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Anna Nicholson (transponderings@neurodifferent.me)'s status on Saturday, 02-Sep-2023 20:51:51 JST

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@MediaActivist I agree – though I might not express it quite so strongly, given how much governments and media are downplaying risks (presumably to save ‘the economy’)

I just looked at the WHO website to check, and they’re still (informally) calling it a pandemic, though since May it has not been a PHEIC (public health emergency of international concern): https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2023-statement-on-the-fifteenth-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-19)-pandemic

It’s easy to quibble over words, but the fact remains that, whether endemic or epidemic, SARS-CoV-2 poses a potential health risk to everyone, not only in terms of the immediate disease it causes (Covid-19), which rarely (but avoidably!) leads to death – but also because anyone infected can end up with long Covid, the implications of which may take years for us to realise

(And I shouldn’t really have to emphasise that everyone may be at risk of hospitalisation, death or long Covid: even if people in ‘vulnerable’ groups are at greatest risk, they are just as valuable as everyone else, and we should do all we can to protect them)

#WearAMask – #CovidIsNotOver

Speaking of masks, the WHO advice there is woefully outdated (some last updated in 2021), and they don’t even mention FFP2/N95 or FFP3/N99 masks in their advice to the public 😷

It even tells people how to make their own 3-layer masks (!), which was reasonable back when the droplet transmission theory was touted, but with the recognition that SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted in aerosols that linger in unventilated air, cloth masks no longer suffice 🤦🏻♀️

The WHO do still recommend governments to keep monitoring the spread of the virus, but here in the UK that has all but stopped recently as far as I can tell

#covid19 #LongCovid #SARSCoV2 #ableism #WHO