bioweapon—created in part thanks to US funding.
This belief, which has been consistently refuted, has become a North Star for the new administration.

COVID Pushed a Generation of Young People to the Right by Derek Thompson / The Atlantic (non-paywall version)

There is another potential driver of the global right turn: the pandemic.
Pandemics might not initially seem to cash out in any particular political direction. After all, in the spring of 2020, one possible implication of the pandemic seemed to be that it would unite people behind a vision of collective sacrifice—or, at least, collective appreciation for health professionals, or for the effect of vaccines to reduce severe illness among adults. But political science suggests that pandemics are more likely to reduce rather than build trust in scientific authorities. One cross-country analysis published by the Systemic Risk Center at the London School of Economics found that people who experience epidemics between the ages of 18 and 25 have less confidence in their scientific and political leadership. This loss of trust persists for years, even decades, in part because political ideology tends to solidify in a person’s 20s.

Learn COVID pandemic lessons — before it’s too late / Nature

How would the world cope if another infectious disease with pandemic potential were to emerge, as COVID-19 did five years ago?
The answer is, we simply don’t know. In some respects, there are grounds for optimism. For example, mRNA vaccines came of age thanks to rapid progress in research and technology — much of which occurred during the pandemic. Low-and middle-income countries’ capacity to make vaccines is greater now than it was in 2020, although there is still a long way to go before they are self-sufficient. Nations have improved their systems for infectious-disease surveillance and have a better understanding of how to design fast clinical trials for testing vaccines and treatments during a crisis.
But in other respects, countries seem as ill-prepared now as they were on 30 January 2020, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency of international concern. When it comes to political will and financial backing, many have recoiled from taking the steps necessary to bolster pandemic responses. Politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic has stigmatized public-health authorities and guidance in some countries, and increased vaccine hesitancy.

HHS Asked to Go After ‘Anything Related to Covid,’ Wasteful Spending by Riley Griffin / Bloomberg (non-paywall version)

The Trump administration is pushing the Department of Health and Human Services to go after “anything related to Covid” and contracts that would “be deemed wasteful by an average citizen if made public,” according to an email sent to Food and Drug Administration staff on Thursday seen by Bloomberg.
That includes General Services Administration contracts for services to support diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility offices, telework, swag or advertising spending, the memo said. Staff were asked to report data back on such wasteful spending by Thursday morning.

COVID and wearing masks outdoors: How culture and evolution shape our behavior by Christfried Dornis / Phys.org

An international research team led by Christoph Randler, Professor of Biology Education at the University of Tübingen, has found that during the COVID-19 pandemic, people from collectivist societies such as Japan showed a greater willingness to wear masks outdoors than those from individualistic countries such as the U.S.
An increased willingness to wear masks outdoors was also observed in regions that have been particularly affected by pathogens for thousands of years. Professor Randler and his team arrived at these conclusions after assessing an online survey conducted in 53 countries. The study was recently published in the journal Social Science Research. …
According to Randler, the study also confirmed some known trends: older people and women were more likely to wear masks than younger people and men. With this comprehensive study on the use of masks, incorporating evolutionary and biological traits with cultural and sociological ones, the research team aimed to contribute to a scientific appraisal surrounding the events of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Five years later, Americans say pandemic drove them apart by Stephanie Soucheray / CIDRAP

Trust in scientists during the COVID pandemic took a significant hit: In April 2020, 87% of Americans expressed at least a fair amount of confidence in scientists, but that number dropped to 73% in October 2023.
Similarly, 54% of respondents said the media overplayed the threat of COVID-19, exaggerating the risk to the average American.
Also of note, the survey shows that, in the past 5 years, the pandemic changed how Americans work. Before March 2020, 63% of Americans worked outside the home. That's now 25%, with 75% saying they always or sometimes work from home or remotely.
Similarly, 50% of those polled said their use of technology changed during the pandemic. Equal amount of poll respondents said technology made their lives harder or easier.

Julia's Story - Fallout: Living with Long COVID by Julia Doubleday / Public Health Action Network

On January 4th, I ran out of toilet paper. I didn’t need much else from the store, maybe some seltzer water and the energy bars I’d lately been eating for breakfast and dinner. I added the items to my Instacart app and mused. So much money for so few items and the market was, according to my phone, 200 feet from my apartment. Couldn’t I make it, just this once?
It had been two months since I’d set foot outside my home, excluding doctors’ appointments, and more than six since I’d been able to walk around the block. I have Long COVID, and I’ve learned to ration my energy very, very carefully.

How to be (and make others) sick less often by T. Ryan Gregory / T. Ryan Gregory’s Substack

What do COVID, flu, RSV, measles, and various viruses that cause colds have in common? They are all transmitted through the air that we breath and share. If you’ve noticed that rates of infection seem to be higher than usual right now, you are not imagining things. COVID levels remain much higher than they should be, and we’ve had recent surges of both RSV and flu. Fortunately, we are not doomed to suffer through infection after infection (or to contribute to others suffering so) because we have a list of simple tools that we can use to reduce the amount of virus in our shared air. Below is a list that I have compiled to share with friends and family and anyone else who wants to experience less illness and avoid contributing to illness in others. This has something of a Canadian focus in terms of the availability of different items mentioned, um, sorry not sorry about that. The table of contents is there so you can skip to specific sections that you may want to consult again, and there is a short summary at the end as well.
It should go without saying that none of this is about living in fear and it does not involve lockdowns or mandates. It’s about being aware and proactive if you care about public health. The way to think about these is as a series of layers, each helping to reduce the amount of virus that we are all exposed to in shared spaces.

Trump White House Cites Fringe Doctor to Defend Research Cuts by Nick Tsergas / Important Context

The Trump administration announced unprecedented cuts to research funding last week. Universities, scientists and even Red-state senators warn that the abrupt removal of billions of science dollars will force lab-closures and mass layoffs of researchers.
While a federal judge has blocked the cuts from going through, for now, the move has sparked widespread opposition from the public and academics. On the other side of the issue, among the most ardent proponents of the cuts, is Dr. Vinay Prasad. …
Prasad has authored dozens of research and opinion articles critical of measures to control the pandemic—masks, vaccination, antiviral-use—including cross-publishing a blog with the Brownstone Institute. Brownstone is a dark money think tank that claims to defend intellectual freedoms and promote free speech, but is in truth aimed at reshaping public health along the lines of anarcho-capitalist ideology.

Trump administration firings hit key office handling bird flu response by Marcia Brown / POLITICO

Laboratories in a national network of 58 facilities responding to the spread of bird flu were notified Friday that 25 percent of the staff in a central program office coordinating their work was fired in the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal employees.
USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network program office has a staff of only 14 people, but it plays a major role in responding to animal disease outbreaks. It’s responsible for data management, ensuring that labs across the country are conducting the same tests and following similar protocols to accurately and effectively track animal diseases.

The Lingering Trauma of COVID Coverage for Italian Journalists by Stefania D'Ignoti / Nieman Reports

“I was surprised by how people collectively removed this period from their lives,” she said. “Personally, I can’t forget anything … Perhaps because I was among the few who was able to move around, therefore I have vivid memories of actions, while those who physically stood still at home have lived it like a dream,” she added. Calzavara believes it could take 15 or 20 years for people to be ready to talk about these experiences with detachment, but for now, “I know that all the pain remains, you just learn how to live with it.”

Amid layoffs at HHS, experts warn about impact on public health by Chris Dall / CIDRAP

The mass firings at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that began over the weekend continue, though it's not yet clear how many employees have been dismissed as part of the Trump administration's efforts to cut the federal workforce, or how many more will be losing their jobs in the coming days.
The dismissals, which began late last week and targeted probationary employees, have hit large swaths of health professionals across the 13 divisions that operate under HHS. The New York Times reports that the toll includes 1,200 employees dismissed from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), while National Public Radio reports that 750 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received termination letters over the weekends. Probationary employees include recent hires or longer-serving staff who recently began new positions.
The cuts also hit probationary employees at Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who review food ingredients, medical devices, and other products, according to the Associated Press, though the number of employees dismissed was unclear. Other affected divisions include the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), Politico reports.

Portishead. Roads.

The Covid-Is-Not-Over Newsletter

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