I am deeply grateful to my editor Lucas Church for shepherding this book project (and me). There aren't enough good words for the amazing team at UNC Press. It's thrilling to see this book join so many titles I admire in #EnvHum, #C19 literary studies, and #EnvHist. 2/

#Introduction

I work as the Community Outreach Officer for the Welsh Dictionary of Biography, more collquially called the #Bywgraffiadur, at the #NationalLibraryOfWales. Our goal is to close representational gaps and set the Dictionary on a course of recording the diverse lives of historical Welsh people in all their facets. https://biography.wales/

Otherwise, I'm working on #WelshWritingInEnglish mostly from the long #C19, so there is lots of overspill into #RomanticLit and #EdwardianLit, #CulturalHeritage and #History of this small nation. Other research interests include #TravelWriting, particularly illustrated accounts and the history of the #VisitorsBook. For recent projects, I've undertaken some #PublicHistory work and community outreach about #PortHeritage, #WW1 German submarine warfare and its effects on Welsh communities.

I share longer #WorkInProgress on my blog: https://bydbach.hcommons.org/

Toots will be mostly in #English, but occasionally also in #Deutsch and #Cymraeg.

It was a really shitty weekend re: managing relationships while also acknowledging #Covid. Thankful for the #ZeroCovid community being so validating. This shit sucks but it undoubtedly sucks less because of y’all 💕

#CovidIsntOver #C19 #Pandemic #COVIDConscious #COVIDcautious #COVIDSafe

It even 6am yet and #PublicHealth people are on #Reddit telling people asking how to protect themselves from #Covid to party like it’s 2019.

Like they literally stated “you can party like it’s 2019”

Don’t do this. And FFS don’t mod a sub dedicated to #Covid19 support if you can’t be truthful about #science.

#CovidIsntOver #C19 #MaskUpC19 #COVIDConscious #N95 #WearAMask #BadScience #BadAdvice #ProfessionalResponsibility #InfectionPreventionAndControl

@nancyjane

Maybe not. But if we share it every week, perhaps we will have more than wastewater reports to tell us what's up.

The #SFFH community may have a better handle on it than most countries, because many people do report in if they catch #C19 at a convention.

As I mention occasionally--dying isn't the worst possibility. #LongCovid is to me much worse, because I have lived since I was 9 with Long conditions science didn't recognize or understand. You do not want a Long disease!

@gemelliz @ragesheen

In effect, we are voices in the wilderness, calling out to each other hoping someone will answer. Hoping we are not the last one left.

There's a play by Ionesco where people begin turning into a rhinoceros. Over time, it becomes a truism that it is good to be rhinoceros, a bellowing, charging, happy beast with few cares.

People, family, friends, neighbours, begin to willingly change into one. There is a hold out. The play is full of dialogue, conversations about what is happening, talking in a reasonable manner as if this is normal while the holdout pushes back. I don't want to become a rhinoceros, but I don't want to be the last holdout either.

I don't know what the answer is now that we've been abandoned to #Covid by public health, medicine, government, telling us it is good/not bad to get #c19.

Ionesco was considered an *absurdist* playwright. Yet, here we are.

@CStamp @novid

@TRyanGregory

We had a long discussion with friends today whom we hadn't seen since 2019. When it came to talking about the dangers #C19 still poses, we eventually hit a dead end.

How do you argue with someone who thinks that by now our bodies know very well how to deal with the virus? We tried our best, mentioned #LongCovid, #diabetes and other sequelae. When we were told that we had no idea what #SarsCoV does to you because we never caught it ourselves, we gave up and changed the subject.

Scraped from the Old World (2/2):

ABRACADABRA!

In the least surprising news ever, the excess mortality baseline gets shifted upwards 12%, thus making the staggering excess mortality from SARS-COV-2 vanish, as if in a puff of magician's smoke...

https://twitter.com/RPLerias/status/1667512476001337347 (thread)

#covid #covid19 #c19 #jackpot #RichPeopleKillUsForMoney

Scraped from the Old World (1/2):

Around the world, governments are working to erase data showing there's a deadly pandemic going on. First they stopped testing, and the number of cases 'declined'. Without diagnoses, people dying with or after COVID also 'decreased'. Now they are going after Excess Deaths:

https://twitter.com/RPLerias/status/1657064263578427392 (thread)

#covid #covid19 #c19 #jackpot #RichPeopleKillUsForMoney

Scraped from the Old World (2/2):

ABRACADABRA!

In the least surprising news ever, the excess mortality baseline gets shifted upwards 12%, thus making the staggering excess mortality from SARS-COV-2 vanish, as if in a puff of magician's smoke...

https://twitter.com/RPLerias/status/1667512476001337347 (thread)

#covid #covid19 #c19 #RichPeopleKillUsForMoney

Scraped from the Old World (1/2):

Around the world, governments are working to erase data showing there's a deadly pandemic going on. First they stopped testing, and the number of cases 'declined'. Without diagnoses, people dying with or after COVID also 'decreased'. Now they are going after Excess Deaths:

https://twitter.com/RPLerias/status/1657064263578427392 (thread)

#covid #covid19 #c19 #RichPeopleKillUsForMoney

May 2023:

Oh, and last:

There’s a major symptom of brain injury called anosognosia.

It’s a deficit of self-awareness and insight into one’s own condition — the brain cannot perceive the damage done to it, so the patient is unaware that they have sustained an injury.

— @czedwards

#tcovidii #ToxoplasmaCovidii #LongCovid #covid #covid19 #C19

Again via Naked Capitalism:

“A year after COVID-19 infection, [Brain Fog (BF)] persists in a third of patients. COVID-19 severity is not a predictive risk factor. BF associates with other longCOVID and independently associates with persistent debility.”

Lambert's comment: "One third? Do the math…. "

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2023.1150096/full

#tcovidii #ToxoplasmaCovidii #LongCovid #covid #covid19 #C19

Close reading of a single paragraph by GBDer Richard M. Salsman, via Naked Capitalism.

"I can’t stop thinking about a recent analysis that found over 300,000 Americans might be alive today had all adults been vaccinated. Even though I predicted “a deluge of misinformation about the Covid vaccines”, I never thought things would be this bad.

How did we get here?"

-

#covid #covid19 #C19

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/biggestproblem/

October 2022:

Screenshots of anecdotes sent in response to that original (October 2022) post.

Had been sitting on all this because I'd seen no one else talking about it outside of the original thread, and also to see if there'd be confirming studies later on.

Both those conditions now having been met ...

#tcovidii #ToxoplasmaCovidii #LongCovid #covid #covid19 #C19

October 2023:

Screenshots of anecdotes sent in response to that original (October 2022) post.

Had been sitting on all this because I'd seen no one else talking about it outside of the original thread, and also to see if there'd be confirming studies later on.

Both those conditions now having been met ...

#tcovidii #ToxoplasmaCovidii #LongCovid #covid #covid19 #C19

Anecdata: host manipulation by viruses.

My ex-wife could often anticipate she was coming down with a virus when she'd gone on an unplanned house-cleaning spree.

This she would blame on what she called "pre-viral energy."

She's an introvert; maybe the virus wasn't tuned quite right to get her out of the house, socializing and spreading. But it's not news that viruses manipulate host behavior to their own advantage.

#tcovidii #ToxoplasmaCovidii #LongCovid #covid #covid19 #C19

May 2023:

(re: SARS-CoV-2 optimizing the social conditions for its reproduction by causing brain damage)

I mean, it explains SO MUCH… https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7845145/

— @czedwards

#tcovidii #ToxoplasmaCovidii #LongCovid #covid #covid19 #C19

October 2022:

@LazarusLong13 & I are wondering about this: https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7175891/ He uses the toxoplasma gondii parasite as an example & I use the rabies virus as an example.

— @happyhexer

#tcovidii #ToxoplasmaCovidii #LongCovid #covid #covid19 #C19

@sleepyjim0 makes an argument (based on the linked paper) that the split between those taking C19 seriously and everyone else is due to broader, pre-existing differences in (socio-)environonmental sensitivity.

"... circa 30% of people are highly sensitive (applies to animals too), the other 70% are resistant to changing behaviour as circumstances change."

70% then, prior to any actual cognitive decline ...

#tcovidii #ToxoplasmaCovidii #LongCovid #covid #covid19 #c19

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-017-0090-6