Here's a chart of mortality trends showing before and after covid.

Covid deaths have gone down, which is good (and this seems to be true for all age groups, last I checked) but what is alarming is the mortality rate for many other causes shot up in 2020 and just haven't come down.

If you thought drivers got worse after the pandemic, you weren't just imagining things.

And I don't know if the US even has the capacity to measure any other negative health consequences aside from death and disability.

Increases in early adult mortality can signal population risks that may become more pronounced as these cohorts age. These results suggest the possibility of a worsening mortality crisis unless these trends are reversed. Policy solutions will require attention to the underlying causes of intensifying excess mortality among early adults (eg, opioid use, alcohol consumption, traffic safety, dietary risks). The 2 distinct phases of increasing mortality (before and after 2020) may also suggest the need to attend to ongoing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic—which may be expressed in causes of death related to long-term consequences of infection, medical disruption, and social dislocation—and to deleterious health trends that predated it.

It would be interesting to see how this compares to the few countries which waited until the vaccines were available before they went YOLO.

Along with a baffling rise in post-pandemic mortality rates that has insurers stymied, the number of Americans claiming disabilities has skyrocketed since 2020, adding another puzzling factor that could impact corporate bottom lines.

After rising slowly and steadily since the turn of the century and hovering between 25 million and 27 million, the number of disabled among the U.S. population rose nearly 35 percent in the last four years, to an all-time high of 38,844,000 at the end of November, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Reasons behind the stunning increase vary, but many seem connected to the COVID-19 pandemic.

OH FOR REAL?

If the rate of disability is climbing then that's a pretty good sign that covid is still fucking people up and should be avoided.

The New York Times has a long history of manufacturing consent for war, destabilization, and regime change. From Chile to Iran, the US paper of note has been used as a powerful and insidious tool of empire for over half a century. Let's take a look at a more modern example: Venezuela.

JT's looking to get another visit from the feds.

youtube link

What's interesting is the chart on the website. This 2024 flu season is worse than 2023, and 2023 was worse than 2022. If the "immunity debt" theory was right, this wouldn't be happening. Could all the well documented evidence that covid harms your immune system and makes you more susceptible to other diseases possibly be true?

Hospitals in England are being hit by a "tidal wave" of flu and other winter viruses, NHS bosses say.

Data released by NHS England showed there were an average of nearly 1,900 beds occupied by flu patients last week – up 70% on the week before.

That is more than three times higher than this time last year, with doctors warning that they are struggling to contain the spread of the virus within hospitals as well as seeing more patients being admitted.

Covid, RSV and the vomiting bug Norovirus are also continuing to cause problems.

Thankfully, for now, it looks like we have a few weeks before covid takes off everywhere in the US, and it won't be as dramatic as the last one because the summer surge was pretty large and their haven't been any new significant mutations showing up in a while.... but the UK is probably a preview for what's about to happen in the US. Whooping cough is going nuts at the moment.

JPweiland forcasts covid waves, and has been remarkable accurate so far.

Reminder that masking works especially well against the flu and other less contagious virus. Always mask in places that vulnerable and high risk people can't avoid!

I just thought this was an Interesting data point.

Australian primary school students have recorded their best ever results in an international maths and science assessment, curbing concerns about lockdowns disrupting learning.

The 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss), released by the Australian Council for Educational Research (Acer) late on Wednesday, analysed the skills of year 4 and 8 students.

About 14,000 students in Australia participated in the test across 500 diverse schools.

The report found Australian year 4 students, whose first years of schooling occurred doing Covid, ranked equal fifth internationally out of 58 countries, and equal 15th in mathematics.

I wonder if those scores will go up, down, or stay the same in following years? Can we place bets on this sort of crap?

Something to think about now that we are in our 3rd year of record levels of infections of pretty much everything.

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Children experience weakened immunity and bacterial infections after suffering from long Covid-19 syndrome, a study published in the medical journal Nature has revealed.

Persistent fatigue was the most common symptom in children with long Covid syndrome, while the majority of children often complained about anxiety.

The researchers focused on a type of white blood cell called neutrophils, which plays a crucial role in combating infections, particularly bacterial ones. They discovered that children with long Covid had neutrophils that were functionally impaired.

“For instance, their ability to attack and swallow harmful bacteria such as Staphylococcus was impaired. This might correlate with the rise of multiple bacterial infections that were reported in Western nations among children after the onset of the pandemic," explained Rajeev Jayadevan, chairman, research cell, at the Indian Medical Association’s Kerala wing.

Also there is more evidence that the main long covid symptoms are a result of viral persistance.

And sars-cov-2 spike protein can linger in the brain: New study reveals how lingering spike protein in the brain's borders could explain long-term COVID-19 neurological symptoms and highlight vaccines' protective role.

And neurologic long covid symptoms are disproportionately affects 18-44 year olds.

All of this info has been posted here over the past few years. The warning signs have always been there for all of this. I'm still seeing people blame brain changes in kids on the fucking lockdowns and not the virus that causes brain damage we exposed them all to, repeatedly.

People now blame those drops on lockdowns and vaccines.

Our analysis confirms the continued existence of different Americas within the USA. One's life expectancy varies dramatically depending on where one lives, the economic conditions in that location, and one's racial and ethnic identity. This gulf was large at the beginning of the century, only grew larger over the first two decades, and was dramatically exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. These results underscore the vital need to reduce the massive inequity in longevity in the USA, as well as the benefits of detailed analyses of the interacting drivers of health disparities to fully understand the nature of the problem. Such analyses make targeted action possible—local planning and national prioritisation and resource allocation—to address the root causes of poor health for those most disadvantaged so that all Americans can live long, healthy lives, regardless of where they live and their race, ethnicity, or income.

We won't do shit. Helping communities doesn't generate money for oil companies or weapons manufacturers.

Bioconstructor was a soviet synthpop band formed in 1986 and disbanded in 1990.

Looks like this album was only available on reel to reel until the mid 90's when it got a full release.

"Barrack HUSSEIN Obmana"

Yugoslavia had the coolest music scene, goddamn.

Have there been any serious attempts to document any of this with higher quality recordings?

It's because Covid is going away, right? Herd immunity is working?

The World Health Organization (WHO) today published a new report on tuberculosis revealing that approximately 8.2 million people were newly diagnosed with TB in 2023 – the highest number recorded since WHO began global TB monitoring in 1995. This represents a notable increase from 7.5 million reported in 2022, placing TB again as the leading infectious disease killer in 2023, surpassing COVID-19

There is plenty of evidence covid attacks the immune system, and reactivated TB is common with people who have AIDS. Could all just be a wierd coincidence and TB just does that sometimes.

Related: TB cases in Scotland rise by 40% in 'largest annual increase' observed to date

They tested people to check for evidence of asymptomatic infection and found that people who had two doses of the nasal vaccine showed no signs of infection after three months.

CONCLUSION. A 2-dose intranasal vaccination regimen using NB2155 was safe, was well tolerated, and could dramatically induce broad-spectrum spike-specific sIgA in the nasal passage. Preliminary data suggested that the intranasal vaccination may establish an effective mucosal immune barrier against infection and warranted further clinical studies.

https://insight.jci.org/articles/view/180784

"At least 86.2% participants who completed 2 [nasal vaccine] doses maintained uninfected status, likely without even asymptomatic infection, for at least 3 months.

https://xcancel.com/EricTopol/status/1838937705977110991#m

Seems like we are getting closer to better vaccines being approved.

This is a pretty succinct overview of what your options are if you live with people who had their empathy circuits fried by the pandemic and can't be bothered to care about disease transmission anymore.

Aside from masking: Setting up air filters is probably the lowest effort for biggest return on safety.

All these tips will help against actual regular colds and flus, too, since we are coming up on that time of year.

Also a reminder that it's never healthy to be infected by virus.