Tootfinder

Thread from @… on new covid variant Nimbus:
#covid #Nimbus #CovidIsntOver

Biden's record on covid
Saw a comment along the lines of: "seems unfair to criticise Biden's record on covid, while the situation now under Trump is so much worse".
But I don't think of them as separate. Biden's government _contributed_ to how covid stands under Trump.
If Biden's lot had taken the opportunity to educate people (at least the ones open to considering science findings) that
- it's airborne like smoke
- an empty room can hold infectious virus
- air filters, UV and fresh air reduce the levels of it
- masks work better the better they fit
- you can be infectious without/before symptoms
- you're fairly likely still to be infectious for 10 days, a few people longer
- current vaccines don't stop you catching it or transmitting it
- it can mess with your immune system so you're more likely to catch other things
- vaccinated people can still get Long Covid
- it's not "mild", it's just that the damage is quiet
then even if they hadn't done anything more to address the problem, people would be in a far better position to deploy their own common sense.
And unlike funding or laws, that investment in _knowledge_ is something it would be difficult for Trump's lot to roll back.
But Biden & co chose instead to play down the risks, and explicitly or implicitly mislead people (e.g. the 5-day quarantine, which contradicts the real infectious period).
So, yes it's worse now, but they _contributed_ to how it is now. They chose to encourage misapprehensions and confusion, and the effects of that choice are still playing out now.
Not letting them off the hook on the grounds of being comparatively "less bad", when they themselves laid some of the foundations of the current state of play.
#covid #Biden #USPol #CovidIsntOver

Julia Doubleday on the gamble that covid would be harmless to children
"It’s worth noting that at the time Kulldorff and the rest of the GBD crew were proclaiming COVID’s harmlessness to kids, they couldn’t possibly have had enough information to determine the veracity of their own claims. Viruses like the chickenpox, EBV, HIV, HPV, and HSV often present with mild initial infections but may cause major damage years later. We now know COVID can as well.
"For so-called experts to run with an assumption that an initially mild-presenting acute infection would be long-term harmless was just that; an assumption. They were willing to gamble the health of a generation of children on a guess in order to go “back to normal” because that’s what the oligarchy clamored for. Because it costs money to shut the world economy down. Because people who mattered were angry. Because children aren’t people who matter."
(GBD = Great Barrington Declaration, a bit of 2020 propaganda including the unfounded supposition that everyone who caught covid would be immune forever after)
Overall another excellent pointy article!
#children #covid #LongCovid #CovidIsntOver #GreatBarringtonDeclaration #misinformation