As virulence rises, medical providers across the nation have gradually begun to tighten their procedures, cutting back on visitation of hospitalized patients and increasingly requiring masks, according to a recent report from the Associated Press.
More U.S. hospitals are requiring masks and limiting visitors as health officials face an expected but still nasty post-holiday spike in flu, COVID-19 and other illnesses.
While many experts say this season likely won’t prove to be as deadly as some other recent winters, it still could mean hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and many thousands of deaths across the country.
New York City last week instituted a mask mandate for the city’s 11 public hospitals. Similar measures were ordered last week at some hospitals in Los Angeles and Massachusetts. Some hospitals reinstated masking rules for employees months ago, in anticipation of a seasonal rush of sick people.
While locally …
Scripps Health resumed requirements for masking in all of its clinical areas Thursday (Jan.4), taking enhanced precautions as the high season for respiratory illness arrives.
On Wednesday, Scripps management notified all employees and medical staff that medical-grade masks would once again be mandatory in all clinical areas. That means all patients, medical providers and visitors will need to use face coverings in patient rooms and exam rooms and any time that someone is “providing or receiving direct patient care within 6 feet of another.” This 6-foot rule means masking up when getting an X-ray, having blood drawn, or riding in a vehicle together during medical transport.
Wastewater data, the best early warning system that the scientific community has come up with to track how much coronavirus is actually circulating in the larger community, shows the kind of hockey-stick curve that indicates significant activity. Data for the Point Loma wastewater plant sampled on Dec. 27 estimated the presence of 27 million copies of coronavirus genetic code, more than double the 11 million detected just seven days earlier.
The county’s lastest weekly respiratory virus tracking report, released Thursday morning, shows that as far as COVID-19 is concerned, things aren’t quite as bad as they were this time last year. Last week, 1,574 positive COVID-19 tests were reported compared to 5,572 during the same week last year. The flu, though, is starting to significantly ramp up, following normal winter patterns after an early arrival last season.
The number of patients with respiratory symptoms severe enough to end up checking into a local hospital are also on the rise. More than 300 were said to be hospitalized by the flu or COVID-19 last week, double the number in early November.
The reintroduction of masking by Scripps is basic but inadequate. COVID-19 transmission is possible and risky in patient rooms and care areas, BUT is also transmitted by asymptomatic people and, when community infection rates rise (? who is monitoring them – no one) by visitors and non-medical staff (who are more likely to have unvaccinated infected people among their daily contacts.) The real, public health based systemic solution which will really limit disease risk and spread is universal respirator masking for everyone within all health facilities. The health care system adopted universal precautions for HIV, why are we not doing this for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (especially during the high risk winter season)?
Thanks Dr Gordon for your insights and valid questions.
Yes, N95 masking works but only if everybody is intelligent enough to use them. Unfortunately Dr. Gordon, that isn’t happening and probably won’t due to a large and very stubborn percentage of the population that 1) the pandemic was a liberal plot (even though their orange god funded the invention of the the shot (that is NOT a vaccine) with Operation Warp Speed, 2) eating horse de-wormer or shoving a fluorescent light up your butt will kill the virus, and 3) injecting Clorox bleach into your veins will also kill the virus. Did anybody actually do that? If so, did they get added into the official ‘Dead of Covid’ list?
Not a real bright subset of our citizens I must admit, but they are slowly killing themselves off with their ‘beliefs’ as they have been the #1 group catching and dying of this damned disease.
But this mindset is just a repeat of what happened during the 1918 Pandemic that IS STILL INFECTING according to one of the scientists who broke down it’s genome in the late ’90s like riots over mask wearing etc etc that my oldest grandpa talked about. He suffered his entire life with the ‘Long Covid’ type Sequelae of that disease after catching it in WWI France being hardly able to breathe when he walked up stairs…which is why I know about it because I asked him what was wrong.
I’ve tried to keep up with the latest I read on SARS/CoVid-19 by posting on the RAG (https://obrag.org/2022/06/san-diego-covid-experts-here-we-go-again/) but it has gotten very glitchy and many posts just disappeared without going into moderation. I don’t even know if anybody bothers to read what I post, either. Big sigh.
And I wear N95s (I have 50 of them left, 3 different styles) every single time I walk into somewhere which, I’ll admit, isn’t all that often being as I live rural mountain property and don’t need to be around people all that much especially in a heavily GOP/MAGA-run county. I know people here and elsewhere that are on their 3rd and 4th infection, and my ‘Dead of Covid’ list just grew to 22. This old OB surfer kid is trying quite hard to stay around a bit longer by paying attention…
Thanks Dr Gordon for posting! I wish more science-based people would.
sealintheSelkirks
Yes, you are quite right! Life saving science and public health can drive some people f**cking nuts!
I work closely with MARKEDBYCOVID.COM AND
THE WORLDHEALTHORGANIZATION.ORG to spread UTD info, spread the word and fight the White House, CDC, and WHO failures.
Check their websites or FB, you may want to join in.
Here’s a lovely article about that subset of US citizens I was talking about:
Drug That Trump Called a ‘miracle Covid Cure’ Is Linked to 17,000 Deaths in New Study
https://www.rsn.org/001/drug-that-trump-called-a-miracle-covid-cure-is-linked-to-17000-deaths-in-new-study.html
__
I wonder if the surviving family members are still going to vote for that moron?
sealintheSelkirks
Since this old RAG covid posting (https://obrag.org/2022/06/san-diego-covid-experts-here-we-go-again/) somehow keeps ‘losing’ what I’ve tried to posted the past few months, I’m trying with this later thread.
I hit send and they disappear rather than say ‘in moderation’ so I have no idea…. Maybe the storage on that link is full or something?
Below is three latest articles on Covid, 3 links. None of these will make you feel better. The good news is that my retired biologist friend in Hawai’i says the numbers are going down over there…again. Bad news is that it isn’t summer yet and the crowds haven’t hit.
Mounting research shows that COVID-19 leaves its mark on the brain, including with significant drops in IQ scores…
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMe2400189
___
Solving the puzzle of Long Covid
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl0867
___
This one you can scroll it up under the paywall to read. More links there, too:
Long Term Neurological Outcomes of Covid 19
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02001-z
___
sealintheSelkirks
The World’s Moved On From Covid. Some Of Us Can’t
As Covid is increasingly treated like any other respiratory disease, those of us with lingering symptoms are being left behind
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/long-covid-problem-world-moving-on-1234988684/
___
Are We Ready for the Next Pandemic?
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2024/03/28/We-Ready-Next-Pandemic/
___
Scientists May Have Discovered Reason for Long COVID Brain Fog—Here’s Why It Matters
Brain scans found something interesting.
https://www.prevention.com/health/health-conditions/a60255042/long-covid-brain-fog-leaky-blood-vessels-study/
___
Related reading:
Climate change boosts infectious disease spread, hits the vulnerable hardest
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240401/Climate-change-boosts-infectious-disease-spread-hits-the-vulnerable-hardest.aspx
___
New study reveals increased risk of allergic diseases after COVID-19 infection
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240403/New-study-reveals-increased-risk-of-allergic-diseases-after-COVID-19-infection.aspx
___
Latest on current Covid mutated strains, and update on Avian:
UCSF infectious disease specialist explains new COVID variants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8y0lyRc5b0
___
Not Even Antibiotics Work Against this Bird Flu Strain w/ Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gHHILX-knw
___
Covid isn’t gone, and neither is the MAGA ravings of the incredibly ignorant politicians. Her amygdala is so triggered by Trump’s conviction and it shows here:
Complete heated exchange between Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Dr. Anthony Fauci
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTSG_xlJvFQ
___
sealintheSelkirks
About the current three mutated strains of Covid (JN, KP, and Flirt variants):
“Right now, I’m looking at a post by Helen De Cruz about testing protocols at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, where the affluent attendees can only access events with a badge that’s activated by a negative Covid test. It’s a great example of what she calls the illusion of separateness. Even if this remains more of an exception than a rule, it just illustrates how far the elite can go when they believe their own health and safety to be at risk.”
Funny how the wealthy are still worried about catching Covid but their media outlets ignore it completely?
___
Three Year Outcomes of Post-Acute Sequelae of Covid-19
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-02987-8?ref=okdoomer.io
(You don’t have to accept cookies, just scroll the article up from underneath)
___
This email came yesterday, and I talked with my oldest friend last night when he called from their home on Windward Side after Janice went to bed. To refresh, she is five years older than him and he was a high school biology teacher back in the late 80s before shifting to a Masters in ECE Special Ed for the next 30 years helping the indigenous Hawai’ian families & children…
This is the first time they’ve had guests in their house since Covid hit as being an ex-biologist he absolutely knows what Covid is doing. State gov held yearly seminars on what ALL teachers would be required to do when an expected pandemic comes to Hawai’i (brutal requirements for teachers!), and with his background in Biology it was completely understandable due to Hawai’i being literally the ‘crossroads of the Pacific’ for diseases originating from both directions. The State expects the worst to happen one of these days.
So, her family failed to take Covid tests before they showed up even though they were asked to. Probably caught it on the plane flight as breathing the same recirculated air for 5-6 hours definitely does it. I wonder how many of the other passengers have gone down with it? Instant refreshing of the Pandemic in Hawai’i and that’s been happening over and over because the Islands keep getting huge surges of Covid. So here’s his email:
“Hey dude,
Janice’s brother and her niece and family are on island. They were going to stay with us, but decided our guest full-size mattress was too small, so decided to stay in Waikiki with the rest of the family. On Thursday, we met them for a quick tour of our home, then to the newly re-opened Crouching Lion Inn restaurant (after 9 years closed). The food was great. Then on to sightseeing Kahana Bay, Laie Point, and finally for an afternoon on the beach at a nearby beach park in Hauula. We made sure we ate outside, drove in separate cars, and more-or-less socially distanced. Then surprise, that night her niece comes down positive with Covid. We dosed with Zicam that night, which coats the nasal and throat with Zinc so viruses don’t stick easily. Then first thing the next morning we headed straight into Kaiser for Covid boosters. No, there is no protection against the JN, KP, or Flirt variants* with the current vaccine, but we figured it might shock our immune systems into some kind of antiviral response. Then both her husband and Janice’s brother’s girlfriend came down with it too. They were sharing the communal van and hotel rooms, and so far (after 3 days) we are still symptom free and testing negative.
That’s all the time we’ll spend with any of them, and of course we’re fully masking again at Kaiser and the store. We dodged a bullet, but just barely.
Keep a good thought.”
*the latest mutations
___
So my best friend and his wife are now 4 days into the wait period and so far so good. Her brother who is ten years older (almost 80) is now very sick down at a hospital in Honolulu quarantined but I don’t know any more than that, and the rest of the family are also in quarantine in their Waikiki hotel rooms. They are not allowed to fly back to the Mainland. In Hawai’i they aren’t fooling with the term quarantine. The Hawai’ian DOH takes it very seriously.
The 10 yr old daughter of the niece has now also gone down sick with it (remember when kids were supposedly immune?).
DP and Janice will not let anyone else in their place again. The risk to us older folks is far too sketchy, and the science on the subsequent Sequelae from Covid continues to get ever more scary as new science information continues to come out even with the huge cuts in funding to study…or funds to help those with Long Covid. If you get long-term sick, you are completely on your own.
Kicked to the curb is a good description because Covid is oh-so last year’s disease I guess?
___
But then there is this uncomfortable fact: The World Economic Forum is being held in St. Petersberg at the moment with 25,000 attendees, and the badges that have been issued can read if you’ve been tested for Covid. They won’t let you in without this. So why are the wealthy that attend this kind of thing so worried about Covid? By the way, they had the same requirement for the last Davos meeting. Doesn’t seem to be much concern in the US.
___
And this on Avian also came up:
https://www.okdoomer.io/biggest-threat-bird-flu/
___
sealintheSelkirks
Covid & Avian Flu info you don’t know:
Is this criminal?
‘Truly Shameful’: Pentagon Ran Secret Anti-Vax Campaign Against China at Height of Covid Pandemic
https://www.commondreams.org/news/pentagon-anti-vax-campaign
___
Would this be considered a Crime Against Humanity under the UN Charter that the US is a signatory to?
The propaganda war against China started under Trump in 2019 writing rules that led to this program, but it ramped up under Biden before being cancelled a year later after probably millions died across SE Asia and in the South Pacific.
___
About Avian:
This showed up today. This is way more information than you likely know, and should:
In Michigan: Climate change, bird flu, and dairy cows — and why ‘none of us saw this coming’
https://grist.org/health/in-michigan-climate-change-bird-flu-and-dairy-cows-and-why-none-of-us-saw-this-coming/
___
sealintheSelkirks
The ‘summer surge’ is upon us.
What Alarms Doctors The Most.
Infectious disease experts share what’s different about this latest wave and what to know about the new variants.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/covid-summer-2024-surge-symptoms_l_6679820de4b0d2f6354efe63?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
___
sealintheSelkirks
2023 Gun Deaths in US= 18,874 (excluding suicide)
2022 Drunk Driving-caused Deaths in US 13,524
2023 Covid Deaths in US= 85,000 (official CDC count which is probably low as it doesn’t include deaths by Long Covid)
So…you are FAR more likely to die of Covid than be shot to death or killed by a drunk in a car. Think about that for a minute.
Summer wave of COVID-19 hitting U.S.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znVabOQJ960
___
Doctors see summer spike in COVID-19 related cases
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv7U7ANO4J4
___
Don’t catch this crap, people. Our politicized gov/corporate health programs don’t even keep track anymore of infections with a disease that causes life-altering changes in ALL our organs, from kidneys to the brain, and kills twice as many people as gun and drunk driving. Wow, ya know?
sealintheSelkirks
Old people keep dying of Covid, and even Biden being boosted as so few of us are, it means it likely will take much longer for Biden to recover. Age is a major factor…
This could very well be the end of Biden’s political career. Vote Dem no matter who.
Mass. doctor on Biden’s latest bout with COVID
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEaKVfwtaCs
___
I suggest that everyone get a covid shot today.
sealintheSelkirks
Bernie Sanders is still fighting covid, but Canada has finally give up even though they admit that, at this very moment, 1 out of every 50 Canadians are sick with this disease. The US doesn’t even bother with counting the infected anymore because, well, Joe Biden said the US beat Covid didn’t he? Of course he just caught it again, and then dropped out of politics because of a bad debate. Did his second bout (that we know of) with this disease cause some of the problems we saw? We won’t be told, and he has the best medical care on the planet.
Covid is still ripping through the US population. It’s still mutating like crazy with no end in sight, and each mutation seems to make it more infectious. The numbers of long-term disabled from the Sequelae of Long Covid continues to grow but is being completely ignored because…well, it wouldn’t play very well with the economic forecasts now would it?
At four years and counting, this is going worse slowly and silently.
No Longer an Official Emergency, COVID Remains a Crisis Experts say the evolving virus still poses a serious threat to British Columbians.
https://thetyee.ca/News/2024/08/05/No-Longer-Official-Emergency-COVID-Remains-Crisis/
___
But Senator Bernie Sanders still has it together because he keeps trying reported in this article:
The Long Covid Moonshot
It’s not enough.
https://www.okdoomer.io/the-long-covid-moonshot/
___
As Cases Rise, COVID Data Quietly Vanishes
Concerned citizens call for more funding after “major blow” to key COVID-19 tracking metric.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/as-cases-rise-covid-data-quietly-vanishes/
___
sealintheSelkirks
Covid is surging. Again. Read the links embedded:
The US Government Has Abandoned Us to Endless COVID. We Can Do Better.
The pandemic isn’t over. Why is it so hard to find accurate information about it?
https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-government-has-abandoned-us-to-endless-covid-we-can-do-better/
__
sealintheSelkirks
And here is the latest info on the new Covid shot:
…, the new COVID vaccines have arrived just as the latest strain of the virus is causing a spike in hospitalizations and death rates. Last week, for instance, COVID-19 deaths in the United States rose by 8 percent from the previous week, and the number of hospitalizations hit 19,079—up by nearly 4,000 from the same week the month before.
NOTE: Bet nobody reading this heard anything about the deaths and hospitalizations. Notice there is absolutely NOTHING mentioned about the 205 different Squealae diseases associated with those who have Long Covid?
___
Why the new COVID shot is a game-changer (and why the term ‘booster’ is obsolete)
The latest vaccine formula is available in local pharmacies now. Experts say it will be like the annual flu shot: one and done. Here’s why.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/covid-flu-vaccine-questions
___
And a county in upstate NY just decided to make it ILLEGAL to wear a mask in public!! How freaking stupid are these people??? Don’t answer that because reality is depressing…
sealintheSelkirks
New variant, and other news:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/xec-covid-variant-contagious-will-updated-vaccines-work-rcna172921?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
___
https://time.com/7027179/covid-19-gastrointestinal-symptoms/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
___
I’m going in for the newest shot today, and the flu shot. Are you?
sealintheSelkirks
Just had a call from my old student David down in Redding CA, and he’s as sick as he’s ever been. He went down Friday, and yesterday he thought he was going to have to go to the hospital because he couldn’t breathe or stop coughing, and it felt like his head was swelling up. He got scared he was so sick.
Every part of his body hurts, he’s barely functional, and didn’t last long on the phone. His thinking is…disconnected, hazy. He’s worried that he has to go back to work on Tuesday (since Biden said covid was all over and cut all the restrictions to help stop the spread). I’m wondering how many this last 12 months have died of this crap? We’ll know the official death rate in January. Remember, it was 85,000 Jan 2023-Jan 2024.
Third bout with Covid, the XEC variant most likely which is spreading like wildfire (there are multiple variants in the US). He remembers a passenger on his bus who had the exact same cough last week that he has now, a racking lung cough. She probably got the entire bus sick, and David probably filled the city bus drivers with this variant, too, in the break room at work. He coughed for two days in there. He’ll find out this coming week just how many are out sick….
Look Out for These COVID XEC Variant Symptoms as Cases Surge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3TVp7ARDwA
I’ve been warning him to get the new available shots for months, he kept putting it off. I’ve also warned him that in such a interactive public job that he should be wearing N95 but the MAGA anti-vaxxers that he works around would give him shit because, well, it’s all a liberal Lib-Tard plot anyway isn’t it?
I get the latest booster on Monday at Costco during my appointment for my winter tires…and as always I will be wearing an N95 in public.
Anybody want to guess what group STILL has the worst death rate from covid since 2020? MAGA republicans, the proud anti-vaxxer crowd. Like RFK Jr Trump’s new ‘Public health’ official. And what has been the #1 killer of cops since 2020 by a HUGE number? I’ll let you guess that…hint: it ain’t black guys with guns.
sealintheSelkirks
Avian Flu is spreading rapidly here in Washington State, and it is killing flocks of chickens and geese and ducks as well as local birdlife that are just dropping out of trees dead. The ‘gray circles’ are outbreaks and exclusion zones everywhere on the West side. It is decimating birds out on the coast surrounding Puget Sound.
The State Health map:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html id=5bb22df733ae49b29ac7b3cc3c7fc3e3
___
The 1st human contracted it in October to the west of me on this side of the Cascades, and it has also been spreading from the dairy cattle in Idaho (3rd largest producer of milk in the US) which are almost all infected now, but the MAGA GOP politicians that run that state are ignoring it of course. Trump won, all is well as far as they are concerned!
So it has now crossed into my county from both directions. Ten miles N/E of me is the outbreak in my county, Chewelah is inside the northern boundary of the gray circle. And I actually know the property/farm buildings and pond where State Health slaughtered the birds left alive and bagged it all up wearing HAZ-MAT suits because people CAN catch it by touching feathers or handling birds or cleaning up their poop.
Another gray circle is below Spokane to the south which I think is in a Conservation Area/lake looking at the map, and then one over in Okanogan County to the west less than 75 miles away also has an outbreak.
I ceased putting suet in the feeders in October when the first human got sick in this state.
According to my old partner DP, it is slaughtering the wild bird population on O’ahu who sent me this with links:
“It’s appearing all over, including in a wild duck along Kahuku shoreline, which is only 10 miles from us: Concern for endangered birds rises as avian flu turns up at Kahuku wildlife refuge.” He said that it looks like the last native birds are going to go extinct. There aren’t many left now anyway.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/concern-for-endangered-birds-rises-as-avian-flu-turns-up-at-kahuku-wildlife-refuge/ar-AA1uPhyd?ocid=BingNewsSerp.
The Honolulu Zoo is shutting down bird exhibits to try to protect their range of species.”
https://www.kitv.com/news/honolulu-zoo-taking-precautions-after-2nd-case-of-bird-flu-confirmed-in-wild-duck/article_40b998b4-ac70-11ef-bda9-9f87f606a85b.html.
___
Here is Thom Hartmann’s latest on it:
The Next Pandemic Could Be Brewing: Is Trump’s Team Ready to Fail Us Again?
Incompetence and conspiracy theories meet a deadly virus: Will history repeat itself, or will we face an even deadlier disaster with unprepared leaders at the helm?
https://substack.com/@thomhartmann/note/c-78774690
___
And by the way, the various strains of Covid circulating are starting to make their presence felt in my area up here, too. People are back inside, windows closed and breathing the exhalations of those they are penned up with. Just like the birds, we tend to be penned all together in winter.
sealintheSelkirks
People are still getting sick around me, and I’m still wearing a mask when I go inside buildings. Those that don’t risk a lot, as this woman has found out since she’s become one of the millions of SARS II Covid Sequelae sufferers. But who cares, yes? We ‘beat’ Covid. Didn’t we? Oh wait…
The pandemic’s untold fertility story
Long COVID is snuffing out some patients’ dreams of having children, sharpening the pain of loss, grief and medical neglect.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-29/pandemic-fertility-long-covid-snuffing-dreams-children-pregnancy/104687860
___
And Avian Flu is now in all 50 states
https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/12/21/bird-flu-h5n1-avian-influenza-maps/77100793007/
So lucky us that Trump will be in control, eh? After all, he ‘invented’ the covid shots, right?
Time for more highly scientific fixes like injection of Clorox into our veins, drinking down horse de-wormer, and shoving bright lights up our butts to kill the new virus?
And don’t forget Whooping Cough which is making such a nice comeback these last few months, too…but it mostly only kills babies.
Up here we just had nearly a million chickens killed on one big egg farm south of Spokane! Wonder why eggs prices won’t go down? DUH!
The Washington State ‘Avian Flu’ map is dotted with outbreaks from one side of the state to the other now. Along with dairy herds, wild bird flocks, raccoons, domestic cats, etc etc. And it looks like one very sick woman in Louisiana has a mutated form in her blood that is scaring the hell out of infectious disease researchers because it’s quite possibly on its way to being human-to-human like Covid.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/26/bird-flu-virus-mutations
There were extremely sick Canadian teenagers just a few weeks ago that showed mutations, too. They didn’t die but, like Covid, what after-effect (Sequelae) is this going to cause?
___
sealintheSelkirks
I forgot to add this latest posting. I apologize!
I’m an Emergency Physician Keeping an Eye on Bird Flu. It’s Getting Dicey.
There’s no evidence that it’s spreading between humans, but a severe case is bad news.
The author probably forgot the ‘YET’ by accident?
https://slate.com/technology/2024/12/bird-flu-emergency-physician-worried-transmission-cases.html
sealintheSelkirks
And here we are, five years later, with at least 1.2 million dead along with an unknown number of damaged people still suffering from the sequelae of this new disease we call ‘Long Covid.’
I have a couple of friends that speak of the various long-term after effects they are still dealing with. One former student of mine said recently that he ‘runs out of breath’ after having gone through 3 different strains of this disease (he’s an urban bus driver). He says he can’t take deep breaths like he used to (a snowboarder, long-distance bike rider, and a powerful hiker in mountains who grew up in Mt. Shasta); and that it feels like there aren’t any lungs left below a certain point when he tries to breathe deep. Just…nothing to hold air down low and he runs out. He says he sometimes panics…
He doesn’t ride a bike much anymore because he runs out of air, and he lives at sea level now. He’s only 41, and asks me if this is what it is like to be old.
Short article just published:
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/10/nx-s1-5321040/covid-19-pandemic-five-years-later?utm
___
And now we have measles in Texas, Avian Flu growing everywhere across the country (but so far no human to human transmission…yet), RSV, and one hell of a flu season that has killed more than Covid has this winter.
In Texas they are having the same problems with Measles that they had with Covid. Guess Texas doesn’t learn very quickly…but hey, it’s Texas as one friend who grew up there recently told me. It’s why he moved away.
https://undark.org/2025/03/12/texas-measles-public-health/?utm
___
Personally, I still wear a mask when in town or down in the city going in and out of public buildings. I’m in the more-at-risk age group and have always been prone to being dropped by flu every winter my entire life. And yes I recently had the latest Covid shot…end of November.
sealintheSelkirks
Been a while since I posted a Covid update, but with the recent appointment of our illustrious Health & Human Services Director (who has zero medical training) and this deranged anti-freedom agenda he is putting in place about vaccinations, it seemed appropriate.
Here is the most recent information on how SARS II/Covid-19 is surging in other parts of the world, and the current US weekly death rate, then a link to what he has now done with his anti-vaccine agenda:
Is COVID Making a Comeback? Asia Sees Surge in Cases | Vantage with Palki Sharma | N18G
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETGvYHSZQVA
__
Why are more than 300 people in the US still dying from COVID every week?
Experts say there is low vaccine uptake and people are not accessing treatments.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/300-people-us-dying-covid-week/story?id=122068959
__
This is, bluntly, insane behavior but what do we expect from an incompetent?
RFK Jr. Puts Severe Limits On Who Can Receive COVID Vaccine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFTPsZaUbKE
Doesn’t he know that ‘healthy’ people under 65 die from Covid, too? What is wrong with these people?
__
As an aside, four days after I posted the previous update, on March 17th I took the granddaughter of my deceased friend for their monthly grocery shopping trip to the much better store 20 miles south out of the mountains (she suffers from a disabling work injury & doesn’t drive). I’m continuing to keep the promise I made in 2018to my old friend before she died…
Unfortunately (or fortunate in another way!) I was paying far more attention to her 6.5 year old in the very busy parking lot trying to keep her from being run over by drivers with short attention spans, I was halfway through the store before I noticed another person wearing a mask…and realized mine was sitting on the dash of my old 4runner.
Three days later I went down with ‘Influenza A’ that is circulating up here along with Covid. The first time I’ve been sick since a bout with flu in Fall 2018. I was down for an entire month but I was lucky, it wasn’t Covid.
Yes I self-tested. Am damned sure I’m not going to make that mistake again. Masks work!
sealintheSelkirks
A new COVID subvariant spreads rapidly as Trump pivots away from vaccines
A new, highly transmissible COVID subvariant has been detected in California — heightening the risk of a potential summer wave as recent moves by the Trump administration threaten to make vaccines harder to get, and more expensive, for many Americans, some health experts warn.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-30/a-new-covid-subvariant-spreads-rapidly-as-trump-pivots-away-from-vaccines
__
My last Covid shot update was the end of November, and it cost me $135. This article definitely has questions about why the US government uses our taxes to invent these so they can give them away to private companies:
What the FDA’s Decision on the New COVID Boosters Tells Us
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/05/29/what-the-fdas-decision-on-the-new-covid-boosters-tells-us/
__
sealintheSelkirks
A cut from the Hartmann Report this morning. Link:
Saturday Report 6/7/25 — Are Americans getting over revenge politics?
The Best of the Rest of the News
https://hartmannreport.com/p/saturday-report-6725-are-americans?publication_id=
— Bob Kennedy’s deadly war on science rolls on. His father, Bobby Kennedy, was assassinated 57 years ago this past week and would be, I believe, truly horrified to see the damage his son has done to this nation. Bob isn’t a doctor or scientist; he’s a lawyer and a former drug and sex addict and neither should give him a platform to destroy much of the scientific infrastructure of our nation. Most recently, by delisting the Covid vaccine for all but people over 65 and the immunocompromised, he’s made it so we’ll all have to pay for our vaccinations because they’ll no longer be covered by insurance. This in a nation where 300 people a week are today dying of Covid — the fourth leading cause of death — and thousands more are hospitalized and/or end up disabled with long Covid. Presumably this isn’t a big deal if you’re the morbidly rich scion of a political and economic dynasty, but for average working people and the poor this could be a death sentence.
__
I’m going for the new NOVAVAX non-mRNA covid shot next week that Costco Pharmacy is carrying, the one that is reportedly modified to target the Omicron variants including the latest highly transmissible one.
The SARS 2 Covid-19 pandemic is NOT over folks, no matter how much we wish it had gone away. The information is just denied press coverage in the corporate media that is owned by the wealthy who in general, like Trump, only allows what benefits them to leak out.
I have a couple of friends who are still dealing with the long-term effects of the Covid infection. One caught this new disease three times in 2 1/2 years, and it’s obvious he’s still ‘foggy.’ He is not the same person. Worse, he knows it. He used to tutor Trig in high school, could do it in his head, ad was an excellent cook for more than a decade. Now he can’t remember recipes, and definitely can’t remember the math work.
Another caught it just once as the office manager of a local chiropractor who didn’t require masks to be worn to keep other people safe when they came in. Yes he was a MAGA voter (mormon), and a lot of people came down with it there. She is still struggling, too, 3 years later. And he fired her for not coming to work as she was flat on her back for months (never was hospitalized).
6 out of every hundred people? And the numbers are over 1.2 million just in this country!
Long COVID Brain Fog Isn’t “All in Your Head.” Scientists Now Know the Cause.
This is the first study to clear the air on how COVID alters the brain.
REMEMBER COVID? PLENTY of people have already moved past the lockdowns, social distancing, and other protective measures. But for people with long COVID—symptoms that continue to linger for months or years—the pandemic isn’t over.
According to the World Health Organization, for every 100 people infected, 6 developed long COVID. One of the most common and debilitating symptoms was brain fog—severe difficulty in thinking or concentrating. For years, researchers have tried to uncover the mystery behind this debilitating symptom. And finally we have some answers.
https://www.menshealth.com/health/a69020230/long-covid-brain-fog-cause-study-oct-2025/?utm_
__
So of course the rest of this article is behind a Paywall, and it’s getting quite difficult to find out any information since nothing is being government funded anymore thanks to the GOP budget cuts (but let’s spend a trillion on war?). Though people are still dying of this new disease it is hidden in the dark now.
Literally the best way to not catch it is wear an N95 at this point, but then people look at you funny or pretend to not see it on your face. I don’t care, I’m still wearing them whenever I walk into a store as I know I’m vulnerable having caught every flu virus going around my entire life. I did my shopping down in the city today, and I wore one everywhere I walked into. Surprisingly, I saw others in N95s, too. Not a lot, and actually quite rarely given the population of Spokane at Costco and WinCo and the other stores I was in.
Except for one. I did notice while getting dog food that not a single person had one on in Walmart…but it had the best price on 250 pound of kibble so I risked it.
If you have Sequelae symptoms of Long Covid, the underfunded scientists and doctors are trying to help you as best they can. Universities are still studying it in spite of RFK Jr.’s brainworm bullshit. And there are support groups out there. Don’t be ashamed to reach out if you need to. It’s real and not just ‘in your imagination.’
sealintheSelkirks
Still following Covid, when any info leaks out through the wall of silence that seems to have formed around this disease.
Still roughly 300 a week dying of it in the US as far as I can tell. It’s been completely de-funded by the DJT regime of course, so the ongoing work of studying Covid is pretty much all overseas labs, universities, and hospitals. At least they aren’t stupid.
__
Interview with world-renowned physiologist Dr. Resia Pretorius about what her team has found in blood samples under their microscopes over the last six years. Of course it isn’t good news…
COVID Isn’t Just a Lung Disease—What the Microscope Revealed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNDmtexTNG4
__
sealintheSelkirks
Medical information websites shut down and disappeared, funding slashed to the bone or completely eliminated, hospitals and university labs afraid to put what little federal funding they’re getting into anything that Diaper Don has taken a dislike to.
People are still dying but the government will “no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.” Last year it was only 300+ a week…and it is still mutating. Difficult to find info anymore. But it isn’t gone, just censored like so many subjects in this growing authoritarian state…
A priest, a police officer, and a politician — each is living with long COVID in 2026
https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2026/03/05/a-priest-a-police-officer-and-a-politician-each-is-living-with-long-covid-in-2026/?utm
__
sealintheSelkirks