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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Case for Wearing Masks Forever
https://archive.vn/UXqc1#selection-867.0-899.14Fullilove, who is Black, has spent her career studying epidemics: first aids, then crack, then multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. She has seen how disease can ravage cities, especially in Black and working-class communities. From the beginning, Fullilove was skeptical of how the federal government handled the coronavirus pandemic. But these new recommendations from the C.D.C., she said, were flying in the face of the science. Not long after the announcement, she sent an e-mail to a Listserv called The Spirit of 1848, for progressive public-health practitioners. Can we have a peoples CDC and give people good advice? she asked. A flurry of responses came back.
What emerged was the Peoples C.D.C.: a ragtag coalition of academics, doctors, activists, and artists who believe that the government has left them to fend for themselves against covid-19. As governments, schools, and businesses have scaled back their covid precautions, the members of the Peoples C.D.C. have made it their mission to distribute information about the pandemicwhat they see as real information, as opposed to whats circulated by the actual C.D.C. They believe the C.D.C.s data and guidelines have been distorted by powerful forces with vested interests in keeping people at work and keeping anxieties about the pandemic down. The public has a right to a sound reading of the data thats not influenced by politics and big business, Fullilove said.
No one is in charge of the Peoples C.D.C., and no ones expertise is valued more than anyone elses. The problems of the pandemic and its response are rooted in hierarchical organizations, Mary Jirmanus Saba, a filmmaker and one of the volunteers, told me. Roughly forty people come to each weekly meeting, but many more are involved. (This spring, after a few of the groups organizers published a manifesto of sorts in the Guardian, several thousand interested people reached out, Fullilove said.) The group sends out a weekly Weather Reportput together by a team composed, in part, of doctors and epidemiologistssummarizing data about transmission rates, new variants, and death rates. Theyve published explainers on testing, masks, and ventilation, among other topics, typically with a call to action: call the White House, call your congressperson, demand free tests and treatment for all. On their Web site, they recently posted a guide for safer gatherings, which recommends that all events be held outdoors with universal, high-grade masking. The organization has nearly twenty thousand followers on Instagram, and it prides itself as a resource for various groups, including people who are immunocompromised and want to find a way to protect themselves and activists who are trying to lobby their local government for more covid restrictions.
Tetrachloride
(7,847 posts)Celerity
(43,402 posts)snip
I called Tom Frieden, who led the C.D.C. during the Obama years, to see what he made of the Peoples C.D.C. He had never heard of the group before I got in touch, but he took a look at their materials ahead of our call. He praised the organizations guide to self-protection for immunocompromised people, and agreed that some of their recommendations, like universal masking in times of high covid spread, were good ideas in theory. But is that going to happen? Absolutely not, he said. The next best thing is to try to get people vaccinated and boosted and to increase access to high-quality masks and Paxlovid. If youre giving recommendations that no ones going to follow, thats not only nonproductive, he said. Its counterproductive, because that undermines your credibility.
Tetrachloride
(7,847 posts)sorry for confusion
3catwoman3
(24,005 posts)Too hard for my mature eyes to read. (I refuse to say aging.).
Skittles
(153,164 posts)madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)🤣🤣
Mr.Bill
(24,300 posts)in fact I've gotten quite used to it. I also don't mind any vaccinations if my doctor recommends it.
But I doubt we will ever see more than 20-30% compliance with those things, because they have made it a partisan political issue.
SlimJimmy
(3,180 posts)Still contracted covid. You'll have to do more to convince me to "mask forever."
Warpy
(111,267 posts)I was vaxed and masked when I caught my breakthrough case--at the hospital. It wasn't terrible.
The vaccines are working as advertised for most of us, if we get breakthrough cases, they are mild.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,861 posts)will need to get Covid before it goes away.
I'm vaccinated and twice boosted. No covid so far, but I'm amazed at how many like me still get it. Almost makes me wonder why we bother to vaccinate and boost.
Sigh. And I'm essentially the most healthy person I know. Never get sick. Don't bother with the influenza vaccine -- and I'm not about to suggest you skip it, this is just me -- haven't had flu since something like 1975.
Covid has taught us that individual immune systems vary widely, wildly.
Warpy
(111,267 posts)or you had such a mild case you blew it off as allergies or just a mild case of sniffles. That's how the vaccine works fmost people.
However, it is going to be with us for the foreseeable future, so we might as well get used to the idea.
I get sick with everything, and I get really sick with it. My breakthrough case was a mild, 2 day nuisance. I can live with that easily, which is why I'm not going to cling to masks and social distancing. Occasional illness is a fact of life for most of us and most of us will get only a mild one when a new Covid strain blows through town.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,861 posts)For one thing, I don't get out and about very much. I generally don't bother with a mask anymore, and I'm rarely in any kind of crowds.
SlimJimmy
(3,180 posts)That's why I received one to begin with. When I contracted Covid, I spent three days in the hospital with Covid induced myocarditis. Not exactly a mild case. Five months later, I'm still fighting mild chest congestion. So, although I'm pleased your case was mild, but that's not always true. I have to be honest here. Even if offered, I probably won't get a 2nd booster.
Warpy
(111,267 posts)as it raced through unprotected people across the planet.
It has prevented most serious illnesses except in high risk people (obese, diabetic type II, COPD, advanced age). I call that a win.
As the mutation rate slows, perhaps we will get a vaccine that completely prevents illness. However, I think it will be like the flu, periodic vaccines needing to come out as the damned thing mutates.
This is how science works, new information comes out and new conclusions are reached. People want certainty, they should stick to religion.
ZonkerHarris
(24,228 posts)joshcryer
(62,276 posts)And I attribute it solely to masks. The one time I got sick I was in a household with a lot of people who had sickness and they gave it to me (masking in such an environment would've been pointless).
Meowmee
(5,164 posts)But with how stupid people are here and with actual science being trashed long ago, I am not optimistic about it here. Its amazing how so many have forgotten all of those who lost their lives due to malfeasance and who dont care about those still dying.
Ty for telling us about this group.
Response to pstokely (Original post)
Post removed
EnergizedLib
(1,895 posts)I wear my mask to this day, rarely ever shake hands with people and have all my shots.
It works.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,355 posts)do actually have a point.