Thread by @julia_doubleday

It’s not weird, people are unwilling to make changes to their lifestyles, individually and collectively. The more urgent the need for lifestyle changes become, the harder ppl will deny reality. It is the same phenomenon as COVID. There is no logic, only desperation for status quo

https://twitter.com/nathanjrobinson/status/1989402225438068827

We’ve known Dems/center left are “soft” deniers for decades bc their “plans” to avert climate change never matched up remotely with the timelines scientists gave us to avert catastrophic outcomes like destruction of half of arable land on earth this century

But as those “soft” denialist plans converge with those real projections, something has to give- sooner or later either the denialists have to admit that far more radical action is called for or they must become “hard” denialists. What do you rly expect democrats to do?

With Covid, activists are trying to relate that Covid is vascular illness that damages the brain, heart, immune system and can cause lasting disability- and that these risks accumulate across multiple infections. worse, it reinfects at a rate that is too high to be sustainable

The problem with Covid is not “every covid infection will kill every person!!!!” Which is how critics like to misrepresent activists’ argument. Which is not dissimilar to how climate denier misrepresents climate change activists’ words. “Somehow it still snowed this year!!”

The problem with Covid is that at a POPULATION level, you do not want to introduce a new virus- a virus whose long term effects you neither know nor understand- which carries myriad risks and post acute health burdens, and frequently reinfect ppl with it at a high rate

You ESPECIALLY don’t want to do that when this particular virus shows a nasty tendency to disable people, push them out of work, income and housing, and is shown to be neuroinvasive with even mild cases demonstrating cognitive damage after a single infection

Compared to climate, Covid has relatively simple action items. We can bring Covid spread under control by first trying several mechanical airborne infection control measures: improved ventilation, filtration, and introduction of Far UVC

The govt must educate the public about the risks of COVID - most particularly about long COVID as well as educating the public generally about how viral infections can cause long term health problems later on in life- as well as distribute free masks and tests

The government must provide next gen vaccines and next gen tests for free- both need to be upgraded as current vaccines wane significantly by 6 months and current tests have high false negative rates. You should still use both as they are better than nothing!!

Tools like CO2 monitors can inform the public whether air is safe to breathe indoors. By now, all of this could have been implemented long ago- but the govt weaponized ppl’s desire for “normal” and turned public anger at disabled ppl instead of themselves

The best thing ppl could do today to help us demand clear air in public spaces is to raise awareness about long COVID, demand an end to recurrent infections, and join us in our calls for clean air. Wearing a mask does all three.

The govt does not like to see people wearing masks. It is a visual rejection of their narrative that the govt successfully ended the pandemic with their vaccines which do not prevent infection, long covid, or other post acute health issues. a rejection of long covid denialism