I had two interesting conversations today. Please feel welcome to read along! One with a physician I’d never met before and one with one of my oldest friends who happens to be a teacher in another province. First, the Dr. He kindly asked me why I was masked. /1 He seemed curious and it was a respectful and honest conversation, so while the words might be upsetting, our conversation was collegial.

So, he asked why I was masked. At first I didn’t know who he was, so I took my time in thinking through a reply. /2

I was leaving work late the other night. My work has amazing ventilation. CO2 everywhere I go is under 600ppm. I have a solo office. I shut my door and unmask to eat and do zoom calls (but if anyone drops by I mask and stay masked after). I also often end up just chilling 😷 /1 In my mask because who cares, it‘s comfy and I can wear a mask alone in my office if I want to. Anyway. I will admit that as I was getting ready to leave I had a fleeting moment of desire to just walk out through the hallways maskless. I didn’t do that! But my brain went there /2

I’ve been involved in medical education for 15 years. Important points:
- medical schools must be accredited for anyone to actually want to attend them (you won’t be getting into residency if your undergrad med school is not accredited)
/1

https://twitter.com/PaulMacNeill/status/1767926803161620520

- I worked at Dal Med when their accreditation was put on probation. WOW. The whole operation turned on a dime to pass the follow up visit. @RyanMcNutt was there too. ;) People worked extremely hard. Problems identified included lack of student lockers at the VG, an ancient hosp

I saw a 🇨🇦 MD accuse the new CCS of “monetizing COVID” and I have some things to say.
1. It’s unserious to pretend there hasn’t been remarkable wrongdoing in 🇨🇦 - ongoing - re: SARS-CoV-2. Ongoing denial of airborne transmission; access to PPE; and see my pinned 🐦re LC.

https://twitter.com/CanHealthwatch/status/1765364132398682548

As for the intentions of the people involved. Over the past 2 years I have spent countless hours in virtual meetings with many of the people working on @CanCovSoc. My kids recognize Dr. Vipond, Nancy, Cheryl. Why? We do most of this work in the evenings.

I attended a meeting last night - not a COVID focused one - and one of the topics was the labour force. I mentioned how long COVID is affecting this particular labour force and how we need safe work environments. It felt awkward and the person who spoke after me seemed … /1 Confused or perhaps even upset about what I had said. It was a good reminder that it‘s really important for us on here who see what’s happening to take some time to bring this knowledge to the non-twitter world. It‘s NOT on their radar. /2

I want to talk for a minute about medical offices as businesses and places of employment.

Thread. 🪡 A common refrain among med students is that they either didn’t go to school to become business owners, or that it’s the part of the job that least interests them.

For some, it’s a stressful part. Certainly it would be common for “business” side of being a Dr to get least attn.

I’ve been live tweeting Day 1 of the @LongCOVIDWebCA Canadian Long COVID symposium the best I can today - not getting even 10% of what has been said but I enjoy trying. New thread for the keynote by @VirusesImmunity 😊 Getting right into it with the NY Times image showing all the organ systems involved. Next, showing the other post-acute diseases. What are the triggers? What is the impact on the immune system?

I’ll going to live tweet the #CdnLongCovidSymposium best I can. Right now: upbeat music as we wait for it to start. Oh, starting now! “We don’t really know why women are at an increased risk.”

Don’t know the extent of economic impact.

Combine two stories and you can see what we are dealing with in Canada, as a novel disease is allowed to spread - promoted to spread - unabated.

Story 1:

https://twitter.com/POP__PEI/status/1641074378015223808?s=20

It’s bonkers that we have political parties talking about airborne transmission before a single chief medical officer of health in any of the provinces or territories

That should tell us all something huge: provincial public health is not what it claims to be.

https://twitter.com/Cyber_Murphy/status/1641108843785592833

If the opposition has to be the first official person in your province to talk about airborne transmission, your provincial public health is captured and a sham. We have to fix this system because it is actually killing us. There are deep problems when not one CMOH says airborne.

I’m hearing from education staff in multiple zones that both staff and student absences are on the rise again. In some schools even with supply teachers, there’s not enough staff. Teachers giving up prep periods so 1 class has 7 diff teachers in a day.

https://twitter.com/TJProvincial/status/1640644898922852352

According to PHAC, here’s what’s circulating in NB for the week ending March 18:

1 in 5 people who did a PCR test for COVID had COVID. It’s mostly COVID out there.

https://twitter.com/nb_covid_info/status/1640327257263677441?s=20

Paying a CMOH $300,000 a year to provide inaccurate guidance so that everyone can say « we’re following public health! » while doing whatever they want is a dirt cheap bargain No complaining about this take until you reconcile the fact that there is scientific consensus that COVID is airborne and yet not one single provincial CMOH has said so

There’s no good faith explanation for that

Can’t sleep after a zoom with some COVID pals so I’m reading through what PHAC sent to multiple officials in every province about Long COVID and I see they already told every province in Nov ****2021***** that being a woman is a risk factor for LC. Hey ladies did your CMOH warn u MFer Higgs saying to the media that PH never warned him that LC was a concern (in April ‘22) well Higgs might want to chat with your COVID response team since they all got sent these emails every month and then every 2 weeks!!

When did it become acceptable to not warn population

Did you know? Every Friday, PHAC releases its Respiratory Virus Report, for the week ending the previous Saturday. You can see how many positive tests were reported from each province, for: SARS-CoV-2, flu, RSV, parainfluenza, adenovirus, metapneumovirus, enterovirus/rhinovirus.. ..and human coronavirus (HCov).
Here's the link: canada.ca/en/public-heal…

And a summary for NB for week 10, ending March 11:

#nbpoli

SARS-CoV-2: 401/1715 tests; positivity: 23.38%
Flu: 9/1358, 0.66%
RSV: 30/1252, 2.4%
Parainfluenza: 5/79, 6.33%
Adenovirus: 5/79, 6.33%

COVID “travel” questions; Russell trying to focus on that is ridiculous

NB’s COVID rates are REALLY high

Yes there’s likely someone with COVID on your airplane, and if you’re not wearing a respirator you’re inhaling their infectious aerosols before airplane air cleaning’s on Absolutely asinine to paint COVID as a special travel concern

Right now it’s EVERYONE’s WORKPLACE concern thanks to shitty PH and politicians and people

By law, employers must do everything they can to make a workplace safe

PH has stayed SILENT on airborne transmission; LC

A year ago this weekend I was listening to Phoebe Bridgers and crying about the kids going back to school without COVID protections, knowing what would happen

Waiting and hoping for someone with power and authority to SAY SOMETHING

A year later - ha - fuck. Learned a lot. Learned that basically none of you with power can even CONCEIVE of doing the right thing, let alone speak of it or act on it

COVID is airborne. Tell the damn public. Clean the damn air. We truly do have the tools - CO2 monitors, air cleaners.

This democide is a @pcnbca choice.

I also find it hard to believe that our group is the only one in Canada to submit a freedom of info request on long COVID and turn this stuff up

I would like to hope a number of journalists also have this info

Where are the stories? 💔

https://twitter.com/HallwayOrchard/status/1592921357360451586

If it’s that this is like, too awful to report on… I get it… it’s awful

But the facts aren’t the problem

The reality that all provincial governments were super well informed about long COVID, let it rip regardless, WARNED no one and were silent on airborne is the problem

This ends when we collectively want it to, by cleaning indoor air

This is an awful house of cards

Governments are incentivized to maintain both halves of the lie

The lie: what's happening now isn't harmful to you, and besides, there's nothing we can do When either half of that lie is addressed, the whole thing falls apart

When we talk about long COVID and people realize that it can happen to ANYONE - they learn that bad COVID outcomes don't just happen to "others"

Then they want to know, well, how can I protect myself?

If you are still factoring covid into your decision-making and still taking precautions, please don’t give up.

Please reach out and find peers online. You can do social events with @TheWHN , look at #StillCoviding groups on Facebook. Finding community is so important. So many volunteers are working extremely hard to make things better.

But one thing I’ve heard a lot this month from longtime experts and people who worked during sars 1, is that this is going to take TIME.

#StableMyAss
« Stable » is such a dastardly lie.

It’s not like they’re saying it’s over. But stable is soooo reassuring. Stable definitely makes you feel like - you can just keep doing your thing. Stable isn’t any kind of a warning.

#nbpoli

health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/waste… If questioned about what’s stable, one could point to any massaged metric.

Maybe reported ICU cases are stable. Maybe reported hospitalizations are stable. Maybe deaths are stable.

Doesn’t address at all the fact that we have a new hazard that didn’t exist 5 years ago.

Weekend 😊 😊
… now with some extra urgency since a little lady has a fever I might as well tweet the process.
Just took a break to feed everyone.

So far I have gathered all my materials, tested all of my fans to make sure they work before I install them in this contraption!