Public health has failed us re COVID

So, 

is there anything to be done?

Unless we change course urgently- unless we fight back against the normalization of constant illness and the individualization of a critical public good- we are going to see a long, slow, across-the-board decline in health and life expectancy amid increasingly uncontrollable disease outbreaks and overwhelmed hospital systems. 

We have the technology and knowledge to mitigate disease spread. Let’s fight for a future that is safer, better, and healthier than the world we grew up in, rather than sicker, crueler, and technologically regressed. If we don’t face reality and understand what we’re sacrificing right now, the next generation certainly will.

we need a strong, institutional response including new ventilation and filtration standards that would immediately and significantly reduce virus in the air and airborne viral spread generally.

Given that we are now in “you do you” free for all,  

what can you do?

COVID is not a cold- it’s a car accident. Every bout of COVID is a gamble with your health. There are things you can do concretely to reduce your risk of a negative outcome, and so it’s important to know that you have COVID. We will discuss this more in our next post, coming next week.

So, what can you do?

There are a few simple measures you can take to maximize your chances of riding a COVID wave without getting infected. The basic idea is to 

• reduce overall exposure, 
• minimize the amount of virus in the air, 
• shrink the amount of virus you breathe in, 
• interrupt the virus’s ability to take hold if you breathe it in, and 
• limit viral load and odds of onward transmission if you become infected. 

Again, the tools available are not all or nothing options – it’s about layering as much protection as possible to minimize risk as much as possible.