Pandemic revisionism is going to kill us all, CO2 levels & infection risk, The worst time to be alive, and more
Bonus CO2 levels and viral transmissibility and infection risk
Welcome to the latest issue of the Covid-Is-Not-Over newsletter!
Last week I suggested that you all run on over to The Gauntlet and support the work of Julia Doubleday. Thirty-eight of you did! And I hope a bunch of that 38 subscribed. This week I’ve somehow included a few articles from OK Doomer by Jessica Wildfire, so that’s where I’ll encourage all of you to visit and, if you like what you see (and I’m sure you will) subscribe and support Jessica’s work.
If anything, OK Doomer’s contributions this week really encapsulate the mini-theme this week, not to mention the state of the world in 2024.
We’re on our way to the worst time to be alive because so many people don’t listen to warnings. Maybe it’s time to quit what we were doing before and find something safer.
I think pretty well everything I’ve selected today contributes to that vague yet depressing theme.
And if you can make it to the end, I hope you’ll enjoy the musical interlude I have prepared for you.
As most have probably noticed, there is no paid subscription option for this newsletter. However, Substack does have an option where subscribers can pledge to subscribe “just in case” and a few kind subscribers have made that pledge. I very much appreciated the vote of confidence in what I’m doing here. What I’ve decided to do on a trial basis is to set up a “tip jar” on the Ko-fi platform. I’m not anticipating a huge surge of income from using Ko-fi but whatever revenue I do end up with, I plan to spend on supporting artists on Bandcamp. Sadly, who knows how long that will seem like a good idea.
The Covid Revisionists Are Endangering Us All: As the possibility of a new pandemic looms, influential figures are telling us we shouldn’t have been so worried about the last one. This spells trouble by Gregg Gonsalves / The Nation
So much of this, as other writers have said, is about class in America. The Times’ Covid coverage has frequently tilted toward the needs of white and wealthy readers—ones who could sequester away at home or in their country houses during the height of the pandemic, whose kids went to schools with new ventilation systems and Covid testing and for whom the pandemic response was just good enough (we’re not Uganda!). For others like Berliner and Galea, there seems to be a deep need to lean into power in its ascendancy—that is, to show conservatives that they have a friend, with support for the lab leak theory and the Great Barrington Declaration meant trot out their bona fides.
Except this all makes us more vulnerable to the next pandemic, by suggesting that mitigation efforts were overzealous, not supported by the data, did more harm than good, and were “just political,” and that what happened to us was not so bad in terms of international comparisons. And the obsequiousness with which some try to gain the favor of conservatives shows a real misreading of the threats coming for public health from a possible Donald Trump presidency, ongoing attacks on public health at the state and local level, and a willingness to play fast and loose with the data.
It’s incumbent on those of us in public health to push back against these narratives from the media, from within certain quarters of public health and clinical medicine. Lives depend on it. There is a lot to learn from the past four years, and holding fast to the facts does matter, even if it’s not what some want to hear. With the potential for a new pandemic happening sooner than later, with the specter of H5N1 influenza (“bird flu”) on the horizon, this revisionism needs to be nipped in the bud now.
Why So Many People Don't Listen to Warnings by Jessica Wildfire / OK Doomer
So as we stare down another pandemic, along with all the other consequences of an overheated planet, don't be shocked at all the reactance you see. Don't be surprised when you see people wanting to cuddle with birds and drink unpasteurized milk, simply because someone told them it's a bad idea right now. By trying to help someone, you triggered their reactance.
There's one lesson here:
All you can really do is present people with important information, and then let them make their own decisions.
If they make stupid decisions simply because they can…
Stay away from them.
The Worst Time to Be Alive by Jessica Wildfire / OK Doomer
There's one big difference between now and 536. It's not some volcano causing our misery. We're responsible for this one. And the damage we've done to this planet will last much longer than a few decades.
When this world ends, I don't know if a new one will grow in its place. Maybe. It's going to look awfully different. If it's going to survive, it can't repeat the mistakes of all the previous worlds. Plus, it's going to have a rough time. Climate scientists are predicting massive storms so strong they can hurl boulders, and those storms will start happening anywhere between now and the end of the century. We're already seeing heat waves so devastating they kill... everything. No previous civilization has had to deal with that.
Humans will probably survive, and life will look a lot like it did before fossil fuels made us too big for our britches.
If you're like me, you've been looking through history for some kind of framework or analogy for what's happening now. The sixth century offers a good one. It was literally the end of the ancient world.
An apocalypse takes a long time.
Just ask the bones.
SoCal's COVID-cautious: Fighting isolation along with the virus by Danielle Chiriguayo / KRCW
Being COVID-cautious is different for everyone, from how much protective gear they wear to what risks they’re willing to take. Some folks remain vigilant because they’ve already caught the virus and know the damage it causes. Others, however, are among the nearly 1 in 4 U.S. adults and older teens who the CDC estimates have never had COVID — and they want or need to keep it that way. …
Lowenstein’s pandemic experience with isolation — and finding community in online spaces — led them to form We Are The Wayside. The local COVID-cautious group meets monthly at Echo Park, where attendees hang out, share the latest COVID wastewater data, and share space, all in-person and fully masked.
The group’s name refers to a 2023 BBC interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci about the risk COVID still posed. “Even though you'll find the vulnerable will fall by the wayside, they'll get infected, they'll get hospitalized, and some will die — it's not going to be this tsunami of cases that we've seen,” Fauci said.
Lowenstein says those falling by the “wayside” have been abandoned by society at large. For them, there is no “just living” with COVID. “We didn't learn to live with the risk of car crashes by not incorporating seatbelts. We didn't learn to live with the risks associated with smoking by allowing smoking in every space and everyone of every age to smoke, right?”
Navigating a "Post-Pandemic" Fallout / Pandemic Accountability Index
Nihilism as a cultural doctrine can be an incredibly useful political tool: a population trained to accept that their lot in life will never improve, is a population much less likely to challenge your legitimacy of governance or make material demands. In the 5th year of the COVID-19 pandemic, America has been trained to accept endless infections with SARS-CoV-2: a virus that has killed & crippled millions of their fellow countrymen, in what is now widely described a "post-pandemic" return to “normalcy,” an artificial construction rooted in toxic positivity and a willful ignorance of the long-term harm that future bouts of COVID-19 may leave upon their bodies.
As part of this "post-COVID" "new normal," there's a new Amazon streaming series based off of the long-running Fallout franchise, which started as a role-playing post-apocalyptic adventure game in 1997, nearly three decades ago. Let’s get you up to speed, Wastelander.
Ambient carbon dioxide concentration correlates with SARS-CoV-2 aerostability and infection risk by Allen Haddrell, Henry Oswin, et al. / Nature Communications
We show here that a significant increase in SARS-CoV-2 aerostability results from a moderate increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (e.g. 800 ppm), an effect that is more marked than that observed for changes in relative humidity. We model the likelihood of COVID-19 transmission on the ambient concentration of CO2, concluding that even this moderate increase in CO2 concentration results in a significant increase in overall risk. These observations confirm the critical importance of ventilation and maintaining low CO2 concentrations in indoor environments for mitigating disease transmission. Moreover, the correlation of increased CO2 concentration with viral aerostability need to be better understood when considering the consequences of increases in ambient CO2 levels in our atmosphere.
Virus lifespan and transmission boosted by high CO2 levels by Sanjana Gajbhiye / Earth.com
CO2 increases virus lifespan
Viruses are known to spread through tiny droplets expelled when we breathe, sneeze, or cough. These droplets carry viruses from one person to another through the air. However, recent research explores how the chemical makeup of droplets influences the lifespan of a virus.
Under normal circumstances, the fluid in these droplets is slightly alkaline. This alkalinity works against virus survival, deactivating viruses gradually like a microscopic defense mechanism.
The study introduces a critical variable: CO2. When CO2 is present in the air, it interacts with the moisture in the droplets, acting like a mild acid. This interaction is crucial because it decreases the natural alkalinity of the droplets by making them less alkaline.
In environments with high CO2 levels, like poorly ventilated rooms or crowded spaces, the acidity in droplets increases. This disrupts their natural self-cleaning process.
By reducing alkalinity, CO2 creates more favorable conditions for viruses. This allows them to stay infectious longer. The extended virus lifespan increases the chances that more people will be infected.
Why the ‘post-pandemic’ era is a myth for people living with disabilities by Darsi Amisi / The Toronto Observer
The precautions that were put in place over the duration of the pandemic displayed the inclusive nature of disabled culture in its quest for public safety. Mask mandates, in place in Ontario from October 2020 to March 2022, decreased the transmission of airborne viruses. For many, the use of air ventilators led to an increased sense of safety sharing public space with others.
“A lot of jobs we realized didn’t need to be in office,” Musa said. “And then they all went back into office, which reduces options for people like me.”
However, as mask mandates became less and less compulsory, and we started to switch back to in-person work and gatherings, disabled people grew more and more isolated in their pandemic reality.
“It just makes me really angry and it makes me really upset,” Limon said. “The world has moved on as if COVID isn’t a problem anymore.”
What Anti-Vaxxers Actually Mean By "Free Speech" / Pandemic Accountability Index
For years now, we've seen so many different accounts of people - mostly women - wind up disabled and even bedridden from "mild" COVID-19 infections. Then jumping on a platform like Twitter only to find themselves being harassed & abused by men who insist that they're lying - and profiting from said nastiness. The very sort of abusive vulgarity that moderation is supposed to crack down on.
This is the anti-vaxxer ideal of "free speech" in action: Not only should my speech be protected - but it should also be promoted. Your speech, consisting of the facts that prove I’m full of crap, needs to be suppressed. Also, you need to bury the bodies that prove my entire belief system is utterly full of shit - completely and utterly silenced from this public "debate." My feelings are simply more important than the facts. Me, me, me. My perspective is the center of the universe, and my positive feelings are simply more important than any fact in life which might induce a slight discomfort! How can you possibly begin have a “debate” with such a thoughtless mind that only sees human beings as a disposable object to advance their own delusions of grandeur?
When you hear an anti-vaxxer crying about “free speech” and how they’re being “censored,” call them out head-on as the liars they are. What they actually want is the opposite - their own speech protected - no matter how wrong it is - and their critics suppressed and harassed into silence. There’s no debate to be had with the chronically dishonest, and we can’t begin to have a serious discussion about repairing the dire state of public health in America without shutting out the quacks.
COVID-19 kicked off a workplace cultural shift, making it hard to fill positions, says employers by Elizabeth Whitten / CBC News
The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up how people work — including by requiring people to work from home, exacerbating labour shortages, and leaving some people seeking a better work-life balance — says a new report.
Memorial University economist Tony Fang has researched the changes the pandemic has had on businesses across Atlantic Canada and has released a paper detailing his findings.
"During this pandemic but also the aftermath of the global pandemic, we asked tough questions; how we as a community — especially the business sector, and also the government, the policy makers — responded to this unprecedented crisis," Fang told CBC News.
"How businesses actually changed their operations, workplace practices. And also how to prepare for [the] future in case such events would occur again."
I'm a Tenured College Professor. I'm Quitting. Here's Why. by Jessical Wildfire / OK Doomer
I'm leaving because my university, like so many others out there, refuses to get with the times. Six months ago, my dean promised to support my bid for a remote teaching position. Nothing would've changed. I've been teaching online for the last four years. Before asking me to quit, my dean scheduled a special phone call to ask if I was okay teaching a heavier course load for a lower salary, in exchange for this special concession. On top of that, I was already designing a slew of new courses they desperately needed. I planned those courses down to the day, and even wrote a free textbook for it along with videos for other teachers to use. I was also unofficially doing administrative work, and that was going to become an official job duty.
After COVID vaccine rollout, negativity on Twitter spiked by Stephanie Soucheray / CIDRAP
Negativity about vaccines surged 27% on Twitter after COVID-19 vaccines first became available, according to a new study presented this week at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Global Congress.
In the years prior to COVID-19, there were more negative statements about vaccines than positive ones, but the introduction of vaccines and news about mandating vaccines caused negative statements to spike on Twitter, now called X.
COVID booster linked to 25% lower odds of long COVID by Stephanie Soucheray / CIDRAP
A new cross-sectional study published in Vaccine of US adults demonstrates that people who received the COVID-19 booster vaccine had 25% lower odds of having long COVID than their unvaccinated counterparts.
The study was based on 8,757 respondents to the 2022 National Health Interview Survey, with data from a weighted sample size of 87,509,670 Americans. Authors used self-reported COVID-19 booster vaccination status and self-reported long-COVID status (defined as having new or persistent symptoms 3 or more months after an initial COVID-19 infection) to calculate odds ratios (ORs) of developing long COVID.
What Are We Even Doing: Bad Takes on the Pandemic!
‘Greatest comeback story never told’: Biden touts Covid relief efforts - POLITICO
Time to finally stop worrying about COVID? — Harvard Gazette
Sask rural municipalities agree CO2 is not a pollutant, prompting sharp exchange in legislature
Kids missing more school since pandemic, CBC analysis finds (doesn’t mention illness from Covid)
More Canadians see measles as dangerous compared to COVID, flu: poll - National | Globalnews.ca
Melissa Aldana, Unconscious Whispers. Following on from last week, check out this recent Bootleggers Beware podcast episode for a really nice tribute to Dickie Betts, with three hours of live recordings from his time with the Allman Brothers and his solo work. Enjoy!
A valuable and heartening newsletter for us dedicated never-Coviders still taking extreme precautions. Thank you!