Earlier this year, politicians and news outlets tried once again to convince the public that the pandemic was over and that Covid had turned into the flu. They were wrong. Over the coming weeks and months, we're going to find out just how wrong they were.
Highly mutated forms of Covid are showing up all over the world. Some Covid minimizers are backtracking while others are doubling and tripling down on the same old lies.
I’ve made categories and subcategories for Long Covid, masks, the immune system, and other topics.
I also decided to make an FAQ.
I update this FAQ and send it out when needed.
Here it is:
Isn’t the pandemic officially over?
Governments ended their states of emergency, but that means very little. They’re not testing, and they’re not trying to reduce infections. A Yale immunologist recently said, “We are not done with Covid, not even close.” Covid is still spreading around the world. Most at-home tests aren’t that reliable, and even PCR tests can miss new variants.
You could catch Covid and wouldn’t even know.
Hasn’t Covid become mild?
Covid is causing waves of brain damage, heart disease, organ failure, and chronic illness. It’s doing this damage in mild and asymptomatic cases. It doesn’t matter how sick you feel or how fast you recover.
The most recent variants are killing people even with mild symptoms. In fact, nearly 40 percent of those who died from Covid in Japan felt mild symptoms before they died, or they didn't feel sick at all.
Being vaccinated provides a minimal amount of protection against these risks. Some studies say vaccines and boosters lower your risk by roughly 15–20 percent for Long Covid. Even the CDC estimates that as many as 1 in 5 of those infected now have a health condition because of Covid.
Covid can infect every organ in the body. The authors of a major recent study on Long Covid describe its oncoming impact as “unfathomable” to patients and healthcare workers.
You might’ve heard that viruses evolve to become milder. It’s based on the law of declining virulence, a debunked theory offered by Theobald Smith in the late 19th century. He was talking about cows and ticks.
As Stanford Biology alum Vivian Lam writes, it’s false. Many viruses have actually evolved to become more deadly. The flu’s severity fluctuates over time. Experts have seen that Covid itself has been getting more lethal and immune evasive since Omicron, not milder.
There's no such thing as mild Covid.
Why should I worry about catching Covid now?
Several major studies have found that Covid causes severe long-term and permanent brain damage, even in “mild” cases.
Children face the same risk of Long Covid as adults. Long Covid is impacting one in every six kids who get sick. In severe cases, children who once did well in school can’t even do basic math. Myths have circulated that lockdowns hurt children's immune systems and mental health. Research is now showing that Covid infection is contributing much more to their mental and emotional distress than everyone assumed.
Some research has shown children’s immune systems don’t even remember Covid, so they don’t develop lasting immunity.
Several immunologists and health institutions have debunked the idea of immunity debt. On an individual level, it’s a myth. Health experts have also explained that our immune systems don’t require exposure to pathogens. They require exposure to microbes.
Children develop their immune systems by increasing the diversity of their microbiomes, which means playing outside and eating a variety of foods. Gut health plays a large role in your immune system.
It has nothing to do with “training” it through illness.
Covid changes your immune system. For some people, it causes dysregulation. In others, it causes lasting damage.
Studies have found that Covid overstimulates your T cells and causes them to burn out. They’ve also found that Covid attacks and disables several other types of immune cells. It even leaves an imprint or “backdoor” for future variants. Some researchers have found similarities between Covid and HIV in terms of its immune damage.
Studies on vaccine effectiveness have confirmed that boosters are waning faster, providing anywhere from 50–70 percent effectiveness against severe disease, and even less against Long Covid.
The current administration seems to know that we need better vaccines, but they can’t offer a delivery date.
Several media outlets have presented misleading statistics about the excess death rate. Excess deaths haven’t dropped to “normal.” The CDC changed how they calculate excess mortality.
A review of studies got a lot of media attention for declaring that masks and mask mandates didn’t work. Leading disease experts pointed out that randomized control trials (RCTs) like those reviewed by Cochrane are extremely ill-suited for telling us whether masks are effective. After getting called out, the editors issued a partial retraction and apology, which you can find here.
Cloth and surgical masks don’t provide the best protection against airborne viruses like Covid. N95 masks do.
There’s a difference between N95 masks and other types of masks. Not only do they fit better, but they come with an electrostatic charge that helps them trap a range of particles. They trap at least 95 percent of small airborne particles. They’re not magic. You have to use them effectively.
There’s a substantial amount of research and science to explain why transmission and infection rates go down with widespread masking.
We wouldn’t have to mask as often if schools and businesses invested in clean air. The government provided billions of dollars to states for this exact purpose. Unfortunately, many states didn’t use it.
The rich also spent a lot of Covid relief money on themselves, and it’s considered one of the biggest frauds in history.
We should insist on clear air.
It’s a basic right.
Isn’t it expensive to clean the air?
Air quality experts know that it’s not a huge financial burden to upgrade the air quality, and the cost pails in comparison to employees who are constantly out sick while developing long-term health problems. Economists have put the looming cost of Long Covid in the trillions of dollars.
Covid still presents a significant risk to everyone, regardless of their health or vaccination status. It’s an airborne virus. We know that N95 masks and air purifiers significantly reduce these risks. These are facts.
Facts can’t be positive or negative.
They simply exist.
Shouldn’t we just live our lives?
Long Covid is now the third leading neurological disorder in the U.S. For many patients, it feels worse than stage 4 cancer. If you or someone you love develop a severe case of Long Covid like an estimated 10 percent of the population, you won’t be living your life.
You’ll be suffering.
I’m healthy. Why is this my problem?
Optimism bias affects up to 80 percent of the population. Those who suffer from optimism bias frequently underestimate the odds of bad things happening to them. They make poor choices.
You might be healthy now. If you expose yourself to Covid multiple times a year, then eventually you won’t be.
Stay healthy.
If Covid isn’t over, why does everyone believe it is?
There’s a number of cognitive biases distorting people’s judgment. There’s optimism bias, normalcy bias, reactance, and collective amnesia. Essentially, the public is trying to forget Covid.
There’s only one way forward. It’s clean air. It’s a culture of masking. It’s vaccines that eliminate transmission.
Everyone wants a cheap, easy way out.
There isn’t one.
Why isn’t this on the news?
If the public understood the risks of Covid, they would exercise more caution in their lives. They would demand the same protections that the elite have given themselves. They would sue their employers for endangering them. They would continue to work from home, even if it caused the collapse of commercial real estate.
As the California Supreme Court recently made clear, the government wants to avoid accountability at virtually any cost.
You know who owns most of our media outlets.
You can figure it out.
Okay, what’s the solution?
Just to be extra clear, here they are:
Educate and inform the public about their risks.
Educate them about masks.
Return to masking, especially in healthcare settings.
Advocate for clean air, especially in public buildings.
Advocate for better vaccines.
These are the best and only solutions we have. We have the knowledge and tools we need to keep each other safe from Covid.
