While my mom was here, she masked up and respected my #CovidProtocols, and I only needed to remind or ask her a couple of times.

Considering my immediate family has totally abandoned masking, social distancing, and regular testing back home, I consider this a huge win for #CovidSafety.

Why? Because it tells me that a lot of people are willing to #MaskUp when asked and take #CovidPrecautions - but they've fallen into the #LetItRip trap and the #CovidIsOver narrative so they've given up precautions.

Is it exhausting, frustrating, and deeply upsetting when people fail to understand that we still need to #MaskUp on their own?

Yes.

Does it mean we stop having these conversations and give up all hope that people who have stopped masking will change?

No.

I have a relative who is in ICU right now.

She's had #COVID twice (unsure of when her second infection was).

She has always had health issues (immunocompromised etc) - but now she is having seizures, and they can't get them under control.

Yesterday, while on the phone, my Dad pointed out how careful she had been prior to the #LetItRip approach.

It wasn't the #VaxxedAndRelaxed campaign that she stopped being so cautious.

I can't confirm that her covid infections caused this - but I can say she's never had seizures before now - and she's not even 50 years old.

Would she still be here if she had never had COVID?

Maybe.

Is taking of your mask worth risking COVID - which is proven to put everyone at risk of serious complications during the acute phase and after?

Absolutely not.

She doesn't deserve this reality. No one does.

Behavior modification and mask wearing can be hard when our friends and family drop protocols and push us to do the same.

But again - a different world will require sacrifice from all.

This is a litmus test for all of us in putting our beliefs into action.

If we claim to care about the most vulnerable, we must put that into practice and #maskup. We must push back against the #letitrip approach and fight for better and we must be vocal about the mass disabling event that is COVID19.

COVID 19 is a litmus test for all of us who claim we want to see a better world.

If we are actually going to dismantle capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, white supremacy and all of the isms that come with being socialized within it - we must dismantle it in ourselves.

The fight for a better world will involve sacrifice for all of us.

In the absence of government action to protect us from #COVID19 and not just action, but abandonment of any pretense that they care about our health as they #letitrip , we must take community centered action to protect ourselves.

@CookieCat It's like those authorities don't actually care about any of the consequences of #LetItRip. It has brought a whole new meaning to irresponsibility, and callous disregard for the physical and mental health of their citizens. I am so sorry that you have to deal with this.

However, things began changing as mask mandates began dropping and the Biden administration began their #vaxxedandrelaxed / #letitrip approach to the pandemic.

My family stopped being as consistent with masking. I visited home in summer of 2021. I took a pcr before I left, masked on the plane, and took a pcr when I arrived.

I walked inside the house with a mask on (I wanted to wait until I got test results) and my mom told me not to worry about it.

I was definitely worried about it. Later in my trip she seemed confused when I put on a mask to go to the store.

It became clear my family and I were diverging on #COVIDsafety.

During the last year or so amid so many people and groups just completely dropping precautions and going back to "normal" - the most upsetting instances have been watching fellow activists and leftists do this.

I expected the ruling class and government to push us all back to "normal" - but what I didn't expect was so many folks who I watched be the first to initiate precautions at their events and pass out masks, saying they were standing in solidarity with workers and those most at risk (which to be blunt is all of us) for covid complications to just take the Biden administration's word that covid was "over".

These are the same people who helped radicalize me, who challenged me to expand my knowledge - who helped me understand that the ruling class has never had the poor and working classes best interests in mind. Who taught me how none of us are free until we are all free.

I am baffled because they are now seemingly taking the governments word for it and dropping all their precautions - even though we've all discussed over and over how our government exists to maintain a patriarchal, white supremacist capitalist state that benefits the ruling class via oppression and exploitation.

How can they possibly justify their abandonment of their fellow community members?

The ruling class makes their events #DavosSafe , they can afford to miss work while they recover from COVID, they can access the best doctors and the best treatments. The ruling class directly benefits from pretending COVID is over.

It justifies taking away increased food stamps, rental assistance, paid leave for COVID, access to testing, and so many other pandemic safety nets that made organizing among the poor and working class even easier.

Even more members of the poor and working class, being chronically ill and disabled directly benefits the ruling class because it is a barrier to organizing. Obviously, the disabled community has BEEN organizing for decades. But it does make it more difficult to organize if you barely have the energy to get out of bed.

The ruling class is banking on a mass disabling event amid the rise of organization across race, class, gender, and labor.

So, like I said: it is baffling to me to watch fellow activists and leftists playing into the #letitrip approach with COVID.

Not only are they pushing away folks who would otherwise love to be involved in their work by dropping protections like masks at events/meetings - they're also making their work harder by risking repeat COVID infection. They're also perpetuating abelism by not making their events and meetings accessible while claiming to be dismantling their internalized abelism.

How are we supposed to build in the shell of the old if we aren't even willing to see that the ruling class is up to their same old ablelist, racist, and classist tricks? How are we supposed to fight together for a better world when you won't wear a mask to protect yourself and others?

Anyway , this is my rant about covid and my frustrations around folks abandoning protocols that save lives and make events accessible to everyone.

I am deeply encouraged and excited by so many folks on here talking about this and working with others to help change things - even when my experiences since mask mandates started being dropped have been very isolating. As always, there is much work to do. ♡

@sabik I also remember that Remote Learning was more productive and was reflected in the NAPLAN tests done in 2021. This declined again in 2022, because children were absent for more than 33% of school days due to their illness, or their teachers' illness...and subs did not 'teach' They mostly supervised study of already covered lessons. The stupidity of #LetItRip is still being felt. @fuzzypeach @melissabeartrix @bri_seven

#LetItRip in deed Amazing celebration of and tribute to an #AmericanHero Megan #Rapinoe

https://mastodon.social/@davemark/110723813315952451

@Mdphunk your spin on this actually inspired a great call I just had w/my team and a subsequent LinkedIn post I dropped. Thanks.

#LetItRip

@HowyaDoon

But he *was* elected, and it *has* gotten worse....because he appointed to his COVID prevention team people who were as fervent on exploiting it for private profits and shunting it aside for #LetItRip as were there during Trumpster's regime.

#Candidiasis searches at an all-time high circa #LetItRip? 🧐 #SickPost

Just took my wife to Toronto Public Health for 2nd #Booster

Very fast, all masked, low volume.

Sitting waiting for her at John & Richmond, the heart of entertainment district.

Hot, bright sunny day. 1000s out on the street, restaurants half full.

Zero #masks

Not a single one in 20 minutes of sitting there. Not one, inside or out.

Because there is no #covid when it's warm, amirite?

#letItRip #massinfection has achieved total success.

@ampersine

And since we let them get away with it this time, they do it every year. Get ready for them to #letitrip to keep those egg prices high.

24th March, Covid-19 NSW

The NEW WAVE takes off

▶ Covid-19 hospitalisations accelerating, ↑5% in one week (8% in 2 weeks) and projected to grow more rapidly

#LetItRip delivers serious illness and lasting health damage

over and over again …

😷#MaskUp 🦠#CovidIsNotOver

Viele #COVID19-Ausbrüche in Alten- und Pflegeheimen

Aber #Maskenpflicht für Personal fällt.

Schutz Vulnerabler? #LetItRip

War früher jeder Salmonellen- und Norovirus-Ausbruch in Pflegeheimen einen Medienbericht wert, ist #SARSCoV2 kein Medienthema mehr.

https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/Wochenbericht/Wochenbericht_2023-02-23.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

#COVID #Corona

I'm just going to throw this out there...

I see that Michael Osterholm has suddenly decided to take a #GreatBarringtonDeclaration #GBD position of #letitrip #covid is mild.

He's actually suggesting it's "a cold" and looks forward to when everybody gets it twice a year, because it's so mild.

Which is insane. I'd suggest it's also a tell for sociopathy.

Because he knows #longcovid is real, that there isn't a "mild" infection when it's wrecking your immune system, damaging organs.

Which leads to another point.

I just remembered, long ago in my more "conspiracy" minded days, I went on a tear reading obscure news, science articles from the 1920s-30s, pre WWII.

I initially was interested in seeing for myself the extent of the relationship to the Nazis of the Bush family, but it led me on a tangent into eugenics.

I'm going to make the unsubstantiated claim that:

1) eugenics was an open, and popular topic among science circles at this time and

2) much of the public face of eugenics has been expunged.

Combined with my "funny" theory that #sociopaths make up a much larger portion of the population than we're led to believe, I'm going to suggest that "let it rip" , #GBD, and other blatant positions that ignore the impact of #covid on the #Poors, #elderly, #comorbid are in fact -

a sociopath group-mind think regarding the "pragmatic" advantages to an era of "natural eugenics".

If this were 1928, I believe the tone these scientists take would be more blatant, and telling. There is no reason not to think that the same attitude among the sociopaths/NPD population isn't occurring now - except they have to be more surreptitious about it.

*These scenarios, these positions, are not "accidents", or "ignorance"*.

When an epidemiologist ignores the health implications of a pandemic, he knows exactly what he's saying. As does a virologist that insist that people don't need to wear a mask, etc. etc.

They're voluntarily participating in #eugenics lite. To their perspective it's simply logical: only the infirm will be eliminated, and it's harmful to the economy to try to rectify that - and eventually the breed will be stronger.

I wish I didn't think this; but you've got to consider the cognitive dissonance you experience when this cadre of covid #minimizers says things that are contradictory to what they've previously said.

The sociopath *does not care*. The Narcissist *does not care* if you find them to be lying. It makes no difference to them. That doesn't mean they're not *reasoning*; but reason without empathy and humane consideration leads to eugenics.

I hope I'm being hyperbolic in my jadedness. But I think we need to be more jaded in this respect, and that these people need to be regarded as neo #eugenicists.

/ Frakking frak, I'm just a guitar teacher that wants to get back to just having my head in the clouds about music and art. This is stifling. Maybe I'm being too negative....?

// $.10

Cool cool.
A #COVID19 antiviral which is designed to function by mutating #SARS2 virus so much that it can’t replicate is *sometimes* creating highly-mutated #variants that are transmissible.
(The effects of the mutations has not been assessed.)
“#LetItRip” is going just great. 👍

https://twitter.com/theosanderson/status/1619020680313573378?s=46&t=MIIdtDA2XGegZPJ8E_Y8_A

@KagroX I’m in Australia. We’ve #LetItRip for a year now, but thanks to only doing so after vaccinations, our deaths are still relatively low, so these numbers are pretty horrendous. Mind you, we’ve thrown our immune compromised to the wolves.

@DrALJONES whenever I see #LetItRip I think of Beyblades.