I'm still the same person??

In my last post, I told you all to look forward to more than one entry this month because I'd be a new person, but it's just going to be one post on the final day of the month once again. I'm still me. Maybe July!

Last week was pretty bad for the USA, huh? It's been pretty bad forever, but the specific way I think we're heading toward collapse maybe got a little bit clearer. As always, other people on the internet have already said it better than me, but it's not a stretch to see how criminalizing sleeping on the street plus mass-disabling the population via unmitigated COVID spread leads to very bad outcomes. (Chevron deference ending too! There's so much!) If you weren't already a prison abolitionist, I hope you see the reasons to become one now. Laws are made up by human beings, and very bad laws can make very good things (like masking at a protest, getting an abortion, what else, what else) illegal.

My advice for these bad times is that if you stopped wearing a mask, you should start wearing one again to protect yourself and others from COVID. It's not over, as much as I wish it were; Biden did not "guide us out of the pandemic," or whatever that fairy tale talking point I keep seeing shared on Instagram says. Why would you trust the same people who send bombs overseas to kill children to tell you the truth about the pandemic?

When I started this newsletter, I wondered how long I'd make it until I did a COVID post – not very long! The rest of this post will assume the reader is not currently masking in their everyday lives. (If you are, tell me!!)

However many COVID infections you've already had, try to cap it at that. Even if you don't care about your own health (I do! I want you to feel good and live a long time!), you should care about the health of the workers you interact with at the very least. "Well, they're not wearing a mask either" – maybe they'd like to wear one, but their boss doesn't like it "because our customers don't wear them anymore." You see the feedback loop. You wearing one makes it easier for another person to wear one. You wearing one makes the grocery store safer for the kid who can't wear a mask yet and for the immunocompromised. ("Can't they just wear a mask if they're so at-risk?" One-way masking still leaves people vulnerable; two-way masking will always be superior.) If these asshole politicians saw everyone wearing masks all the time – and not just at protests they'd like to quell – maybe it'd be harder for them to ban masks. Maybe! They are pretty big assholes.

Maybe you don't wear one if you feel fine. Unfortunately, COVID can spread asymptomatically, and most of us no longer have access to PCRs. Even rapid tests do not reliably detect symptomatic cases early on (which is why you need to keep testing even if you get a negative on your first day or two of feeling shitty). It's harder than ever to know if you have it and could be spreading it to others.

Maybe you've had COVID before, and it wasn't that bad. I'm genuinely so glad! I wish that meant that it would be the same for you every time, but it doesn't. Your risk for Long COVID goes up with each new infection; it's cumulative. I have read too much about what LC can do to people to feel comfortable risking that. The pinned post on the covidlonghaulers subreddit is for suicide prevention and support. I promise you do not want this disease, and it seems to affect "perfectly healthy" people even with relatively mild acute cases. COVID can also leave your immune system in worse shape each time you get it. If you or your kids are getting sick more frequently, this could be why.

I dream of a world where we do not have to think about this anymore! But as long as we continue to let the virus evolve into new variant after new variant, it will continue killing and disabling people (and/or making people lose their jobs, thereby making them homeless, thereby landing them in jail... remember the bad stuff from earlier!!).

If you agree with me that this country is speed-walking into fascism, let's try to be as ready for it as possible. I think that includes avoiding COVID and trying to stop as many chains of transmission as possible. If you want to talk more about this, text me. If you want mask recommendations (or other COVID mitigation recommendations), text me. If you want to know what older male celebrity is trying too hard on social media lately, text me! (Or email!)

I am wary of being a COVID scold, and I wonder if many of you will have read to the end. Would love to hear from you if you did. Please consider masking up again, at least in the grocery store, on public transportation, and in healthcare facilities to start. Love ya.