I've been wearing a mask at crowded spaces but a couple of days ago the supermarket was very very busy and someone let their child run up behind me and open mouth cough right next to me.

Masks work and it took 4 years for me to catch it the first time, but they aren't miracle workers if the general public are allowed to basically come up and assault you.

I hope it's just the flu but I recognise these emerging symptoms as the same as when I first got it last April.

You might think I'm overreacting but the last time I got COVID it hit me hard. I have no memory of the week and a half it was at its worst, as It was just a haze of pain, fever dreams and confusion. It scares me to think how it might have damaged my brain (insert obvious jokes here) and I'm terrified of having it again. Especially if it does worse damage each time you get it.

government surplus site (gcsurplus.ca) is giving out free stuff and will ship free upon request 2 boxes of respirators or 100 respirators

duck bill respirators.

https://www.gcsurplus.ca/mn-eng.cfm?snc=wfsav&sc=enc-bid&scn=526845&lcn=682165&lct=L&srchtype=&lci=&str=21&lotnf=1&frmsr=1&sf=ferm-clos&saleType=

Surprisingly, it seems like the topic of transparent masks has never come up in this community before. Since I need to buy new masks anyways, and I may be getting more involved with the Deaf community in the near future, I'd like to try them.

under personal protective equipment

"safemask architect pro"

duckbill respirator, these are apparently the dimensions

I'm scared of posting too many details for fear of self doxing. But I am that guy who N95s indoors everywhere. I never unmask except in front of my partner, who also is careful. I put HEPA filters in my classroom. I also avoid unnecessary indoor activities, like cinemas, gyms and indoor sports. If there's an interesting event but there's no ventilation and no one is masking, I'll give it a pass.

There's been some positives. I'm way more self confident than I used to be, knowing deeply how shitty and ignorant the average normie is. I used to always second guess myself, and now I don't. I also spend way less money, as I don't dine nor holiday. COVID pushed me far into tankie territory, and opened my mind into better understating patriarchy and white supremacy.

Also ya, I don't get sick ever.

However, I'm such a different person today. I'm not the sweet chatty person I was in 2019. I had an almost femme twang in my voice back then, and now I'm just a ragged pissed off uncle.

One huge disadvantage is that I'm such a media consuming person. Pre covid, I'd avoid TV and games. Now it's all I do. I've become the kind of person that needs someone on in order to eat or sleep. I used to fucking hate these people, and now I've become that person.

The other huge problem is that my work productivity is way lower. I used to finish everything up in a coffee shop, now obviously I can't do that. I can definitely do more in my job and in my org. I regret that I've become, honestly, maybe a bit lazy.

Along with a baffling rise in post-pandemic mortality rates that has insurers stymied, the number of Americans claiming disabilities has skyrocketed since 2020, adding another puzzling factor that could impact corporate bottom lines.

After rising slowly and steadily since the turn of the century and hovering between 25 million and 27 million, the number of disabled among the U.S. population rose nearly 35 percent in the last four years, to an all-time high of 38,844,000 at the end of November, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Reasons behind the stunning increase vary, but many seem connected to the COVID-19 pandemic.

OH FOR REAL?

If the rate of disability is climbing then that's a pretty good sign that covid is still fucking people up and should be avoided.

this sucks, i have pain in my shoulders and neck which has never really happened before - could be my shit posture, but i think it's probably spurred on by my covid infection a couple weeks ago

can't turn my head without alot of pain.

boomer parents being boomers and shit saying "it's all in your head"

the acetaminophen doesn't help

Stolen from here

A new study reveals that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein remains in brain-protective tissues and skull bone marrow for years after infection, potentially driving long COVID’s neurological symptoms. Using advanced imaging, researchers discovered elevated spike protein levels in these regions, leading to chronic brain inflammation and increased risks of neurodegenerative conditions.

mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were shown to reduce spike protein accumulation by 50%, though residual protein may still pose risks. The findings highlight the need for new therapies and early diagnostic tools to address long-term effects on brain health.

In the years leading up to covid, I was a caregiver for my grandparents and watched them slowly lose their minds before they went. My grandfather was especially bad at the end. So my two biggest fears regarding covid are the death of Herd Immunity, which we're watching occur, and this shit.

What's interesting is the chart on the website. This 2024 flu season is worse than 2023, and 2023 was worse than 2022. If the "immunity debt" theory was right, this wouldn't be happening. Could all the well documented evidence that covid harms your immune system and makes you more susceptible to other diseases possibly be true?

Hospitals in England are being hit by a "tidal wave" of flu and other winter viruses, NHS bosses say.

Data released by NHS England showed there were an average of nearly 1,900 beds occupied by flu patients last week – up 70% on the week before.

That is more than three times higher than this time last year, with doctors warning that they are struggling to contain the spread of the virus within hospitals as well as seeing more patients being admitted.

Covid, RSV and the vomiting bug Norovirus are also continuing to cause problems.

Thankfully, for now, it looks like we have a few weeks before covid takes off everywhere in the US, and it won't be as dramatic as the last one because the summer surge was pretty large and their haven't been any new significant mutations showing up in a while.... but the UK is probably a preview for what's about to happen in the US. Whooping cough is going nuts at the moment.

JPweiland forcasts covid waves, and has been remarkable accurate so far.

Reminder that masking works especially well against the flu and other less contagious virus. Always mask in places that vulnerable and high risk people can't avoid!

death rates from "respiratory infections" skyrocketed in 2020, but death rates for almost every other category also rose "mildly".

The causes of death that rose:

• cardiovascular
• neuropsychiatric
• unintentional injury
• digestive
• intentional injury

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-by-cause-who-mdb

deaths from digestive disease was about 18.75/100k pre-pandemic, and went up to 24/100k in 2021. So digestive deaths increased by about 28% after COVID started hitting.

Also worth mentioning that for every additional person who dies of X, there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of additional people suffering from X

As I sit in my office building for 8 hours with a mask on, listening to people around me act like it’s over. I am counting down the seconds till I can be back in my house, safe and sound.

I just thought this was an Interesting data point.

Australian primary school students have recorded their best ever results in an international maths and science assessment, curbing concerns about lockdowns disrupting learning.

The 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss), released by the Australian Council for Educational Research (Acer) late on Wednesday, analysed the skills of year 4 and 8 students.

About 14,000 students in Australia participated in the test across 500 diverse schools.

The report found Australian year 4 students, whose first years of schooling occurred doing Covid, ranked equal fifth internationally out of 58 countries, and equal 15th in mathematics.

I wonder if those scores will go up, down, or stay the same in following years? Can we place bets on this sort of crap?

Something to think about now that we are in our 3rd year of record levels of infections of pretty much everything.

(img source)

Children experience weakened immunity and bacterial infections after suffering from long Covid-19 syndrome, a study published in the medical journal Nature has revealed.

Persistent fatigue was the most common symptom in children with long Covid syndrome, while the majority of children often complained about anxiety.

The researchers focused on a type of white blood cell called neutrophils, which plays a crucial role in combating infections, particularly bacterial ones. They discovered that children with long Covid had neutrophils that were functionally impaired.

“For instance, their ability to attack and swallow harmful bacteria such as Staphylococcus was impaired. This might correlate with the rise of multiple bacterial infections that were reported in Western nations among children after the onset of the pandemic," explained Rajeev Jayadevan, chairman, research cell, at the Indian Medical Association’s Kerala wing.

Also there is more evidence that the main long covid symptoms are a result of viral persistance.

And sars-cov-2 spike protein can linger in the brain: New study reveals how lingering spike protein in the brain's borders could explain long-term COVID-19 neurological symptoms and highlight vaccines' protective role.

And neurologic long covid symptoms are disproportionately affects 18-44 year olds.

All of this info has been posted here over the past few years. The warning signs have always been there for all of this. I'm still seeing people blame brain changes in kids on the fucking lockdowns and not the virus that causes brain damage we exposed them all to, repeatedly.

Tbh, I'm not really familiar with this guy beyond the vids on Long Covid he made recently, but I'm glad there's someone high profile out there advocating for masking and whatnot.

Absolutely wild going into another holiday season with 2 or 3 more pandemics on the horizon and people are still ignoring the current one and it's consequences. Pretty sure members of my family got hit last month by the walking pneumonia outbreak currently going around.

• mask
• vax
• neosporin nasal gel
• metformin
• CBD

anything else? I'd include paxlovid but I've heard about paxlovid rebound so idk

Still cute.

Summary: I've been taking metformin for months as protection against long COVID. I still mask everywhere, and I still take other COVID precautions, like nasal sprays, neosporin, air filters, Stoggles glasses, and getting a COVID vaccine. I am at high risk for severe COVID and long COVID, and I still plan to take paxlovid and use CPC mouthwash and nasal sprays if I get a COVID infection.

Why immediate-release metformin when paxlovid exists?

Paxlovid is harder to get outside of the US, and if you don't have health insurance or your health insurance doesn't cover it, it costs a lot.

Metformin is the second most commonly prescribed drug in the world (typically prescribed for type 2 diabetes or weight loss). So, lots of doctors prescribe it, and it is one of the least expensive medications out there.

Also, a paper published to the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this year found that Paxlovid is less effective than previously thought:

The time to sustained alleviation of all signs and symptoms of Covid-19 did not differ significantly between participants who received nirmatrelvir–ritonavir and those who received placebo.

so using both paxlovid and immediate-release metformin at the same time might not be redundant (and they don't interact with each other).

How effective is immediate-release metformin for COVID treatment?

There have been previous papers analyzing metformin's effectiveness for treating COVID, but the most notable study done on metformin in COVID patients (COVID-OUT) had a paper published this last May to Oxford University Press journal Clinical Infectious Diseases: Favorable Antiviral Effect of Metformin on SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in a Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial of COVID-19:

In the COVID-OUT randomized trial for outpatient coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), metformin reduced the odds of hospitalizations/death through 28 days by 58%, of emergency department visits/hospitalizations/death through 14 days by 42%, and of long COVID through 10 months by 42%.

The mean SARS-CoV-2 viral load was reduced 3.6-fold with metformin relative to placebo [...]. Those who received metformin were less likely to have a detectable viral load than placebo at day or day 10 [...].

Viral rebound, defined as a higher viral load at day 10 than day 5, was less frequent with metformin (3.28%) than placebo (5.95%) [...].

Why immediate-release metformin? What about extended-release metformin?

Extended-release metformin might be ineffective for treating COVID, but we don't know for sure yet.

Conversely, an abandoned randomized trial testing extended-release metformin 1500 mg/d without a dose titration did not report improved SARS-CoV-2 viral clearance at day 7 [20].

They have a whole paragraph explaining the flaws of the failed extended-release metformin COVID study (the "Together Trial"), like randomizing people who were already taking metformin into the placebo or more metformin groups. The failed extended-release metformin/COVID study also had participants of that study start at the target dose of 1500mg/day extended-release metformin from the beginning, rather than starting at a lower dose and gradually increasing (an absolute must for metformin), which surely increased side effects.

Besides the flaws in the failed extended-release metformin/COVID study, immediate-release metformin might be more effective for your immune system:

Immediate-release metformin has higher systemic exposure than extended-release metformin, which may improve antiviral actions, but this is not known [24, 25].

So, immediate-release metformin is the thing that we know works for treating COVID, and there is no clinical evidence yet that extended-release metformin does, though that might change in the future.

There's also recent discussion in r/ZeroCovidCommunity on immediate-release metformin vs. extended-release metformin.

How to get immediate-release metformin and use it for COVID treatment?

How I did it: This last summer, I sent the immediate-release metformin/COVID paper to my endocrinologist and asked them to prescribe me metformin, and I have been taking it ever since. I take extended-release metformin because it has milder GI system effects, but if I get COVID, I will switch to immediate-release metformin for awhile.

Getting a metformin prescription might take time, so if you already have COVID, it's probably too late to consider metformin. There's lots of other reasons to take metformin, like slowing aging/living longer, lowering cancer risk, and lowering dementia and stroke risk, so in theory there's nothing wrong with taking metformin regularly without having type 2 diabetes, rather than starting once you get COVID. Speaking only for myself, I continually take extended-release metformin for its preventative effects, and I do not have type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes is one of the most common diseases for endocrinologists to treat, and metformin is the most common type 2 diabetes medication, so an endocrinologist/endocrine doctor is probably your best shot, if you already have one. Otherwise, you could ask your primary care doctor.

It goes without saying, but you don't have to mention COVID treatment as the reason to be prescribed immediate-release metformin, you could mention slowing aging, lowering cancer risk, or lowering dementia risk as a reason.

There are websites like AgelessRx that are willing to prescribe metformin for $75 to slow aging (that's the option of choice by r/ZeroCovidCommunity if you don't have a doctor who is willing to prescribe). Maybe they would be willing to prescribe immediate-release metformin, specifically.

Starting metformin once you get a COVID infection should be effective if you start within the first week of symptom onset (that's the metric that the study used), as long you were prescribed it in advance so that it's available to you right away.

How much immediate-release metformin to take?

That's a conversation for you to have with your doctor. The important thing, though, is not to take too much metformin. I briefly made that mistake, and it made me develop a taste aversion to one of my previously-favorite foods, and temporarily reduced my appetite so that I stopped eating enough food until the dosage was lowered again. Taking too much metformin per day also shortens your lifespan instead of increasing it, so don't take too much per day.

Who should not take metformin?

Something to know about metformin is that, if you are vitamin B12-deficient or your kidneys don't work well, metformin can give you lactic acidosis.

So if you have any kidney damage or any kidney disease, taking metformin is probably a bad idea.

Avoiding B vitamin deficiency

• Metformin makes you absorb vitamin :b12: less effectively, so if you're not supplementing vitamin B12, you can get a vitamin B12 deficiency long-term.
  • If you're vitamin B12-deficient, taking metformin can cause anemia
  • If you're vitamin B12-deficient, taking metformin can cause lactic acidosis
• Metformin makes you absorb vitamin B9 (folate) less effectively, so if you're not supplementing vitamin B9, you can get a vitamin B9 deficiency long-term.
• Metformin makes you absorb vitamin B6 less effectively, so if you're not supplementing vitamin B6, you can get a vitamin B6 deficiency long-term.
• Metformin makes you absorb vitamin B1 (thiamine) less effectively, so if you're not supplementing vitamin B1, you can get a vitamin B1 deficiency long-term.

In my case, I take a B complex supplement that includes thiamine, B6, folate, and B12. My understanding is that if you supplement B vitamins, you don't need to worry about anemia, lactic acidosis, or other things that metformin + B vitamin deficiencies can cause unless your metformin dosage is too high.

"What else do we forget about the pandemic? We forget how mesmerised we were as nature rebounded, how clean the air was in the absence of industrial scale human activity. We forget that carbon emissions fell at the sort of pace required to avoid cataclysmic climate change. We forget that no-strings cash payments saw child poverty in America plunge to record lows, that the UK slashed homelessness with schemes that found homes for people sleeping on the street.

We forget that there really was a sense of global solidarity, that the reflection demanded by a pandemic opened up spaces for us to consider truly radical and permanent change. Remember build back better? There really was a sense that the coronavirus, as we all knew it then, could be the catalyst for a better word.

It couldn’t last because of capitalism. This isn’t some glib statement, it is literally why such promises could never be fulfilled. Because such promises required redistribution and structural shifts to economies that billionaires don’t want shifting."

💔

People now blame those drops on lockdowns and vaccines.

Our analysis confirms the continued existence of different Americas within the USA. One's life expectancy varies dramatically depending on where one lives, the economic conditions in that location, and one's racial and ethnic identity. This gulf was large at the beginning of the century, only grew larger over the first two decades, and was dramatically exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. These results underscore the vital need to reduce the massive inequity in longevity in the USA, as well as the benefits of detailed analyses of the interacting drivers of health disparities to fully understand the nature of the problem. Such analyses make targeted action possible—local planning and national prioritisation and resource allocation—to address the root causes of poor health for those most disadvantaged so that all Americans can live long, healthy lives, regardless of where they live and their race, ethnicity, or income.

We won't do shit. Helping communities doesn't generate money for oil companies or weapons manufacturers.

If we don’t want to mitigate the effects of this risk, we need to account for it and describe a plan to win even with such high rates of attrition. I personally don’t believe it’s possible to attrite a significant portion of your organizers each meeting and win, that seems like a dead end.

This is all beyond considering the frankly ghoulish opposite side of the equation. We grudgingly risk traffic accidents so we can organize for a better world. What do we get for risking COVID infections? We refuse to wear masks so we can feel normal? We refuse to clean the air so we don’t have to think about how the authorities are lying to us? Or about how each of us is vulnerable to Long COVID? Is it the snacks? I can’t really imagine what’s on the other side of the equation for the COVID denialists that makes it worth it to refuse to mitigate the risk so fervently.

Vaccinations and boosters are not enough. If it is alienating to require your organization to mask up…why? Is it more alienating than when they find themselves no longer able to work — or much worse, for that matter — after however long of continued unmitigated exposure? We are not a serious working class movement if we are not handling this, and no one is. Whose interests do you serve by refusing to mask and mitigate the spread of COVID? This is the question I have never seen anyone averse to ongoing measures answer. It is certainly not our own!

I got covid 5 months ago and my sleep schedule is still so fucked... My brain and energy are outta whack in so many different ways

Sleepy gang

EDIT: more respectful title.

So my FIL isn't really all that terrible politically-speaking, and was even one of the human trial volunteers for the original COVID vaccines (can't remember which).

However, he did spend much of the larger pandemic years obsessively watching youtube videos by a handful of people claiming to be doctors who would do weekly news updates on stuff like vaccination progress, covid mutations, just general "pandemic content" which also seems to have covered side effects and concerns with the vaccines.

That's to be said, that now if current COVID vaccines are mentioned in any way he'll mention stuff like "heart problems" and "lung damage" and "rolled out too quickly" etc. which comes off (to me) as anti-vax paranoia, but I also don't really know how to properly research this shit myself because I'm not an immunologist!

Of course there's the usual capitalistic bullshit with COVID vaccines as there are with other vaccine programs, such as how the imperial monopolized the vaccine efforts to exploit it for $$$ in the global south (and in turn, created an endless pandemic hellhole). However, in terms of its safety and effectiveness I can't say I buy much of the claims because we've seen how even this botched vaccine rollout correlated with massively reduced hospital admissions and long term COVID effects.

EDIT: I've added a few links I've found while researching this myself in the comments. I hope some of this info is useful to people other than myself, and hopefully I've understood some of it properly. I didn't want to ask a question like this and not do any work on it myself!