Shel

@shel

The Transsexual Chofetz Chaim

she/her
shelraphen.com/

Mutant, librarian, poet, union rabble rouser, dog, Ashkenazi Jewish. Neuroweird, bodyweird, mostly sleepy.

I write about transformative justice, community, love, Judaism, Neurodivergence, mental health, Disability, geography, rivers, labor, and libraries; through poetry, opinionated essays, and short fiction.

I review Schoolhouse Rock! songs at @PropagandaRock

Website (RSS + Newsletter)

shelraphen.com/

Website League

soc.lizard.tools/@shel

Shel @shel1/9/2023, 1:42 PM

🌌🐈🐉@kda

🌌🐈🐉@kda1/9/2023, 6:18 AM

The whole "COVID-19" branding manoeuvre by the WHO was a bad idea.

"we don't want people to think this is as bad as SARS"

No. No, they should've leaned the fuck into "this is SARS 2: Electric Boogaloo" and "this fucker is in the same genus as MERS, which kills a third of people who catch it".

Like, they knew that original SARS could cause chronic illnesses ranging from respiratory issues to—

Oh. Huh. So I was looking up the fact that SARS-CoV could cause osteoporosis, and most of the results are talking about SARS-CoV-2 causing some osteoporosis-like symptoms in some people.

Are you fucking kidding me. Like, I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but maybe we should be more worried about a virus that can fuck up your bones. I mean, sure, it does far worse things that no one seems to give a shit about, but fuck.

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in reply to @kda's post:

Vera Lycaon @VeraLycaon1/9/2023, 6:25 AM

This is gonna be our generation's polio, jesus christ.

🌌🐈🐉@kda1/9/2023, 6:28 AM

It's stochastic terrorism: the virus, basically.

Most people will probably end up with at least one statistically significant chronic effect that's still subclinical in severity, but the way severe effects will end up being distributed will be… … …like, there'll be serious statistical trends, but on an individual scale? Kinda fucking random.

Sure is cool when a virus that can directly infect basically every cell in the body is allowed to just fucking roam free like this.

Noxulous of Fyth @Noxulous1/9/2023, 7:16 AM

Shoulda also leaned into the fact that it can kill your dick a little over 1/4th of the time

Tamber @tamber1/9/2023, 7:24 AM

It's fucking horrifying, yeah... Like, I'm trying to get my co-workers to do even the bare minimum and just getting mocked for it.

And trying to explain to 'em "no, just because you've had it once doesn't mean you're safe now. No, not even with all your jabs. No, it won't necessarily be less-damaging either." and it all seems to sail right through their heads without even lodging for a moment.

*screaming*

🌌🐈🐉@kda1/9/2023, 7:32 AM

y e a h

It's, uh. A thing that, aside from hoping I never catch this again, I'm hoping the damage will be more severe against certain systems in my body than others. ☠️☠️

Like. I've seen some people achieve pretty substantial recovery from Long COVID, which is reason for some hope, but, well. I guess we "needed" something to replace leaded gas and cigarettes as utterly fucking useless harms.

Tamber @tamber1/9/2023, 12:47 PM

Currently following the Gammon-Brain path by:

being born into the midst of the "It's fine, don't worry about it" BSE outbreak.
Spending my early childhood in a house with lead paint and lead water pipes
30+ years of 2nd hand smoke, baybeeeeee
Being old enough to remember leaded fuel going off sale in the UK
Sanding leaded paint and realising it based off the taste of the dust in the air
Oil n grease n asbestos brake/clutch linings (Hardcore scratch n sniff)
"This is a funny colour orange paint... reads label Oh! Cadmium! Yummy!"
Covid, early last year
Rising atmospheric CO2 levels

I don't want to add another bout of the disease, it fucked me up enough first time, and I've rolled the dice too many times already...

🌌🐈🐉@kda1/9/2023, 4:28 PM

y e p

Yeah, I think it'll be a heart attack, cancer, or getting murked by chuds that'll Minecraft® me before I get any kind of dementia, but.

:)))

@flintlock-media1/9/2023, 1:55 PM

It really bugs me how many otherwise-smart people I know think the right approach is to be "balanced". As in, avoid "catastrophising" about it, etc. But "catastrophising" is where you take a normal thing and frame it as a catastrophe. If you frame a catastrophe as a catastrophe, that's pretty reasonable? But no, worrying about this stuff makes me the weirdo.

Some loser at work tried to reason with me and say that wearing masks etc is all about the individual's personal comfort level with risk. I'm not gonna rant about how that's wrong here, because I'm pretty sure we all know the arguments and are sick of having to repeat them to people. But I get to the point where I kinda wish all the people with that attitude would just die off and let the rest of us get on with trying to fix the mess honestly.

🌌🐈🐉@kda1/9/2023, 4:32 PM

They won't, though. Honestly, I'm sure most of them will live their entire lives thinking their gamble paid off, because they won't bother to draw the connection between earlier onset of chronic illnesses and a few years of lost lifespan and their absolute failure to do anything to reduce their chance of catching this virus.

It turns out, the most destructive pathogen possible might be one so sneaky and random in how it causes severe harm that most people shrug it off. 🙃

@flintlock-media1/9/2023, 5:13 PM

Right? Not to mention a lot of people are waaaay more ignorant about basic medical/biological cause and effect than I ever realised before the pandemic. You don't need a medical degree to be able to connect simple dots.

🌌🐈🐉@kda1/9/2023, 7:09 PM

You don't, but vAcCiNe InJuRy is way more convenient than admitting that, as a policy choice, the whole of humanity has been dragged into some degree of Massively Multiplayer Russian Roulette or another.

Ugh.

Draco Rex @DL-Draco-Rex1/9/2023, 6:09 PM

Maybe we should all just start calling it SARS. No "COVID", no "CoV", no "Corona Virus". Just call it SARS. Let the people who didn't know it was SARS just assume there's a new pandemic. Maybe it will at least reset the complacency. Get another year of people at least pretending to care.

🌌🐈🐉@kda1/9/2023, 7:17 PM

I like the way you're thinking — but that could totally backfire. Any perceived exaggeration or dishonesty from the "side" of, well, the actual science seems to result in people swinging way hard the other way when they find out things are actually more complicated. "masks keep you safe, period" → (actually, cloth masks were best at keeping others safe from pre-Delta variants, and keeping yourself safe requires a well-fitting N95 or better) → "masks don't work"; "vaccines will save us and end the pandemic" → (actually, vaccines mostly just cut the risk of death or hospitalisation a ton for immunocompetent or partially immunocompromised people, maybe slash viral shedding by tens of percent, and absolutely require boosters twice a year) → "vaccines are evil and don't work"; so on.

Which is deeply unfortunate, because good respirators and up-to-date vaccines are incredible tools for keeping people safer, but when people see short-term benefits in ignoring the science, they'll happily use perceived dishonesty as an excuse to do it.

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