Hey friend, it’s 2024. Please leave the r-slur in the past where it belongs.

No, actually.

People care because we’re people and don’t like to see unnecessary suffering, especially if we’re able to change it. In western countries, our governments (and taxes) are supporting this, we have significant power to influence the outcome.

We also understand that our struggles are connected. The problems in my community are tied to the US support of Israel and their ongoing violent oppression of Palestinians. They cannot be separated, and to create any lasting change we must address the issues in whole, which requires examining how they relate and working to break those connections. The “popularity” in the media is a moment to facilitate doing the good you’re talking about, that’s why so many long time organizers in social just areas are doing exactly what needs doing, seizing the moment.

They likely still want what they always have, freedom from the violence of their oppressors and a return to their indigenous lands. Until Israel, by choice or force, stops it’s decades long settler colonial violence against Palestinians - or succeeds in their annihilation attempts - this will continue.

Yes, the rampant spread of covid will make it difficult to make the case it was caught at work, unless the work is somewhere covid is known to be like healthcare or where an outbreak is known. Unless and until we have sufficient infection control measures in most places it will continue to be difficult to know where one was exposed.

Unfortunately it’s already the norm in many workplaces to not inform employees of outbreaks. There’s little to no requirements for reporting cases so businesses have no responsibility to keep covid out of the workplace and people are getting sick at work. This ruling is a result of that reality, not a precipitator.

No, I’m continuing the original statements I made. That covid is causing long term health issues, and while vaccines can lower the odds of long term impacts they do not prevent them. The only way to prevent long covid is to not get Covid.

I agree masks are cost prohibitive, I support free distribution of n95s or elastomeric and fit testing in communities, but how are they limiting where folks go? When we had widescale masking I was able to go the places I wanted, safely. I disagree that asking people to stay home while sick is a drastic reduction in freedom, I actually believe people’s desire to go in public and spread disease that can cause serious problems for them is a much great reduction in overall freedom. Another drastic reduction in freedom is what people who don’t want to get covid have been experiencing, which is being cut off from all public life. One-way masking is not enough, it’s like wearing a helmet in a monster truck rally, helpful but insufficient. Even hospitals are not places one can go without getting ill.

I can’t convince you to care about yours and others wellbeing. I believe that freedom is something we share and create for each other, not simply being able to move about and do whatever I want as an individual. I truly hope you educate yourself on the risks of covid and take proper care to avoid it. Peace.

These misunderstandings about covid are what I mentioned in my original post. Covid is currently killing fewer people than it did the first few years, it already burned through the most vulnerable and you can only die once. But illness is not rare at all. Aside from the rampant acute illness, Nearly One in Five American Adults Who Have Had COVID-19 Still Have “Long COVID” and about 10% of infections results in long covid. We don’t even know what the long term effects are, we do know it’s already having impacts on people’s health and on healthcare services, and that there is no lasting immunity. People used to suffer and die from preventable diseases, a lot. We didn’t say oh well, sucks to suck. We learned and adapted, that’s what we need to do that again.

You mentioned costs and freedom, what does freedom mean to you in this context?

Actually I’m proposing life is valuable and we should protect it.

The vaccines don’t solve the problem and the solutions do not require massive change, but they do require people reflect on what’s important and adjust their behavior accordingly. I think that living a good life is important so I believe we should do things to better those odds, like reducing the amount of damage covid does to the body. Choosing continuous illness and your worse years coming much sooner sounds closer to suicide to me. Masking, improved ventilation and filtration, paid sick leave, and other simple steps are not absurd and shouldn’t be temporary. We know easy ways to reduce massive suffering, it’s ridiculous to me that people oppose it.

No, we don’t have to just accept continuous illness and death. Why do you think that it’s necessary for people to suffer when there are simple solutions? There are steps between nothing and total shutdown, read above for some of them.

Covid isn’t like people going in the street risking getting hit. Covid is a communicable illness spread by others, not a personal choice someone makes. People can’t just choose to never be exposed even if they wanted, we have to interact with others. Further, people can and do avoid being run over in the street by walking on sidewalks and crosswalks, riding in vehicles with protections, with lots of traffic safety rules in place to minimize accidents. Right now our covid elimination strategies are similar to that of traffic safety in the early days of automobiles when there were no safety regulations. Right now we have a bunch of people driving wildly with at best ineffective vaccines, we need a lot more than that if we want to stop repeatedly trying to dodge covid crashes and have any sense of stability in actually living with covid.

That “coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, can have lasting effects on nearly every organ and organ system of the body weeks, months, and potentially years after infection (11,12). Documented serious post-COVID-19 conditions include cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, renal, endocrine, hematological, and gastrointestinal complications (8), as well as death.”.

This is true regardless of symptom severity or health status, every person is at risk. I think most people really aren’t aware of this, they absorbed the narrative that it’s gone, mild, only kills/harms the vulnerable, etc. This isn’t really their fault, there are a lot of factors that have led people to that belief, but people should know their lives and livelihoods are much more at risk now than 4 years ago.

And that this isn’t inevitable, there are simple methods of disrupting transmission and protecting yourself and others. COVID-19 is here to stay (unless we do something about that) and it has impacts on every person infected and on society at large. That shouldn’t mean folks accept illness and worse quality of life. We adapt and adopt precautions in our life to reduce long-term health impacts, like we’ve done before with many other illnesses that plague humanity.

All of the things you mentioned require extra work from an individual that inevitably means others who don’t receive those things will be left without. No one should have to jump through those extra hoops and many just can’t for various reasons. And people should also be able to “wander into a degree”, lives and plans change. Sometimes people have to switch tracks or leave and return to college and there shouldn’t be repercussions for that.

deleted by creator

Would you like help researching those things? I’m a stranger on the internet but I’m happy to help or point you in some directions.

I’m sorry you’re experiencing this, it’s terrible and should not be something you have to deal with. Not sure if this counts as medical advice but asking in case it’s been overlooked, do you have access to telehealth options or have you sought a care coordinator through your insurance? Those may be helpful in finding a different doctor, it won’t help with the existing debt though. I’m disabled and unfortunately very familiar with medical debt, if you’d like any information on ways to try to lessen that debt feel free to dm me. There’s also a lot of organizing around medical debt, this group is one I’ve been involved with, if that’s of any interest to you (or anyone else reading this).

There’s a lot of dis/misinformation on them, but those sites are also useful tools for organizing around issues and getting the correct information in front of people who otherwise would never see it and unfortunately there aren’t great alternatives available.

Ah, yea the UK is very strict on Paxlovid eligibility. Glad you’re up to date on the vaccines, if it is COVID that should help with initial illness and resting as much as possible can help with reducing Long COVID development. I may have missed others make this suggestion but a good heat pad or similar for aches can be wonderful. Hope you feel better soon.

If you’ve been ill for just a few days and it’s available to you, get a COVID-19 test and seek Paxlovid. The new variants are about so many are sick with it and Paxlovid is effective at reducing illness severity. Same is true of Tamiflu for the flu but it’s likely to be COVID-19 at this time.

Yes, this isn’t an unusual type of pain with someone with a back or spine injury. Like others said, see a doctor asap as they may be able to help. You might need physical therapy along with medication, and it’s better to start sooner rather than later when it could be less treatable.

Depending on where you live, yes. We have a setup of 4 panels placed in the backyard connected to an inverter and some batteries. It’s technically temporary so legal where we are, basically a large solar charged battery bank.

It’s always so frustrating to see the same jokes and snark about Phoenix because most people will just accept that at face value, laugh, and move on. Phoenix gets hot, yea, but not like this otherwise it wouldn’t be newsworthy.

The summers bring heat but also usually rains, monsoons actually. They punctuate the stretches of heat bringing cooler temps and much needed relief. These usually start in June and occur regularly for the duration of summer but haven’t this year. People have lived in the area for thousands of years, this is abnormal and not as simple as “people live in hot area and complain about heat”.