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#pandemic
UK - Under-22s to be excluded from #incapacity benefits
by Mitchell Labiak, March 18, 2025
Excerpt:
'Trapped out of work'
"The reforms come as part of a wider push by Labour to cut spending by reducing the number of people on incapacity benefits, which is forecast to reach a record high by the end of the decade.
"Experts say the increase is due to a combination of worse #MentalHealth since the #pandemic and a higher retirement age meaning some are instead claiming incapacity benefits.
"#Starmer said he is 'not prepared to stand back and do nothing while millions of people – especially young people – who have potential to work and live independent lives, instead become trapped out of work and abandoned by the system'.
"However, #DisabilityRightsUK said that barring under-22s from claiming the health element of universal credit alongside the proposal to increase assessments 'mark dangerous cuts for all #disabled people'.
"The charity added that the package of reforms was 'not about supporting disabled people into work, but making brutal and reckless cuts'."
Read more:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg8pz1g8q9o
#DisabilityRights #UKPol #BudgetCuts #TaxTheRich #AbolishTheMonarchy
Today's five years since we started isolating from the #pandemic. Sweden never had a lockdown, thank goodness. And this proved to be a wise policy. But everyone did voluntary contact reduction as best they could.
We were warned, even if by an original work of fiction...
"Martians—dead!—slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth."
I wrote a guest article for Healthy Debate that looks at why we need mandatory masks in healthcare, why surgical masks aren’t enough, and how the mounting threats to public health are putting lives at risk.
If you’re a healthcare worker, mask up.
Show us you take your oath to “do no harm” seriously
https://healthydebate.ca/2025/03/topic/wear-mask-plea-health-care-workers/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/covid-19-doctor-opens-up-toll-stress-1.7480601 “Wong said the scars from the #COVID19 #pandemic are long-lasting for many health-care workers. He said many left their professions in Saskatchewan because of the "moral trauma, moral injury" they faced.”
Today marks the five year anniversary of Covid being declared a pandemic. Some things I want people to remember:
The threat is not gone. People are still dying and becoming disabled every single day
COVID is airborne. It’s always been airborne. Droplet transmission was pushed incorrectly & then doubled down on for economic reasons. If governments admit it’s airborne, they have to spend money upgrading air quality and providing respirators etc.
The only way to avoid Long Covid is to not get Covid.
A well fitted respirator like an N95 offers excellent personal protection
Mask mandates belong in healthcare
If you’re not masking for your patient, you’re abdicating your responsibility to do no harm
It costs nothing to open a window and it will improve ventilation and reduce odds of viral spread. Air purifiers work well too
COVID is a social justice issue. Masks, tests, air filters, paid time off… these things all cost money. The disease disproportionately impacts those who are most vulnerable and multiple marginalized
Repeat infections don’t make you stronger. They don’t give you immunity. They actually harm your brain, heart and immune system. They’re also NOT inevitable
Kids are harmed by COVID too. They need the adults to protect them. We need clean in schools and on school buses
We went “back to normal” for capitalism. It wasn’t because it was safe. It wasn’t because there was a cure. Governments and those in power Are willing to sacrifice us to keep end stage capitalism afloat a little longer
Repeat infections are NOT inevitable. We can still curb the spread. We don’t have to accept constant sickness and disability as our new normal.
May we be in a much better place five years from now than we are today.
If you know someone suffering from Long Covid, reach out to them. Ask them how you can support them. Remind them they’ve not been forgotten. Wear a mask for them. They are counting on you.
Five years ago today, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Here's a @Flipboard Storyboard looking at that day. Plus, some of the things that have happened since, from the emergence of long COVID to how Africa defied dire predictions of a catastrophic loss of life.
https://flipboard.com/@health/five-years-of-covid-19-5nfre7m85qh3uc4v
Also, today is the 5th anniversary of WHO declaring the COVID-19 virus epidemic a pandemic.
"We’re in this together, to do the right things with calm and protect the citizens of the world."
We're still in this together 
Is it worth it?
Most of the world is living as though Covid is over. Yet 1 in 5 men infected with covid had erectile dysfunction up to 2 years after, in this study.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/1-5-men-surveyed-had-erectile-dysfunction-2-years-after-covid
Never underestimate the power of wearing a mask. It’s a simple and safe act of compassion, resistance and self care.
Sick of being sick? Wear a mask.
Have a vulnerable loved one you want to protect? Wear a mask.
Work in healthcare and want to protect your patients? Wear a mask.
Want to fight fascists? Wear a mask.
Worried about low vaccination rates bringing back measles, polio and other eradicated diseases? Wear a mask.
Want to resist and keep your activism virus free? You guessed it, wear a mask.
When worn correctly, they’re highly effective. Trump and Vance are as anti-mask as they come, so we need as many people as possible masking in solidarity.
Let’s keep people healthy while normalizing them as an important tool in the fight against disease AND fascism.
~hyde Oh a fake #pandemic !
1. this one should have been obvious to me, but spelling it out brought clarity: Europeans, for millennia, developed garments that were, generally, gender neutral. then, the #pandemic of the #plague of 1328 happened and things changed.
2. he goes a bit into the #etymology of the word MODA/MODE, but doesn’t explore it in English even though he quotes several English laws about dress. i reckoned that #fashion in english is top down, whereas #moda in Romance languages is bottom up, so…
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/opinion/covid-fifth-anniversary.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare “But the #pandemic itself was real, and punishing. Above all, it revealed our vulnerability — biological, social and political. And in the aftermath of the emergency, Americans have largely looked away, choosing to see the experience less in terms of death and illness than in terms of social hysteria and even #publichealth overreach. For many, the main lesson was that in the world of humans, as in the world of microbes, it’s dog-eat-dog out there.” #COVID19
Still COVID free on Day 1800 of the #COVID #Pandemic #CovidDiary
Could H5N1 be spread for multiple kilometres by air?
"some reports have proposed that windborne spread plays a significant role in IAV [Influenza A Virus] transmission over longer distances under suitable weather conditions.
In studies of the severe H7N7 HPAI [Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza] outbreak in the Netherlands in 2003, one study claimed that wind spread accounted for 18% and another 24% of transmission events up to 25 km. Similarly, during the 2007 equine H3N8 influenza outbreak in Australia, 81% of infections within a cluster of 437 horse farms were attributed to windborne spread over a distance of 1-2 km. Around the same time, the serological screening of turkeys in Minnesota in 2007-08 revealed that turkey premises within a 1.9 km radius of swine farms were most likely to test seropositive for H3N2 and H1N1 IAVs, thereby suggesting windborne transmission. And during the 2014-15 multistate H5N2 HPAI outbreak in the USA, it was estimated that up to 39% of farms in Iowa alone could have experienced windborne infection within a radius of 8.5 km"
1/from this preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.12.637829v1.full.pdf
h/t @JoePajak
Apologies for potentially being spammy but it is unlikely I'll remember to come back to this later 
Journals of the Plague Years by Norman Spinrad is a fascinating look at the devastation of living in a world where HIV positivity (without cure) will result in being exiled to a concentration camp/city plus eventual certain death.
(Probably worth a re-read for me in light of the way the #covid19 #pandemic has been 'handled' 
)
It’s time to talk about the fall of public health. It’s been dying a slow and painful death for years, but the Trump administration seems intent on killing it once and for all.
We’re seeing a rise in various infectious diseases at a time when communication from federal agencies like the CDC and the FDA is massively restricted.
RFK Jr’s confirmation as head of HHS has thrown the future of vaccine access into question.
In short, we are on our own.
The good news is that a respirator can protect you from more than just Covid!
My latest is all about respirators. How to choose one, how to fit test, how to re-use them and more.
If you want to up your mask game, or if you need an article to try and convince others in your life of the importance of masking, this one’s for you.
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/were-witnessing-the-fall-of-public
USDA detects H5N1 in rats for the first time. The agency is also supposedly restoring jobs to its avian flu specialists who were fired by Trump.
