Call for Endorsements: Statement urging CDC/HICPAC to protect health care workers and patients
Statement prepared by public health experts urging the CDC and its Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) to protect health care workers and patients when updating infection control guidance. Endorsements are welcome from organizations and individuals in public health, health practitioner, and related fields.
DEADLINE TO ENDORSE IS FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 2024, 11:59 PM PACIFIC.
ORGANIZATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL ENDORSEMENTS WELCOME. #CovidIsNotOver#COVID19
Four years ago today, the CDC advised all Americans to wear masks in public to avoid spreading covid.
Trump immediately announced he would refuse to wear one, needlessly turning masking into a divisive partisan issue and contributing to countless avoidable deaths.
@rbreich In May of 2021, just before the Delta wave got underway in the U.S., the current president said: "If you are fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask." Tens of thousands of people, many of them fully vaccinated, died in that wave. In the fall of 2022, he falsely claimed that "the pandemic is over." The president has never apologized for making those statements, nor has he corrected himself. Where is the accountability??
Awhile back I went to a specialist for unexplained & painful lower leg swelling. His diagnosis?
“Maybe your legs are just getting fat.”
Horrified…I asked how many people gain weight ONLY in their calves. He shrugged me off. A 🧵 on knowing your body & advocating for care
This doctor did NO tests before deciding it was weight gain. Wouldn’t discuss it with me further & wouldn’t permit me a second opinion. I went home completely dejected and also worried because I KNEW something was wrong.
For the next few days I elevated my legs as much as possible and tried to gently massage them to see if it helped. They just kept getting bigger. Eventually they started weeping (fluid was seeping out of my skin) and my ankles were dislocating from the pressure.
So I went to the ER. I was actually nervous about going because I could only imagine what that doctor had put in my chart. Thankfully I had a doctor who took the swelling very seriously and ordered a wide range of tests (and immediately put me on bed rest to protect my ankles)
Turns out it was a combination of third spacing from my MCAS (when the fluid doesn’t stay in the vascular system & leaks out into the tissues - can be a big issue if you have POTS as well) and low albumin. Dangerously low albumin.
Needless to say I was suffering from malnutrition due to my extensive GI issues and that was causing the swelling. It most definitely wasn’t weight gain. I was underweight with the exception of my legs.
I never knew that low albumin could cause painful swelling like that - nor did I even think that I was suffering from malnutrition. But with both POTS & MCAS it makes sense.
Our digestive systems are controlled by the autonomic nervous system (the system malfunctioning when you have POTS) so it’s not uncommon to experience vomiting, diarrhea & other gastric complaints.
MCAS only compounds the issue by limiting the foods you can tolerate and also causing vomiting and diarrhea. The two conditions make getting adequate nutrition a challenge - especially if you’re on the severe end of the spectrum
I’m very grateful to the doctor who figured it out and helped me get homecare so I could get proper nutrition & stay off my feet while the swelling was at its worst. But it took a LOT of courage to go to the ER after being so rudely dismissed.
This is a lesson in the importance of knowing your own body & having an advocate with you whenever possible. I KNEW something serious was wrong but I had no one with me to challenge the first dismissive doctor. And he was completely unwilling to listen to me.
Don’t ever feel like you can’t get a second opinion or go to a different hospital if you feel you aren’t being taken seriously. And don’t ever apologize for advocating for your health. If you don’t have someone who can go with you - try & phone or video a friend.
Lastly can we please start listening more to patients? We know our bodies best and when you dismiss us it causes not only physical damage - but emotional damage too. You make it harder for us to seek care in the future.
Patients shouldn’t be dismissed without any tests being run. Had I not gone to the ER I could have ended up with life threatening cardiac issues from the electrolyte & fluid imbalance. A simple lab test would have confirmed the diagnosis had the first doctor cared to do them.
This experience was also an excellent reminder of the far reaching effects of dysautonomia & MCAS. It’s important to be as educated as possible in these conditions & the strange downstream complications they can cause.
And remember dismissal & gaslighting is often far worse for marginalized individuals. There’s a LOT of bias in medicine. If you’re someone in a position of privilege please call it out when you see it - and offer to be an ally to those who need support. Allies save lives
People keep shouting that if disabled people can’t cook or clean they should be institutionalized. Apparently accommodating us so we can live independent lives is angering others. Setting aside how awful many care homes are - do you realize there aren’t nearly enough beds?
I get that many ppl seem to want to completely disappear us from society. Seem to think we would be “better off” institutionalized even though many homes are dangerous places for disabled ppl. Even IF they were all sunshine & lollipops …do you think there’s enough of them?
Do you think they accept people of all disabilities? This idea that we should all have families or full time caregivers to support us is nonsense. It’s unrealistic and in many cases unnecessary. Many of us can & do learn to adapt on our own with part time help where available
The reality is we don’t have enough long term care beds to support everyone who’s chronically ill. Many places won’t take you until you’re a certain age. Many deny if you’re too unstable or don’t have rehabilitation goals. I know. I tried to find one & was repeatedly denied.
Stop assuming there’s some society wide program that places disabled people in homes that suit their unique circumstances. Many congregate settings are vectors for disease and neglect. We have to beg for access to places that often make us worse & reduce our quality of life
When you’re tempted to shout that we belong in a home - consider if it’s where YOU would want to be. Also look around - many countries are rapidly expanding their euthanasia programs to include disabled people with non terminal illnesses. Why do you think that is?
We are seeing rising disability numbers due to Covid - and the sad fact is we didn’t have enough supports for disabled people before the pandemic. We certainly can’t support the influx that’s currently occurring. So we are offering DEATH instead. Dead people cost less money.
I know folks are stuck in denial. They don’t want to accept the society wide risk associated with unmitigated COVID spread. But we are begging you to try. Try and think critically about WHY governments are expanding euthanasia programs.
Believe us when we tell you the dire lack of support available. We aren’t shouting about this because we want sympathy or enjoy complaining - we’re shouting because we can see the writing on the wall. We know our systems can’t support this much disability & people will suffer 1/2
Four years ago, Trump continued his dereliction of duty in the face of national crisis, telling governors they were on their own in the fight against Covid. “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment – try getting it yourselves,” he told them.
@rbreich About a year later, in July 2021 just as the Delta wave was getting underway in the U.S., President Ice Cream told the country, "If you are fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask." Tens of thousands of people, many of them fully vaccinated, needlessly died in that wave. A year after that, the Hair-Sniffer-In-Chief told one of the worst lies ever: "The pandemic is over." The current administration's policy, like the previous admin's, is LET IT RIP. #CovidIsNotOver
The two million deaths that have resulted from the ruling elites mishandling of the global pandemic will be dwarfed by what is to follow. The global catastrophe that awaits us, already baked into the ecosystem from the failure to curb the use of fossil fuels and animal agriculture, presage new, deadlier pandemics, mass migrations of billions of desperate people, plummeting crop yields, mass starvation, and systems collapse.
The science that elucidates this social death is known to the ruling elites. The science that warned us of this pandemic, and others that will follow, is known to the ruling elites. The science that shows that a failure to halt carbon emissions will lead to a climate crisis and ultimately the extinction of the human species and most other species is known to the ruling elites. They cannot claim ignorance. Only indifference.
As the climate crisis worsens, the political constrictions will tighten, making public resistance difficult. We do not live, yet, in the brutal Orwellian state that appears on the horizon, one where all dissidents will suffer the fate of Julian Assange. But this Orwellian state is not far away. This makes it imperative that we act now.
The ruling elites, despite the accelerating and tangible ecological collapse, mollify us, either by meaningless gestures or denial. They are the architects of social murder.
The ruling class devotes tremendous resources to mask this social murder. They control the narrative in the press. They falsify science and data, as the fossil fuel industry has done for decades. They set up committees, commissions, and international bodies, such as UN climate summits, to pretend to address the problem. Or they deny, despite the dramatically changing weather patterns, that the problem even exists.
It’s official: The CDC has weakened its COVID isolation guidelines, in a move that goes against the science, encourages disease spread, and prioritizes corporate interests, making it easier for bosses to exploit workers.
@luckytran Everyone around me knew the guidance was 5 days and then mask if you still have symptoms. It was easy. What complicates is constantly changing advice. My public school district went silent on covid in the fall- zero policy. Now my teachers union facebook page is filled with: what is the covid guidance now? Do I stay home or not? Things are about to get a lot worse. #CovidIsNotOver#MassDisablingVirus#WeDoNotHaveTheTools#CapitalismKills
My sons' music teacher contacted me to say that his return from his vacation was delayed by a Covid infection. He explained the timeline from first-symptom to first-negative-test, proactively affirmed that he'd be masking and running the air purifier I gave him, and gave the option to delay resumption of lessons.
I HELLA HEART THIS. Basic human decency. Common courtesy. Simple communication. It doesn't have to be difficult.
unlike what many in the still-COVIDing community may have you believe (where the approach is either "tons of layers of Swiss-cheese protection with dubious-at-best evidence for each" or "I put my mask on any time I even step outdoors" - or both) there's really only one principle that you need to know about preventing COVID transmission.
the only time-and-again proven route of COVID transmission is via aerosols, AKA exhaled vapors from our lungs. inhale enough aerosol saturated with virus, and you'll get COVID. it's a simple equation, and, unfortunately for us, fucking annoying, because so many places we go are saturated with these exhalations. that said, here are a few things that you can do to prevent this transmission route:
MASK UP INDOORS using a good, fit-tested N95/KN95 mask. cloth and surgical masks will not filter aerosols, but (K)N95s will. even in an aerosol-saturated room, chances are you'll be safe if you take this one step.
1A) DON'T TAKE THE DAMN MASK OFF until you're outdoors again. even if you take it off just to eat, that's an an exposure route.
SOURCE CONTROL. good masks are most effective when they're used to stop infectious aerosols at the source. to that end, push for events - especially indoor events - to be mask-required.
CLEAN AND CIRCULATE AIR in indoor spaces using HEPA filters and/or open windows.
MASK UP DURING OUTDOOR CROWDS OR PROLONGED OUTDOOR EXPOSURE TO OTHERS. again, this is a simple equation: inhale enough aerosols and you're infected. aerosols dissipate quickly in outdoor air, even with a gentle breeze (think about a fog machine running indoors versus in an open outdoor space), but you can still inhale enough for an infectious dose if you're close or persistent enough. passing by someone on the street almost certainly isn't going to give you COVID, but sitting at a restaurant unmasked or hanging out amidst a crowd of people outdoors just might.
CONTACT-TRACE, ISOLATE AND TEST if you're going to see someone outside of your bubble unmasked, especially if they don't take precautions themselves.
and... that's it. nothing else needed. no snake-oil mouthwash or nasal sprays, no goggles, no wiping down your food post-grocery store trip, no dubious supplements. just avoid aerosols and chances are* that you'll be fine.
I’m highlighting this part since it may be easily missed:
“The White House has yet to sign off on the guidance that the agency is expected to release in April for public feedback, officials said. One agency official said the timing could “move around a bit” until the guidance is finalized.”
They need to hear a ton of pushback from as many of us as possible.