Posting what I said on this in another thread-

So, this decision is really bad for reasons that go beyond sick workers. It’s really unpopular to mention but COVID isn’t over, it’s not gone. We just normalized the suffering and shunted the most vulnerable into its path. As one of those vulnerables still trying to survive, masking has been an exhausting situation. I mask, I have to, and antimask sentiment makes it hard to operate in a world that already wishes I wouldn’t. Decisions like this cause harm in wider ways. I wrote an email to In-N-Out Owner/President Lynsi Snyder about this in response to this policy. I don’t think she cares what this policy does, but I’m sharing here for others who may want to understand.

I’m writing to ask you to please reverse your recent decision to ban employees from wearing a mask unless medically exempt. This decision shows not only a complete disregard for the health and safety of your employees and customers, as everyone is affected by disease spread, but is also profoundly ableist and lacking an understanding of current (and historic) context. Requiring employees to not only divulge their medical information to their employers but also openly to the public is a mindset rooted in othering people who are disabled or otherwise medically vulnerable. In general, it’s bad when a marginalized group must publicly declare their status as such, but especially now when people are already struggling to survive an ongoing pandemic amidst the hostility of antimask sentiment. This decision furthers that othering and hostility, making those employees into targets. But this decision doesn’t just impact your employees directly, it feeds into that larger cultural antimask sentiment and perpetuates ableism. This lack of understanding of the impact of your decision is a clear message that it’s not just those employees your company does not value, but all disabled and vulnerable people. Please show your abity to learn and understand the impacts of your decision, as well as your disapproval of ableism, and reverse this decision. Further, I urge you to demonstrate actual value for your employees and customers by adapting to our reality and implementing measures to reduce the spread of covid and other pathogens in your restaurants and other workplaces. This can be achieved through simple measures like improving the ventilation and filtration in buildings, improving sick leave policies, and other actions including, yes, masking by employees.

Thank you Xxx

PS This company push to ignore our current reality and new cultural understanding of disease spread is not just callous, it’s boring. Be better.

That "coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, can have lasting effects on nearly every organ and organ system of the body weeks, months, and potentially years after infection (11,12). Documented serious post-COVID-19 conditions include cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, renal, endocrine, hematological, and gastrointestinal complications (8), as well as death.".

This is true regardless of symptom severity or health status, every person is at risk. I think most people really aren't aware of this, they absorbed the narrative that it's gone, mild, only kills/harms the vulnerable, etc. This isn't really their fault, there are a lot of factors that have led people to that belief, but people should know their lives and livelihoods are much more at risk now than 4 years ago.

And that this isn't inevitable, there are simple methods of disrupting transmission and protecting yourself and others. COVID-19 is here to stay (unless we do something about that) and it has impacts on every person infected and on society at large. That shouldn't mean folks accept illness and worse quality of life. We adapt and adopt precautions in our life to reduce long-term health impacts, like we've done before with many other illnesses that plague humanity.

Not the commenter you asked, but my understanding of this situation is that in response to a Hamas attack on the 7th Israel has, for the past week and a half, been bombing a captive population that is currently without electricity, water, food and medical supplies, and our government is supporting that.

What Biden could do, now, is say "Hey, we understand your fear and pain, but Palestinian deaths won't brings back those Israeli lives. Mass killing of civilians in the hopes of killing some of the people responsible won't bring peace, trust me we've tried too." From there he can engage in discussions about next steps, but this is the minimum fucking first step he refuses to take.

Yea, no one cares about disabled and vulnerable lives. That's the point, that's what we're trying to convey. Thanks for clarifying for yourself.

Open for Business identified eight key areas in which the AHA has impacted Uganda’s economy, including international aid, foreign direct investment, tourism and national reputation, public health, national productivity, policing and legal costs, human capital and talent flight, and trade relations.

I'm not mischaracterizing I'm illuminating an issue many have overlooked. Yes, the vaccines are effective against most variants at reducing serious illness and death for many. But they aren't preventing infection or long term impacts from infection, have waning effectiveness, and there are many for whom they aren't effective enough or at all (those vulnerables I mentioned). Many are still dying every week and last info we had showed in the US about half of those dying were vaccinated.

This part is mostly a rant- Covid (and others diseases) disrupts lives and can cause serious medical complications for many, yes even now. Those people's needs have largely been ignored, now and before covid. We have a better understanding of how disease spread impacts everyone and how we can prevent it. We learned these lessons at the expense of millions of lives and instead of honoring that and implementing changes to better all our lives we're squabbling over inefficient vaccines that many won't take. I'm pro vaccines, but they're currently not a solution to covid.

Why are you pro an environment in which your life isn't valued, and so bothered by people who aren't?

I think they expected to swap the hostages for Palestinian prisoners, since they've done it before.

Same. I don't even know how to respond to questions like this. It's such a failure of our governments that people think loss of taste and smell from an infection years ago is the only lasting impact they're experiencing. It's a vascular disease that can damage every organ in the body and we're being forced to experience repeat infections. Unfortunately most won't realize what is happening until after it does, and there's very few treatments and even little care for prevention.

I'm a disabled organizer focused on covid issues, and every day I hear constantly from people about the barriers covid has to their lives. Some are new barriers like new health conditions, increased precarity, and rising debt. Others are finding existing issues that were already hard to navigate become near insurmountable. Many of us haven't had regular healthcare in years due to lack of covid safety or the system's complete overwhelm. So many of us are fighting to just see a dentist without getting covid, and it's nearly impossible.

And this is just from the folks who are aware of why covid should be avoided and what the current situation is, every day I talk to people who have long therm health issues from covid that now have to navigate a world they thought wouldn't affect the. Covid has and will continue to impact every aspect of everyone's life and it sucks seeing so many ignore it.

Edit to add- and yea, at least 7 million people died worldwide with over a million of that just in the US. The amount of people forever missing loved ones is hard to grapple with. A quarter of a million kids lost one or both parents, it's had profound impact to their life trajectories that we'll see for decades, and that's not even accounting for the health implications they'll endure along with the rest of society as we have continued repeat infections.

This approach would be a step along the way to that goal. A good chunk of fascist support comes from people selling supplements or used cars (there was a recent It Could Happen Here ep discussing this). Those people have money, power, and outsized influence on politics from local to federal. Disrupting their profits disrupts and dilutes their power. If your goal is to disrupt fascism there must be concrete steps to doing that, and this would be one.

Have been masking since early 2020, haven't been sick with any contagious illness in 4 years. Infection is preventable, not inevitable, and I'll never willingly expose myself to it again. Sucks people were convinced otherwise, would be nice to not have overwhelmed health systems (not that it's new, definitely worse now though).

Same in the US, that's what I assumed when I saw the pic. I've done it myself a handful of times.

Depending on where you live, yes. We have a setup of 4 panels placed in the backyard connected to an inverter and some batteries. It's technically temporary so legal where we are, basically a large solar charged battery bank.

So, this decision is really bad for reasons that go beyond sick workers. It's really unpopular to mention but COVID isn't over, it's not gone. We just normalized the suffering and shunted the most vulnerable into its path. As one of those vulnerables still trying to survive, masking has been an exhausting situation. I mask, I have to, and antimask sentiment makes it hard to operate in a world that already wishes I wouldn't. Decisions like this cause harm in wider ways. I wrote an email to In-N-Out Owner/President Lynsi Snyder about this in response to this policy. I don't think she cares what this policy does, but I'm sharing here for others who may want to understand.

I'm writing to ask you to please reverse your recent decision to ban employees from wearing a mask unless medically exempt. This decision shows not only a complete disregard for the health and safety of your employees and customers, as everyone is affected by disease spread, but is also profoundly ableist and lacking an understanding of current (and historic) context. Requiring employees to not only divulge their medical information to their employers but also openly to the public is a mindset rooted in othering people who are disabled or otherwise medically vulnerable. In general, it's bad when a marginalized group must publicly declare their status as such, but especially now when people are already struggling to survive an ongoing pandemic amidst the hostility of antimask sentiment. This decision furthers that othering and hostility, making those employees into targets. But this decision doesn't just impact your employees directly, it feeds into that larger cultural antimask sentiment and perpetuates ableism. This lack of understanding of the impact of your decision is a clear message that it's not just those employees your company does not value, but all disabled and vulnerable people. Please show your abity to learn and understand the impacts of your decision, as well as your disapproval of ableism, and reverse this decision. Further, I urge you to demonstrate actual value for your employees and customers by adapting to our reality and implementing measures to reduce the spread of covid and other pathogens in your restaurants and other workplaces. This can be achieved through simple measures like improving the ventilation and filtration in buildings, improving sick leave policies, and other actions including, yes, masking by employees.

Thank you Xxx

PS This company push to ignore our current reality and new cultural understanding of disease spread is not just callous, it's boring. Be better.

Yes. All our relationships changed and I don't know if they'll ever recover. I'm disabled and from the start it's been a struggle. I remember in early 2020 a family member sharing a post on fb that said only the vulnerable were dying to covid and reminding them that's me and the ensuing kerfuffle. Several family members got it, were hospitalized, and refuse to get vaxxed later on.

What's caused the most upset to me and my partner though is my in-laws' reactions. My FIL has copd and MIL has cancer and received a transplant last year. They live near my SIL and her family. They've all had covid multiple times, 3x last we heard. FIL was hospitalized, MIL was in hospital for a year after her transplant due to one complication or illness after another. Her health is very delicate and no one seems to care about protecting her (or themselves). None of them mask not even around her. We've tried talking about it a few times, cancer patients have been masking and being cautious about illnesses long before covid and we have such a better understanding of mitigation tools after these last few years. But they just do not care, nothing to be concerned about. My partner is so worried about her but at this point is ready to hear the worst should it come. It's just baffling to me.

No, we don't have to just accept continuous illness and death. Why do you think that it's necessary for people to suffer when there are simple solutions? There are steps between nothing and total shutdown, read above for some of them.

Covid isn't like people going in the street risking getting hit. Covid is a communicable illness spread by others, not a personal choice someone makes. People can't just choose to never be exposed even if they wanted, we have to interact with others. Further, people can and do avoid being run over in the street by walking on sidewalks and crosswalks, riding in vehicles with protections, with lots of traffic safety rules in place to minimize accidents. Right now our covid elimination strategies are similar to that of traffic safety in the early days of automobiles when there were no safety regulations. Right now we have a bunch of people driving wildly with at best ineffective vaccines, we need a lot more than that if we want to stop repeatedly trying to dodge covid crashes and have any sense of stability in actually living with covid.

Why, because Israel didn't stop where they agreed? Maybe stop projecting the real actions of the oppressor onto the ones being oppressed.

We have no idea what Hamas would or wouldn't do in the future, only what has already happened and what they publicly declare. In any situation, what Hamas wants is largely irrelevant if nothing is done to stop Israel from continuing their decades long ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

People care because we're people and don't like to see unnecessary suffering, especially if we're able to change it. In western countries, our governments (and taxes) are supporting this, we have significant power to influence the outcome.

We also understand that our struggles are connected. The problems in my community are tied to the US support of Israel and their ongoing violent oppression of Palestinians. They cannot be separated, and to create any lasting change we must address the issues in whole, which requires examining how they relate and working to break those connections. The "popularity" in the media is a moment to facilitate doing the good you're talking about, that's why so many long time organizers in social just areas are doing exactly what needs doing, seizing the moment.

They likely still want what they always have, freedom from the violence of their oppressors and a return to their indigenous lands. Until Israel, by choice or force, stops it's decades long settler colonial violence against Palestinians - or succeeds in their annihilation attempts - this will continue.

Yes, this isn't an unusual type of pain with someone with a back or spine injury. Like others said, see a doctor asap as they may be able to help. You might need physical therapy along with medication, and it's better to start sooner rather than later when it could be less treatable.