Four years ago today a doctor in Wuhan reported a mystery pneumonia, whose origin was an unknown virus. Today, transmission of that virus is as high as it has ever been since that point. Millions of people a day. This is total, utter and astounding failure
That virus has killed about 25 million people in four years, and disabled millions more. It is now the leading cause of infectious disease death, in adults and children. It is the biggest mass death event in US history
It is routinely downplayed by a media and political class for whom thousands of deaths a day are the price of business-as-usual. A class that won't even call for protection measures for the most vulnerable in hospitals, despite it being almost fully preventable in those places
The virus continues to mutate at a rate unlike any other virus in global circulation. In the US, vaccines that can help protect against the worst outcomes of this virus now cost hundreds of dollars. In the UK and much of Europe, under 65s can't even be vaccinated against it
Millions of vulnerable people mount no immune response through vaccination or infection. These people have been sacrificed, fully sacrificed, for capitalist business-as-usual, as shown by the dropping of all airborne virus protection measures in hospitals
The absurdity of herd immunity, the mocking of masks, the labelling of covid as a cold or flu, once only far-right mantras, have been entirely absorbed by a liberal political, media and corporate class who saw the adoptions of these ideas as the route back to recreational liberty
The willingness to make the smallest material sacrifice, was, for most people, strictly timebound. I'm not talking about lockdowns. I'm talking about sticking a swab up your nose who putting on a mask while you do your shopping or visit the hospital. This became too much
There was a fear in internalising the idea that everything had changed. That it wasn't 2019. If it wasn't over with vaccines, then maybe it would never be over. And so maybe that means I have to change forever. That fear was overcome with normalisation and denial
Many people's lives have been profoundly changed in last 4 years. Through the death and disease of the illness itself, and by witnessing the great return to normal, a return, which signalled for many, the mass abandonment of principles and ideals. By allies, friends, family
All the love to those who never gave up and who make their belief in solidarity material every day
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She posted on Instagram how for four months she was in agonising pain, went repeatedly to hospitals in Newcastle and Durham, begged for blood tests and scans, was told it was all in her head. It was cancer. Dead at 25 six months later. I swear medicine attracts sociopaths
Her posts where she says not one doctor listened to her and authorised scans or blood tests despite her begging on the floor crying in pain and despite her autoimmune conditions that predisposed her to cancer. For months. Absolutely disgusting failure from @NewcastleHosps
Turns out that the son of (Lord) David Wolfson, shadow Attorney General for the Conservative Party, a senior British politician and a former minister in Boris Johnson's government is currently serving in the IDF and murdering Palestinians. This is Sam Wolfson
His dad David Wolfson funds a 'pop-up' cafe for IDF troops operating in Gaza. Sam is killing Palestinians in Gaza alongside his girlfriend who is also serving in the IDF. This is from an article in the Jewish Chronicle
Sam confirms on his LinkedIn he is participating in genocide
New investigation: Meta's head of AI policy in Washington DC is a former IDF officer who volunteered to join the Israeli army under a special program for non-Israeli recruits. Overall Meta employs more than one hundred former IDF soldiers and spies (continues)
Shira Anderson is an American international rights lawyer who voluntarily enlisted for the IDF in 2009 under a program known as Garin Tzabar, which enables non-Israeli Jews who aren’t eligible for military conscription to join the Israeli army
Many non-Israelis who have fought for the IDF after arriving under the Garin Tzabar program have been implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity since Israel’s genocide of Gaza began in October 2023
Yes this is how most people remember it, left to right. Governments were also doing direct cash transfers to citizens, homeless people were found shelter, evictions were banned and debts were frozen. We should ask why the latter didn't become the cultural story
The biggest anti racism protests in decades erupted in the UK and the US. Because many people for the first time, had time. People were educating and organising. It wasn't a coincidence.
Adult and child suicides went down. For many people the boot of capital was off their neck. The right did what they were always going to do in response. It's the left that fucked it up, who failed to defend the gains, quietly complicit in the 'freedom' story. And here we are
Turns out Boeing and the FAA are ignoring another fatal design flaw in the Boeing 737 MAX that, like the previous flaw that downed two of these planes and killed hundreds of people, most pilots are unaware of. Continues...
The flaw relates to the system that kicks in when a bird is sucked into the engine of a plane. This happens regularly. Sometimes when this happens on the MAX, due to the flaw in the system, it pumps aerosolised, neurotoxic jet oil into the passenger cabin and cockpit
In 2023 two MAXs had to make emergency landings when bird strikes triggered this flawed system. The FAA investigators recommended a design change to the system, but the FAA ignored the recommendations of the investigation team and sacked the lead investigator
A few weeks ago top US medicine man Anthony Fauci was in hospital with West Nile virus, saying he'd never been sicker. So I looked into West Nile virus and woah, did I find out some things. Not good things 🧵
The first astonishing thing I found out is how quickly this virus, transmitted by mosquitoes, has become a serious health threat in many parts of the world, especially Europe and North America, where a little over twenty years ago >it didn’t even exist<
The first North American (in fact Western hemisphere) detection was in New York City in 1999, where it infected 8,000 and killed seven. By 2002 it was all along the east coast, the US south by 2003, by 2012, just 13 years after its emergence, it was in all 48 continental states