Things I've learned from getting covid for the first time in 2023

I wear an N95 in public spaces and I've managed to dodge it for a long time, but I finally got covid for the first time (to my knowledge) in mid-late November 2023. It was a weird experience especially because I feel like it used to be something everyone was talking about and sharing info on, so getting it for the first time now (when people generally seem averse to talking about covid) I found I needed to seek out a lot of info because I wasn't sure what to do. I put so much effort into prevention, I knew less about what to do when you have it. I'm experiencing a rebound right now so I'm currently isolating. So, I'm making a post in the hopes that if you get covid (it's pretty goddamn hard to avoid right now) this info will be helpful for you. It's a couple things I already knew and several things I learned. One part of it is based on my experience in Minnesota but some other states may have similar programs.

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The World Health Organization states you should isolate for 10 days from first having symptoms plus 3 days after the end of symptoms.

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At the time of my writing this post, in Minnesota, we have a test to treat program where you can call, report the result of your rapid test (no photo necessary) and be prescribed paxlovid over the phone to pick up from your pharmacy or have delivered to you. It is free and you do not need to have insurance. I found it by googling "Minnesota Test to Treat Covid"

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Paxlovid decreases the risk of hospitalization and death, but it's also been shown to decrease the risk of Long Covid. Long Covid can occur even from mild or asymptomatic infections.

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Covid rebound commonly occurs 2-8 days after apparent recovery. While many people associate Paxlovid with covid rebound, researchers say there is no strong evidence that Paxlovid causes covid rebound, and rebounds occur in infections that were not treated with Paxlovid as well. I knew rebounds could happen but did not know it could take 8 days. I had mine on day 7 and was completely surprised by it.

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If you start experiencing new symptoms or test positive again, the CDC states that you should start your isolation period again at day zero. Covid rebound is still contagious. Personally I'd suggest wearing a high quality respirator around folks for an additional 8-9 days after you start to test negative in case of a rebound.

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Positive results on a rapid test can be very faint, but even a very faint line is positive result. Make sure to look at your rapid test result under strong lighting. Also, false negatives are not uncommon. If you have symptoms but test negative taking multiple tests and trying different brands if you have them are not bad ideas. My ihealth tests picked up my covid, my binax now tests did not.

EDIT: Just remembered another helpful resource for I used and should add, The People's CDC had a link to this directory for the National Alliance on Mental Health Warmline - it's like a confidential hotline for emotional support, so you can call if you're in emotional/mental distress. Can vouch that the person I talked to on the MN warmline was lovely. Can be particularly helpful if you're in isolation and need support.

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I know that there is so much we can't control as individuals right now, and that's frightening. All we can do is try our best to reduce harm and to care for each other. I hope this info will be able to help folks.

I’m tired of advertising. All of it. I don’t want any ads even for things I like. Even if I would 100% buy it. It’s INSANE that we just accept that people can throw a business flier in our face at any time of day in any setting. Aren’t you mad? Don’t you just want to go apeshit?

Leslie Feinberg on trans exclusion in feminist spaces.

From TransSisters: The Journal of Transsexual Feminism, issue 7, volume 1. 1995.

so much rage for anyone who tells the story of the radium girls like “ohoho weren’t people in the 20s fucking stupid” and not like “corporate greed has always cost people’s lives and health”

History Lesson:

The Radium Girls were factory workers who painted glowing markers on watches. They pointed their paint brushes with their lips after being told do so and that it was safe for them to do so by their managers. The paint had radium in it to promote the glow.

Dentists became the first people aware of the medical complications happening amongst all the women working in this factory. Complaints of loose bones, teeth, ulcers, etc. began to circulate amongst the staff.

Eventually, the girls started to die. The first one’s jaw literally came off her skull before her death as a result of radiation poisoning.

Perhaps all of that you could say was “stupidity” on behalf of the workers and corporation.

But what came next wasn’t. The corporation, the U.S. Radium Corporation, originally called the Radium Luminous Material Corporation, lied to the public and said that their workers were dying from alternate causes such as syphilis. They continued to instruct their staff to work business as usual, perpetuating more deaths and illness amongst their staff so their product could continue to be made.

The Radium Corp offered to change the method of painting dials, but the alternative brushes slowed down work and they were paid by the dial. To continue earning the wages they needed, the girls were forced to continue to use the brushes that they had to wet with their mouths.

The girls eventually took the matter to court. They took it to court eight times because Radium Corp continued to appeal until 1939.

As a result of their win, which provided a settlement to each girl a lump sum, a yearly stipend, and medical expensed paid by the company, LABOR LAW changed to ensure that companies could be held accountable for not properly protecting their employees from disease. New health regulations and standards were put in place to keep workers safe and they stopped using the brushes after that point.

(I don’t have the data to say if there was a corresponding wage increase to factor for lost wages due to a slowing down after new regulations were made).

The point, though, is that this company willfully knew that its staff was geting sick and dying from the procedures they put in place, and lied to their staff and started a public smear campaign saying these women had sexually transmitted diseases instead.

That’s not on the “stupid” women, that’s corporate greed.

I’d also like to add that they were intentionally delaying the court case so there would be less girls left alive to be there. Even after they’re caught, they are still heartless shits. Don’t ever forget these poor women and the company that thought cycling through workers and leaving a trail of bodies was worth making more money at the top.

There's an excellent book about this by Kate Moore, it's called "The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women."

Netflix made a movie based on this history called "Radium Girls" but it doesn't seem to be available anymore (at least on US Netflix).

“stop traumadumping to your friends tell this to your therapist” my god they paywalled human connection

“If a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I should not mind a bit. but if a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to allow me to share it, I should feel it most bitterly. If he shut the doors of the house of mourning against me, I would move back again and again and beg to be admitted so that I might share in what I was entitled to share. If he thought me unworthy, unfit to weep with him, I should feel it as the most poignant humiliation.”

Oscar Wilde

All due respect, it’s time to get mad and demand these people pay taxes. Take no prisoners on greed, it will destroy democracy http://dlvr.it/Szcbfj

I WOULD PAY TEN TIMES AS MUCH FOR CHOCOLATE IF IT MEANT REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF SLAVES IN THE WORLD? HOW IS THIS ANY KIND OF PROBLEM. 

good news, you can! the company’s called Tony’s Chocolonely and their entire purpose is to make slave-free chocolate and reform the chocolate industry.

https://tonyschocolonely.com/us/en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony%27s_Chocolonely

Whole Foods carries it. If you don’t want to support an Amazon-owned company, World Market carries it. You can also buy it directly from the company. 

It’s the best chocolate I’ve ever had and it’s 100% slave free. Tony’s Chocolonely works really hard to push for transparency within the chocolate industry and actually has and is following an action plan to eliminate slavery within cocoa production. They’re good people who make good chocolate.

A list of slavery-free chocolate companies:

Taza chocolate is really good 

This is super important! Slave child labor is used in many many cocoa farms from big name companies like Nestle and Dove. Here is a good link discussing it: http://www.foodispower.org/slavery-chocolate/ .

 And here is an easy score card to see who the worst offenders are/who to avoid most: https://www.greenamerica.org/end-child-labor-cocoa/chocolate-scorecard 

"LGBTQIA+"

"The gays"

"Queer"

"Fa-"

They literally are

Note how she states that it was more difficult to get permits to do this shit than actually coordinate the drones.

Companies will want to do more of this, but environmental/wildlife laws make it difficult. So, they'll lobby to weaken them. Be vigilant. This woman accidentally said the quiet part loud. They won't let that happen again - this is our only warning

Also tire iron is effective

A tire iron is ineffective.

Look, if someone was very irresponsible they'd look up drone parts and buy a set of 2.4GHz and 5GHz directional antennas (yagi or, not patch) and then get a set of 2.4GHz and 5Ghz noise generators (illigal almost everywhere) or look up how to make them (weirdly easy to do apparently) and then they would wait for the display to start and turn on their contraption with the antennas point towards the display. Because the drones would be communicated to from the main computer on either 2.4GHz or 5Ghz, a contraption like this would cause anything from a section, to all, of the drones losing communication and automatically landing. The fact that they waited until the display was in progress means that all that set up time would have been waisted so the rest of the show can't go ahead and they'll have to spend a few days checking everyone over.

Don't do this. it's very illigal to make a jamming device. Even though you'd be using a long range antenna so youd be safely far away and almost totally undetectable even to people beside you, especially if you hid it in a bag or small box. It's very illigal. Don't.

it is so disgusting watching other white people reassure each other about taking breaks from social media and "prioritizing your mental health" when literally the one thing Palestinians are asking for more than anything is that people do not look away from what is happening to them

plenty of non white people take long or short breaks from social media all the time because it is a cesspool of negativity and misinformation and harassment. you can follow news updates without spending time on social media and in fact I would STRONGLY encourage yall to not get your info from ANY social media and instead from (not US based!!!) reputable news sources.

you are not helping Palestinians by inundating yourselves with images of suffering. and I've already discouraged my Palestinian diaspora parents to stay informed without constantly exposing themselves to upsetting stuff because they are Both survivors of war. I'm Palestinian American and I have never likely will never experience what my people are experiencing in the homeland. shit is heartbreaking but I implore you to read or even listen to news podcasts instead of doomscrolling on twitter which is overflowing with lies right now.

I recommend Al-Jazeera, BBC World news, and even Vox or Dispatches from the Associated Press are more reliable than anything on any social media site. the days of using something like twitter for up to the minute news updates is dead and gone. especially after Elon took over.

for podcasts: NPR in general is good and draws from a variety of journalists, writers, experts in their field

Vox Today Explained has done some good work

The Dig is a leftist long form podcast that digs deeper into the issues of the week.

these are a good start

Yes please DO prioritize your mental health if you are sick, weak, exhausted you will be less able to fight for us. stay informed. stay safe. solidarity to Palestine. thank you all for your support but this ain't the way.

To a homophobe, even the most chaste kiss on the cheek between gay people is exactly as disgusting and degenerate as a hardcore BDSM orgy hosted in the town square, so you may as well ally with the BDSM orgy enthusiasts to throw bricks at the cops who are going to try and arrest all of you together anyway.

I once held hands with my husband at an event where my wife was also present, and a concerned parent lectured me about how she didn't want us to "influence" her son. Our icky gay polyam hand holding was such a threat to this woman that she made a point to corner me away from my partners and get me on my own to lecture me about being "indecent." If she had been inclined toward violence, I would have been fucked.

Hand holding. That's all it fucking took.

So catch me at Pride in a leather harness and holding a bat, because if hand holding is all it takes, we owe it to each other to stand together.

We're here. We're queer. Get fucking used to it.

The sheer number of LGBT people who have called me a "degenerate" and a "pedophile" and an "abuse apologist" and a "homophobe" and a "woman-beater" over this post, in the less than 24 hours since I have posted it, is proof that it needs to be said.

Call me a degenerate if you want. I don't care. It has always been the degenerates protecting each other when the cops raid our bars and inspect our clothing and haul us away for being cross-dressing, family-destroying, society-polluting, tranny dyke faggot freaks.

I know who I'd rather have on my side, and it's not the self-loathing pieces of shit who would rather destroy their own people than dismantle systems of oppression.

You will never be wholesome and pure enough for the bigots, no matter how much you distance yourself from the kinksters. Once they've killed all us degenerates, they're coming for you next. And we won't be here to fight for you anymore.

This is apparently a hotter take than I thought but: hating on lawyers as a profession, calling them inherently dishonest etc. is politically reactionary. It discourages defendants from seeking legal counsel, puts forth the idea that it’s inherently suspicious to insist on seeing a lawyer before you answer police questioning (your constitutional right!) etc. which ultimately just benefits the state in making it easier for them to convict you. This is one of those things that “progressives” who were raised conservative often don’t realize is one of the parts of their parents’ worldview they should question more, but they should. Not only are lawyers not The Problem with “our system,” but having someone who is educated in the law whose job is to represent your interests in court — getting one regardless of your ability to pay, even! — is in fact one of the best parts of it.

part that got cut off ⬇️

my mom told me that credit card interest paid used to be tax deductible and i looked this up because it sounded totally bananas to me but apparently this used to be the case until 1986. what sort of fantasy world were baby boomers living in

when people are like "i didn't come here to make friends" i'm like thats sooooo unrelatable. i am always on the look out for some girl friends. I would be in that hunger games cornucopia like "your ex boyfriend did WHAT."