Conor Browne

Covid hospitalisations up by 37% - highest in nearly a year Waning immunity from jabs and prior infections - together with rising cases as children go back to school and the weather cools - are thought to be behind the rise in hospitalisations

Vaccination is highly effective at preventing hospitalisation for acute Covid-19. The NHS is under unprecedented pressure. A sensible, evidence-based policy decision would thus be to significantly widen eligibility for free Covid-19 vaccination.

inews.co.uk/news/health/...

Palmyra community alarmed as trucks pull into potential dump site for millions of dead chickens Palmyra community expresses alarm as 3 million chickens killed due to bird flu are dumped in their area, fearing smell and groundwater issues.

The residents of this community are quite correct to be concerned about groundwater contamination; the dead chickens that are being dumped there were culled due to H5N1 infection. These dumping practices are significant biological risks.

www.tmj4.com/news/jeffers...

Why has an intelligent and articulate woman wearing a mask and speaking at the UN provoked an aggressive response from some media outlets?

Because her mask and her words have profoundly perturbed people at a deeply subconscious level. The nature of that perturbation is fear.

It's simple: just like healthcare professionals, they are not immune to the very powerful sociocultural forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, our deeply flawed response to a clear and present biological threat. Even more simply: they're wrong.

Exactly 💯

Perfect!

Let me be clear. As someone who has been professionally involved with the biodefense / biosecurity sector for nearly 20 years, and has worked on biological risk analysis for Covid-19 since early 2020, reducing one's risk of being infected is not health anxiety. It's just smart.

6. The great and tragic irony is that the more societies agree to ignore it, by prioritising a yearning for the status quo above all else, the more of a force multiplier our societies become for the virus.

Societies have become the virus's greatest ally.

/end

5. Remember also, however, that, simply put, the virus doesn't care. It is incapable of caring. It is a molecular shark that wants to make more of itself. That's all it is. And regardless of human desires for an illusory status quo, it will keep killing and disabling people.

4. Remember, then, that the tools to both prevent and mitigate infection are now no longer just tools; they are powerful symbols that disrupt and challenge the aforementioned societal agreement. This is why people react so very strongly to them. React irrationally to them.

3. As such, fulfilling this need requires a shared societal agreement to embrace vast cognitive dissonance. Those who choose not to be part of this agreement will, inevitably, be deemed as having a mental health condition (Foucault understood this phenomena very well indeed).

2. The memory of these policies is a component of it, to be sure, but the deep underlying reason is a shared yearning for the world to be as it was in 2019. In effect, 2019 has become the status quo that almost everyone needs to cling to. This need is pathological in nature.

1. The intense and all-encompassing institutional and societal pushback seen in some countries against any intervention to mitigate the impacts of Covid-19, whether that be vaccines, or air filtration / purification, or masks, is not simply as a result of mandates or lockdowns.

3. archive.ph/9r4hI

/end

2. ...increasing their risk of heart failure, diabetes and cognitive, behavioural and psychiatric disorders. And there’s no cure'.

m.independent.ie/opinion/commen…

Paywall-free link in next post:

1. Superb article by Tess-Finch Lees published today.

'Six years into forever-Covid, the evidence is unequivocal. Coronavirus is an airborne, disabling, neuroinvasive vascular disease that can damage children’s immunity, blood vessels and organs,...

Link in next post

Creatine - can muscle-boosting supplement help with brain fog? As its popularity grows, research suggests creatine may also benefit short-term memory, mood and focus.

I have no issue with this piece - other than the now-expected omission of the word, 'Covid'. What I find interesting is just how mainstreamed 'brain fog' has become.

BBC News - Creatine - can muscle-boosting supplement help with brain fog? - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Same, Anton - I'll never understand that.

I am so sorry to hear this!

Fundamentally, the reason I avoid Covid is because all - all - of the elements of my life that bring me joy and fulfillment rest on my cardiovascular fitness and / or my cognition. I'm not going to risk a virus wrecking that, as I've seen happen to way too many people I know.

A slightly blurred photograph of my mother. She is sitting in a red armchair, a small framed painting hanging on the wall behind her. She is laughing at what she sees on a screen in front of her, an Instagram filter over her face making her look like a cartoon rabbit. Her joy is palpable in the photograph.

My mother passed away two years ago today. She had a wicked, mischievous sense of humour, prone to extended episodes of the giggles, and a joy in discovering new things or places - which is why I'm sharing this photo of her discovering IG filters for the first time in 2016!

2. What is new is the societal impact of universal infection and re-infection with a pathogen that can cause cognitive dysfunction. This is why we should be careful with comparisons to past pandemics. We *must* consider the direct effect of the virus on politics and societies.

/end

1. Pandemics shape politics and societies. Collective trauma is a powerful force, as is societal reaction to governmental responses to reduce transmission. This is not controversial; humanity experienced it after The Spanish Flu.

This article has now been amended by the BBC listing Long Covid as a cause.

Isn't it?

Brain fog and four easy ways to help fix it It's common to become forgetful or mentally sluggish but there are easy ways to cut through the haze.

When a virus that commonly causes cognitive dysfunction has been infecting and reinfecting the global population for years but is simultaneously being collectively ignored this is precisely the kind of normalisation you get.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thank you!

💯

Well-fitted surgical masks are good for source control. My guess is the young man was getting over Covid and was trying to protect other people. For self-protection, you are correct - which is why I never wear less than FFP2 / KN95.

Very impressed with the young guy - mid-thirties - I saw standing on the platform at the train station earlier today, with a slight cough but wearing a well-fitted blue surgical mask. It really is that easy to protect other people.