Notices by Dr. Lucky Tran :verified: (luckytran@med-mastodon.com), page 9

Gabby Thomas, who just won the 200m at the Olympics, is not only a gold medalist, but she is a champion for health equity!

Gabby Thomas:
🏅 Studied neurobiology at Harvard
🏅 Got her Master's degree in Epidemiology
🏅 Volunteers at a clinic for uninsured people in Texas

👏👏👏

Cops are not medical professionals. They should never be given the power to decide who can legally wear a mask for health reasons.

If you are in Nassau County, please keep wearing mask. The mask ban bill does still include a health exception, so you have the right to assert that you are wearing a mask for health reasons. But the bill gives cops power to intimidate people wearing a mask, so please be careful.

Trusting cops to judge who is "legitimately" wearing a mask for health reasons is ridiculous. Cops have been some of the biggest COVID deniers. They don't understand and won't be willing to acknowledge everyone has a right to wear a mask because everyone is vulnerable to COVID.

It's official: Mask ban in Nassau County, New York passes along party lines, 12-0 (7 abstentions). It makes wearing a mask a misdemeanor (with unclear health and religious exceptions) and gives police the power to fine people wearing a mask $1,000 and sentence them to jail time.

Here's the Nassau County mask ban bill language. Health and religious exceptions are noted, but leaves it up to the judgement of the police officer. As written, the ban applies to all public spaces, not just protests. There will be many legal challenges.

https://nassaucountyny.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/3192?fileID=247452

The Nassau County mask ban hearing is happening now and Nassau County Legislators are cutting off people speaking against the mask ban, and security officers are intimidating people wearing masks. Here's a video of one of these incidents.

#NoNYMaskBan

This was a horrible error, but it’s important to note that this isn’t an isolated incident. Headlines being chosen by editors without input from writers or adequate factchecking has been a continuing source of misinformation spread by major media outlets.

From SCOTUS ruling that it's ok to ignore scientists, to the minimizing of COVID, the growing rejection of vaccines, the increasing restrictions on abortion access, and the lack of sufficient action on climate, the US is really is going all in on science denial. Dark times.

Science is clearly political. The more we ignore this, the more we allow political decisions in which science is suppressed to maximize corporate profits at the sacrifice of people's health and lives. Speak up!

Olympic athletes are dropping out or struggling due to COVID or the extreme heat. If we want the competitive sports that we love to continue, we need to stop ignoring pandemics and climate change.

It's a public health failure that Olympic and Tour de France athletes only started wearing masks and taking precautions after their teammates had to withdraw due to COVID. We know COVID is widespread and highly transmissible, it was always going to disrupt these competitions.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/30/olympic-swimmers-wear-masks-as-concerns-over-covid-rise-across-camps?CMP=share_btn_url

Far from perfect, but somewhat encouraging to hear that there is at least an official mask requirement at the Olympics for any athlete that tests positive for COVID, and several swim teams are masking as a precaution whenever they are out of the pool.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10652170/covid-paris-2024-athletes-swimming/

COVID denialism and misinformation has led to Olympic athletes not even washing their hands because they wrongly think it will help them become more resistant against disease.

There is no evidence handwashing weakens your immune system. There is no evidence that adopting unsanitary practices makes your immune system stronger. But there is a lot of evidence that handwashing and other precautions protects you and others from infectious diseases, especially in risky environments like bathrooms.

We all warned the CDC that this is how loosening COVID isolation guidelines would play out. It's important for the CDC guidelines to be strong and science-based because when it comes to corporations, it's always a race to the bottom. Bad guidelines become worse in practice.

This year's summer COVID surge shows that (predictably) the change in the CDC's isolation guidelines is a disaster. Hearing about so many instances of people returning to work/school unmasked 24 hours after testing positive.

Most people are infectious with COVID for at least 10 days. 24 hours was never going to cut it. And while the CDC did try to mitigate this by adding that you should mask for a few days after returning, predictably no-one is even doing this.

Despite the harmful politicization of masks, recent studies show that:

1️⃣ Stricter mask and vaccine requirements would have saved hundreds of thousands more lives in the US

2️⃣ 70% of people in the US supported mask requirements

A study in JAMA Health Forum found that mask and vaccine requirements were associated with significantly fewer excess deaths, and 447,000 lives would have been saved if states with weak COVID protections had stronger ones.

Study link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2821581

A @harvardchansph and @debeaumontfndtn study found that a majority of people in the US agree that four key pandemic policies were “generally a good idea” in retrospect. Mask requirements were the best supported policy (70%).

Study link: https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/poll-majority-of-americans-say-key-covid-19-policies-were-a-good-idea-but-views-of-individual-policies-vary/

Celine Dion has a rare autoimmune neurological disorder that causes muscle stiffness called stiff person syndrome. There is no treatment and she has not performed in 4 years. She just opened the Olympics with this stunning performance. Magnifique.