Dear brain fog,
I do not have time for you today.

Yours,
Chronically ill and refusing to change her life to reflect that.

#ChronicIllness #LongCovid #Fibro

Staring down a Fibro/long covid based on most bloods coming back fine.
Possibly hormonal fuckery going on but they are weird results. He is referring me.

Iron level is 25 (normal range is 15 to 300.)
Oestrogen lower than the lab can count.
LH & FSH normal (with low oestrogen they should go up...)

I am... every single emotion and don't really know what to do with this information.

#LongCovid #Fibro #Menopause

The excellent and freely distributable COVID Zine has been updated for 2026.
https://newlevant.com/COVIDzine

This is among the most concise and well cited sources for the current state of #Covid knowledge and tools. Even for well-informed people who already take strong precautions, there is still likely something new to be learned by giving it a read through.

#Covid19 #CovidIsNotOver #CovidIsAirborne #LongCovid #WearAMask #MaskUp

Waiting for my Uber to the doctor's for my pain person appointment.

No idea what to expect. Quite nervous. Also running on 5 hours sleep and an intensely stressful day yesterday.

#LongCovid

Blood pressure has been up (150 / 90s) the past several weeks (I take daily guanfacine too). I know I'm under a lot of justified stress (fascist regime and all). I haven't been protesting but am doing food, security, and other runs for immigrants in the cities. Likewise, I started taking the propranolol I had this morning, and it's already helping.

I probably have POTS, but I haven't seen a cardiologist yet, nor did I go to the Mayo yet for #LongCovid. PCP is out a few weeks. Does anyone else have elevated BP constantly with #LongCovid? What helped?

In addition to guanfacine, I do cardio 3-5 days a week (most likely have some degree of PEM, but I plow through it). Strangely, my pulse is low (RHR 40 bpm); I'm not sure if that is the cardio working there or something else.

14 months later, still dealing with #LongCovid. It really sucks 🙄

Blood pressure has been up (150 / 90s) the past several weeks (I take daily guanfacine too). I know I'm under a lot of justified stress (fascist regime and all). I haven't been protesting but am doing food, security, and other runs for immigrants in the cities. Likewise, I started taking the propranolol I had this morning, and it's already helping.

I probably have POTS, but I haven't seen a cardiologist yet, nor did I go to the Mayo yet for #LongCovid. PCP is out a few weeks. Does anyone else have elevated BP constantly with #LongCovid? What helped?

In addition to guanfacine, I do cardio 3-5 days a week (most likely have some degree of PEM, but I plow through it). Strangely, my pulse is low (RHR 40 bpm); I'm not sure if that is the cardio working there or something else.

14 months later, still dealing with #LongCovid. It really sucks 🙄

𝘗𝘏𝘈𝘕 & 𝘈𝘚𝘗 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵:
𝙇𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝘾𝙊𝙑𝙄𝘿 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙃𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘽𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙃𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙈𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙝

Thursday February 5th
12p EST / 5p GMT
𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵

Join the #PublicHealthActionNetwork and @AirSupportProject for a focused discussion led by #LongCOVID advocate Chimére L. Sweeney, founder of The Black Long COVID Experience, on how Long COVID is continuing to affect #Black people and how Black leaders and advocates are shaping COVID-aware responses today.

https://publichealthactionnetwork.org/event/phan-asp-present-covid-and-honoring-black-history-month/

#BlackHistoryMonth #BlackHistoryMonth2026 #LongCovidAwareness #BlackMastodon #Covid19 #CovidIsNotOver #CovidSafeEvents

𝘗𝘏𝘈𝘕 & 𝘈𝘚𝘗 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵:
𝙇𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝘾𝙊𝙑𝙄𝘿 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙃𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘽𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙃𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙈𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙝

Thursday February 5th
12p EST / 5p GMT
𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵

Join the #PublicHealthActionNetwork and @AirSupportProject for a focused discussion led by #LongCOVID advocate Chimére L. Sweeney, founder of The Black Long COVID Experience, on how Long COVID is continuing to affect #Black people and how Black leaders and advocates are shaping COVID-aware responses today.

https://publichealthactionnetwork.org/event/phan-asp-present-covid-and-honoring-black-history-month/

#BlackHistoryMonth #BlackHistoryMonth2026 #LongCovidAwareness #BlackMastodon #Covid19 #CovidIsNotOver #CovidSafeEvents

Yaneer Bar-Yam, founder of the so-called World Health Network which so many covid-aware people foolishly insisted on following, appears in the Epstein files.

Here's Bar-Yam asking Epstein, who four years earlier had pleaded guilty of child prostitution, if he wants to talk about science: https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA02025360.pdf

#Covid #Covid19 #CovidIsNotOver #LongCovid

Yaneer Bar-Yam, founder of the so-called World Health Network which so many covid-aware people foolishly insisted on following, appears in the Epstein files.

Here's Bar-Yam asking Epstein, who four years earlier had pleaded guilty of child prostitution, if he wants to talk about science: https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA02025360.pdf

#Covid #Covid19 #CovidIsNotOver #LongCovid

@fluconf The last FOSDEM I attended was 6 years ago. Just as we'd started to hear more about this thing called #Covid

I can honestly say that #FOSS attitudes to accessibility, politics and Public Health are a major factor in the existence of the cobbles blog.

I wrote this in 2023 about my experience of #LongCovid which I still have. I've just had to learn to work around it.

Meanwhile the rest of the world seems to move on.

It's why I am so thankful for #FluConf.

https://dotart.blog/cobbles/im-not-going-to-get-better

#FosDem if you’re not masking you may end up with #LongCovid which is no joke.

In Feb 2022 I got COVID. In March I had to stop working because I couldn’t even focus long enough to make coffee let alone work.

By 2023 I found workarounds that enabled me to be a functioning parent and husband again.

In 2025 I found medication that enabled me to work and think again, but part time.

That is 4 years ago and I am not yet over Long Covid.

Mask Up
Wash hands
Use a CO2 meter as proxy for polluted air - stay under < 700 and you are probably safe indoors
If you’re sick stay away from events and people

#FosDem if you’re not masking you may end up with #LongCovid which is no joke.

In Feb 2022 I got COVID. In March I had to stop working because I couldn’t even focus long enough to make coffee let alone work.

By 2023 I found workarounds that enabled me to be a functioning parent and husband again.

In 2025 I found medication that enabled me to work and think again, but part time.

That is 4 years ago and I am not yet over Long Covid.

Mask Up
Wash hands
Use a CO2 meter as proxy for polluted air - stay under < 700 and you are probably safe indoors
If you’re sick stay away from events and people

"Long COVID affects around 6 in every 100 people who get COVID-19, and that people of any age and health status can develop Long COVID" - World Health Organization (European Region)

#LongCOVID

"Long COVID affects around 6 in every 100 people who get COVID-19, and that people of any age and health status can develop Long COVID" - World Health Organization (European Region)

#LongCOVID

I need 1 good person to get me out of here please get me out of here. JUST ONE.😭

Stuck with one diagnosed #narcissist/#psychopath but others are the same. I don’t want to die here.

Help please.!!!!!🙏

#MECFS
#SevereME
#LongCovid
#ChronicPain
#Hypothyroidism
#Endometriosis
#Abuse
#NarcissisticAbuse
#Neglect
#FDV
#DV
#MutualAid #MutualAidRequest

Social Death By Covid
CW: significant isolation, abandonment & health issues; ableism; eugenics; abuse; suicidal ideation; death

https://healthselfdefense.substack.com/p/social-death-by-covid

Transcript of Jen’s post

I haven’t had a hug since getting diagnosed with MS & it’s been well over a year since the last time I hung out with a friend in person. I have a much easier time talking about physically dying than talking about the social death I’ve undergone the past few years which is actually why I think it’s so important to talk about.

“Social death” is a concept that’s used to describe the severe isolation of individuals & groups where they’re seen as “not fully human”, “not fully alive”, or “as good as dead” by society at large. Loss of meaningful social roles, loss of social connectedness, and physical/bodily losses tend to be seen as the main components of social death in sociology.

With how common it is for people to say things like “just stay home if you’re that high risk, you can’t expect society to change for you”, it’s no surprise that people who become debilitated by COVID, as well as disabled & particularly high risk people who continue to protect themselves from COVID, are at a high risk for experiencing social death.

Coupled with growing support for medically assisted dying laws & widening eligibility criteria, society’s ideas about whose lives “aren’t worth living” continues to expand in this era of rising eugenics & fascism.

In my own life, it’s easy to see how losses have compounded quickly. My MS symptoms have made me unable to work & significantly limit my capacity for socializing, and as I’ve lost connections & support while continuing to get sicker, my capacity to try to replace them has gotten even smaller, which is further complicated by the fact that the vast majority of community spaces are inaccessible for a multitude of reasons.

It’s a vicious cycle that’s extremely difficult to see a way out of, so I usually try to not think about it too much big emotional upsets & dysregulation massively flare my symptoms and take a frustratingly long time to recover from, and I’ve never felt as much despair & hopelessness as I do about how isolated I’ve become these days.

Every so often I’ll have a breakdown & think “I cannot do this for another month, 3 months, 6 months. Humans are not built to be so isolated, I cannot keep doing this.” But then I do, and the days turn into weeks & weeks turn into months & I keep going.

I’m one of the very privileged & lucky ones particularly since I have stable housing, the ability to participate in stuff online sometimes, and a very minor social media platform so it feels selfish to not keep fighting for us as much as I can. My survivor’s guilt runs deep & is continually reinforced by the ongoing losses in our online spaces.

I have a hard time talking about how isolated I am for a few reasons. For one, the last thing I want is pity or for strangers to offer to give me a hug. I’m autistic & hugging strangers has always been a level of purgatory for me, so I’m not particularly interested in visiting it at this time.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I also worry about my vulnerability being taken advantage of. Alongside the losses & growing isolation the past few years, I’ve been on the receiving end of offers of support that were either inauthentic or had ulterior motives and created even more upheaval & challenges in my life, so it’s hard to not be fearful of that happening again.

Then there’s the feelings of shame, embarrassment, and fear of being judged that are tough to overcome. I’ve been trying to write a post about this for over a year now, and when I first started, I felt so compelled to prove & justify that I used to have deep & longstanding friendships, that I used to be very involved in communities, and that I’m not some awful person who deserves to be isolated & abandoned.

There are relationships I’ve chosen to walk away from because of ableism & abuse, so it’s challenging to not internalize the idea that I ought to just “tough it out” & “get over it” so that I’m not alone, or that I put myself in this position by refusing to accept “care” & “connection” laced with mistreatment.

I think a lot about how in the early days of AIDS activism, activism by and for people with AIDS which was distinct from activism on behalf of the gay community as a whole started as a way of resisting social death. I know that I’m far from the only one experiencing social death from COVID, so I often wonder about how the future of COVID activism could expand to resist our isolation & social deaths while also addressing the material realities of those who are very sick & isolated in non-exploitative ways.

Although I don’t have the answers since there will obviously be many & they need to be created collectively I feel like it’s an important question to sit with.

Shame thrives & grows when it’s hidden away in the shadows, so if nothing else, I hope that opening up about this a bit more can serve as a reminder for anyone else experiencing social death that we don’t actually deserve this.

It’s so fucking hard, and I promise that you aren’t alone in seriously struggling through it. Although I can’t honestly say “it’ll get better”, I have to believe that it’s possible somehow.

#MaskUp #WearAMask #CovidRealist #CovidIsAirbone #LongCovid #YallMasking #DisabledLiberation #DisabilityJustice

Ask yourself. . . Even if you stopped masking, you can always decide to start masking again! Would you rather live in ignorance and denial, or in reality? Are you willing to sacrifice your long-term health, and the health and lives of others, just to eat indoors at restaurants? What is holding you back from wearing a mask on the bus, at work, at the grocery store, to the doctor’s, or to a friend’s house? How can you unlearn internalized ableism? How does the way we allow covid to spread and mutate unmitigated in the U.S. Impact people in the global south? In places like Palestine, where disease is used as a tool of genocidal empires? What does it look like to truly make queer / black / trans / disabled liberation a central motivating force in your daily life?

https://maskupactup.substack.com/p/why-you-should-still-wear-a-mask

COVID MITHS
“MYTH #1: “No one is masking anymore”

People are still masking! A 2023 poll found 21% of Americans still mask most or all of the time, and 48% are continuing to mask in public on at least some occasions.

If you are thinking: “well, I don’t see anyone masking!”, remember that those with COVID cautious practices often visit public spaces at calculated times in order to avoid crowds. For example, individuals might avoid peak busy hours at the grocery by going right when it opens, or they might not be going to stores altogether due to the high risk nature if they have pre-existing health conditions.

Wearing a medical-grade mask (i.e. KN 95) continues to provide substantial protection, even if those around you are unmasked. Spaces without mandated indoor masking put everyone at risk, but particularly folks who are at higher risk.

MYTH #2: “COVID deaths and cases are low”

In 2020, people were very accurately criticizing Trump for saying, "If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases". So, unsurprisingly, the dismantling of public testing infrastructure under Biden and the shift to at-home rapid testing has resulted in a significant undercounting and underreporting of positive COVID cases and related deaths (including those from Long Covid complications).

While mainstream media has reported on the latest surge (Summer 2023), they aren't typically a reliable source and there have been multiple surges that they haven’t reported on. Testing COVID levels in wastewater is now the best remaining measure for assessing COVID risk, and it continues to show high levels of the virus are widespread. Staying informed about wastewater data outside of media coverage is one of the best ways to prepare for surges.

MYTH #3: “Only the elderly and immunocompromised are affected by COVID / I’ve already gotten COVID and I was fine”

Firstly, even if this was true our elderly, high-risk, disabled community members are not disposable– their lives are worth protecting and claiming otherwise is a eugenicist stance. It is a myth perpetuated by capitalism which would have us believe a person’s worth and relatedly their expendability is predicated on their ability to engage in labor. People currently in excellent health or younger in age are closer to being disabled or high-risk than we have been told to believe.
Secondly, anyone who has had COVID should consider themselves immunocompromised. Fighting off COVID does not strengthen our immune response, because COVID attacks the immune system and impacts its ability to fight off future infections. Our immune systems are weakened every time we are infected.
The truth is that many who have died or been disabled by (long) COVID had no previous health concerns. You may be at low risk before your first infection, but repeated re-infection exponentially increases the risk of damage to your body. COVID complications include serious harm to the functioning of every organ, including the heart, brain, and GI system.
MYTH #4: “I’m vaccinated plus COVID is milder now, so I’m safe!”

Officials claiming that we are completely COVID safe with a vaccine-only strategy displays a total lack of understanding of how the vaccine works and the conditions under which vaccine efficacies were initially determined. The high efficacies pharmaceutical companies were initially claiming were determined when there were several public health measures in place, including masking, limited occupancy, and other restrictions on indoor gatherings. COVID strains keep evolving and changing, and vaccines become less effective as new variants emerge. Newer COVID strains are just as severe as older variants. Even if a newer strain is considered less deadly, it can be more transmissible which can ultimately lead to more deaths overall.

Vaccines also do not prevent you from getting sick or spreading COVID: they reduce your chances of ending up dead or in the hospital. We must continue to employ other methods of protection to keep ourselves and our communities safe. The newer COVID strains may appear to be milder because fewer people are dying compared to the start of the pandemic, but this can be attributed to the sheer number of people with comorbidities that lost their lives during the early COVID waves. Fewer people are dying presently because so many of our most at-risk members of society have already died from COVID. Our government has subsequently abandoned remaining at-risk individuals, who have been forced to take their safety into their own hands as the world prematurely “moves on” from the ongoing pandemic.

MYTH #5: “We have reached herd immunity / Everyone is going to get COVID eventually”

You have likely heard the phrase, “We just need to reach herd immunity and things can go back to normal.” For the first two years of the pandemic, it seemed that reaching herd immunity was the objective. The problem, however, was herd immunity was never going to be possible with the nature of this virus. Unlike polio or measles, SARS-CoV-2 turned out to be more reactive to selective pressure which meant that the high levels of infection ironically served to give rise to many more variants that were even better at evading immune response.

A virus is under constant pressure to mutate to evade immune detection, but it doesn't do it in a vacuum, it needs a host. Once in a host, the virus will replicate until it is neutralized by the immune system. The longer it can reproduce unchecked, the higher the chances of it acquiring mutations. If any of those mutations, or combination of mutations is advantageous to the virus, then that mutant will end up in circulation. That's IF we continue to serve as hosts, something we can try to prevent by masking. And if we do get infected, we can at least try to stop that chain of transmission with us by isolating while sick (if possible), testing frequently, and, yes, masking.

The reason why we have so many COVID variants is because we have allowed for the virus to spread rampantly because our government repealed mask mandates, dismantled COVID testing infrastructure, and repealed all other protective measures early on. We do not have to give in to the defeatist stance that COVID will eventually infect every person on the planet. We can keep our communities safe by maintaining COVID practices. Wearing a mask, testing regularly, and staying informed can help save lives.” People’s Health Education Program

“The cold truth of the matter is that the motive behind COVID minimization is greed and social control. (…) Solving the pandemic was never in the cards for the capitalist world. Instead, the explicit goal of the ruling class has been to make the pandemic simply disappear from public perception.” Let Them Eat Plague! http://clarion.unity-struggle-unity.org/

#MaskUp #WearAMask #CovidRealist #CovidIsAirbone #LongCovid #YallMasking #DisabledLiberation #DisabilityJustice

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DISABILITY, GENDER, RACE & QUEERNESS: OUR LIBERATION IS CONNECTED Consider... Who has the privilege of working from home? Who can afford tools such as masks and rapid tests? Who can afford to take time off from work? Who is more likely to be believed and given proper treatment by medical providers? Who is more likely to live or work in high-risk, crowded environments? In a Nov. 2023 poll, 72% of Black respondents said they were taking COVID precautions (avoiding large gatherings, travel, or indoor dining; masking in crowded places; taking a COVID test), while only 39% of white respondents said they were taking any of these same precautions. Data also shows that “white people feared COVID less after learning other races were hit hardest.”

Bisexual, trans, disabled, Black and Hispanic adults are the groups experiencing the highest rates of Long COVID. Women are significantly more likely than men to experience Long COVID. And infants (<1 yr) often have the highest COVID ICU rates among all age groups. ALL of us suffer because our healthcare system has abandoned masking/protecting its patients altogether. The government has shown its disregard for queer lives during the (ongoing) AIDS epidemic, and history is repeating itself. Queer, trans, Black, disabled lives are lives worth living and worth protecting! Mask up! Tldr: public health is a collective responsibility. Wearing a mask is an act of community care & resistance against the fascist forces of eugenics, ableism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, biphobia & transphobia.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT It’s okay if reading this information makes you feel scared, angry, confused, or defensive. It can be difficult to examine our complicity, and we have all been subjected to constant messages aimed to convince us that “COVID is over,” that we should simply resume our “normal” lives of unrestrained consumption. Remind yourself: each new day is an opportunity to make new, better-informed decisions. EVEN IF YOU STOPPED MASKING, YOU CAN ALWAYS DECIDE TO START MASKING AGAIN!

Ask yourself. . . Even if you stopped masking, you can always decide to start masking again! Would you rather live in ignorance and denial, or in reality? Are you willing to sacrifice your long-term health, and the health and lives of others, just to eat indoors at restaurants? What is holding you back from wearing a mask on the bus, at work, at the grocery store, to the doctor’s, or to a friend’s house? How can you unlearn internalized ableism? How does the way we allow covid to spread and mutate unmitigated in the U.S. Impact people in the global south? In places like Palestine, where disease is used as a tool of genocidal empires? What does it look like to truly make queer / black / trans / disabled liberation a central motivating force in your daily life?

“The mass unmasking wave has caused irreparable harm, and we cannot allow that to continue.
How can we say we prioritize community care if that care doesn’t include the health and safety of vulnerable communities? How do we intend to wage war on capitalist elites if we all grow weak and fatigued from never-ending re-infections?

The eleventh and final principle type of liberalism Mao Tse-tung concluded was “To be aware of one's own mistakes and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself.” To allow liberalism to win is easy. It demands no accountability for the ways those have rejected fact and reason. Yet there are people in your lives who have never stopped following safety guidelines, wearing a mask, and protecting their health and your health.

We want to see you alive in 30 years. We want to see you persist in the struggle. We want to see you resist the nihilistic acceptance of illness, death and constant grief as the standard of life. We can only live on to fight another day if we’re able to protect the health and safety of oppressed people everywhere.

Combating liberalism can look like taking a breath and recognizing the ways you’ve allowed state-sanctioned violence to pervade into your communities. The people will thank you, even if they don’t all understand just yet. Solidarity with community can start with putting on a mask in the presence of your loved ones and guide them as to why you have started to care again. And with that first step, we will welcome you back without shame, fold you in, if you’ll have us.” People’s Health Education Program

https://maskupactup.substack.com/p/why-you-should-still-wear-a-mask

“The cold truth of the matter is that the motive behind COVID minimization is greed and social control. (…) Solving the pandemic was never in the cards for the capitalist world. Instead, the explicit goal of the ruling class has been to make the pandemic simply disappear from public perception.” Let Them Eat Plague! http://clarion.unity-struggle-unity.org/

#MaskUp #WearAMask #CovidRealist #CovidIsAirbone #LongCovid #YallMasking #DisabledLiberation #DisabilityJustice

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