doitforpink - Tumblr blog

doitforpink · 6 months

Text

I can't stop thinking about the news out of Palestine. Israel is sieging al Shifa hospital. Videos of people's limbs being severed off are haunting (graphic video tw). The hospital has ran out of fuel and 39 babies in incubators are fending for their lives by themselves, because Israel has stationed snipers around the hospital and is shooting all medical crew that walks into their sight.

First, the narrative was Israel would never bomb hospitals. Now, the hospitals are Hamas bases. Then, we respect journalists. Now, we have a fucking kill list of journalists because they are Hamas collaborators. First, we are not letting fuel in until the hostages are released. Now, we are not accepting the hostages back because that would stop our ground invasion and let Hamas win. And I could go on about every single lie they're making up. If you look up "Hamas rape" on google, the first link leads to Times of Israel saying Israel has found no forensic evidence of sexual violence, and only one eyewitness testimony out of 3.5k people attending the rave. If you Google "Hamas beheaded babies" the top links say they have no evidence for the claim besides word of mouth from extremist soldiers. Israeli extremists think about the ugliest goriest scene they can make out in their sick heads, tell that to a international journalist and they run away with it like it's gospel.

And children are being killed in the name of these lies. Thousands are being displaced in images that remind me of the pictures of Tantura 75 years ago, with their hands up so the tanks don't shoot them. Amputees are leaving the hospitals in wheelchairs hours after their surgeries because they are being shot at. Elders who survived the Nakba on 48 are having to walk towards Southern Gaza on foot (imagine walking from one end of your city to the other on foot), displaced again. People are cheering for the haunting images of white phosphorus bombs being dropped over Gaza. Gazan workers who were arrested in the West Bank are being thrust back into the bombings wearing numbered labels.

This is not normal. We are seeing the early stages of the settler colonial genocide of an indigenous population. Native leaders who have visited Gaza say its refugee camps look eerily like reservations. We can stop this. For the first time we are able to see wide scale accounts from the hands of the people suffering the genocide, and Israel is so scared of it they have cut all communications in Gaza.

This is our litmus test. I think we have never seen more clearly, with Palestine, Armenia, Congo and Sudan how colonialism has made our world a rotten place to live in.

The South African apartheid collapsed due to boycotts. We have to do everything in our power to stop Israel's hegemony. Even talking to a group of friends about Palestine changes the status quo. There's no world where we can live peacefully if Israel accomplishes their goals.

Educate yourself. Read into Palestinian history and the occupation. You can't common sense people out of decades of propaganda. If your arguments crumble when a zionist brings up the "disengagement of Gaza", you have to learn more.

Read Decolonize Palestine. They have 15 minute reads that concisely explain the occupation (and its colonial roots) and debunk popular myths, including pinkwashing.

Read on Palestine. Here's an amazing masterpost.

Verso Book Club is giving out free books on Palestine (I personally downloaded Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe).

Keep yourself updated and share Palestinian voices. Muna El-Kurd said every tweet is like a treasure to them, because their voices are repressed on social media and even on this very app. Make it your action item to share something about the Palestinian plight everyday. Here are some resources:

Al Jazeera, Anadolu Agency, Mondoweiss

Boycott Divest Sanction Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing protests and direct action against weapons factories across the US

Mohammed El-Kurd (twitter / instagram)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Motaz Azaiza (instagram) - reporting directly from Gaza.

Hind Khudary - reporting directly from Gaza. Her husband and daughter moved South to run from the tanks but she stayed behind to record the genocide. The least we can do is not let her calls fall on deaf ears.

You can participate in boycotts wherever you are in the world, through BDS guidelines. Don't be overwhelmed by gigantic boycott lists. BDS explicitly targets only a few brands which have bigger impact. You can stop consuming from as many brands as you want, though, and by all means feel free to give a 1 star review to McDonalds, Papa John, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks. Right now, they are focusing on boycotting the following:

Carrefour, HP, Puma, Sabra, Sodastream, Ahava cosmetics, Israeli fruits and vegetables

Push for a cultural boycott - pressure your favorite artist to speak out on Palestine and cancel any upcoming performances on occupied territory (Lorde cancelled her gig in Israel because of this. It works.)

If you can, participate in direct action or donate.

Palestine Action works to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the UK and USA, and have successfully shut down one of their firms in London.Some of the activists are going on trial and are calling for mobilizing on court.

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing direct actions to stop the shipping of wars to Israel. Follow them.

Read Decolonize Palestine. They have 15 minute reads that concisely explain the occupation (and its colonial roots) and debunk popular myths, including pinkwashing.

Read on Palestine. Here's an amazing masterpost.

Verso Book Club is giving out free books on Palestine (I personally downloaded Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe. If you still believe in the two states solution, this book by an Israeli professor debunks it).

Call your representatives. The Labour Party in the UK had an emergency meeting after several councilors threatened to resign if they didn't condemn Israeli war crimes. Calling to show your complaints works, even more if you live in a country that funds genocide.

FOR PEOPLE IN THE USA: USCPR has developed this toolkit for calls, here's a document that autosends emails to your representatives and here's a toolkit by Ceasefire in Gaza NOW!

FOR PEOPLE IN EUROPE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace targeting the European Parliament and one specific for almost all countries in Europe, including Germany, Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Austria, Belgium Romania and Ukraine

FOR PEOPLE IN THE UK: Friends of Al-Aqsa UK and Palestine Solidarity UK have made toolkits for calls and emails

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA: Here's a toolkit by Stand With Palestine

FOR PEOPLE IN CANADA: Here's a toolkit by Indepent Jewish Voices for Canada

Join a protest. Here's a constantly updating list of protests:

Global calendar

Another global calendar (go to the instragram of the organizers to confirm your protest)

USA calendar

Australia calendar

Feel free to add more.

30K notes · View notes

doitforpink · 7 months

Text

COVID-19 Resources Masterpost

Disclaimer: I am not an immunologist or any kind of expert but I do stay up to date on the science. This is me presenting to you what I understand.

Disclaimer 2: This post assumes that you agree with me that COVID is still a relevant threat to personal & public health, and that measures must be taken. If you disagree with that, I'm not going to try to convince you on this post. I also won't cover vaccines, because I assume you're staying up to date with boosters.

Table of contents:

How to know how prevalent COVID is in your area

How COVID spreads from person to person (in order to better understand what precautions to take and why)

Respirators: what's good and bad with them, and where to find good ones

Air safety: ventilation, filtration, far-UV, and all that good stuff

Helpful pharmacy finds: nasal sprays, mouthwash, rapid antigen tests, Paxlovid, and more

My personal risk assessment guidelines

Okay, with that out of the way, let's begin!

COVID Prevalence

Assume that any official sources are significantly underreporting real case numbers. Governments and organizations want to pretend that COVID is over, so they are not testing for it as much as they should, nor are they reporting every case that they should be. Individuals who believe that COVID is over are also less likely to get tested, even if they are showing symptoms.

What's reliable, then? In short: wastewater data. Even if you're unaware that you're infected, the virus will still be present in your body and thus in your excrement as well. Many cities have wastewater testing programs that help provide a more accurate picture of how much COVID-19 is present in the community. This is a US-based source that allows you to filter for state and/or county.

How COVID spreads

COVID-19 is an airborne virus. It spreads from the nose and mouth of an infected person, and can linger in the air for up to 6 hours. Anything that involves air leaving the infected person's face will cause viral particles to enter the air, including: (in more or less ascending order of how many viral particles the action spreads)

Breathing (least amount of virus put into the air, but still an amount)

Talking

Singing

Sneezing

Coughing (one of the most effective ways to spew viral particles into the air)

Once viral particles are in the air, they will remain there for hours if left undisturbed. During that time, anyone who breathes them in can be infected. Depending on many factors (such as ventilation, the size of the space, the infectiousness of the person, etc.) an uninfected person may become infected after just a few moments of breathing in air that contains the virus.

While the virus can linger on surfaces and be spread by people touching them and then touching their faces, the primary means of transmission is airborne. Hand washing is good, but it is relatively ineffective against COVID-19.

How to prevent airborne transmission

You may think, "This is dire. If the virus is spread this easily, how can we ever avoid getting it?"

And that's where the Swiss cheese model comes in.

Let's talk about some of these layers, in light of the fact that COVID-19 is airborne. I'll talk more about each of them later, but for now, an overview:

Air cleaning: If the virus remains in the air for a shorter length of time, or if its concentration in the air is reduced, then it is less likely to infect someone. Ventilation, filtration, and far-UV are all helpful for cleaning the air.

Masks: If the infected person wears a covering over their nose and mouth, then the viral particles that exit their face will be caught by this covering instead of escaping into the air. This reduces chances of transmission to others.

Respirators: If an uninfected person wears a sealed covering over their nose and mouth, then the covering will filter viral particles out of the air before it reaches the wearer. This is one of the most effective ways to prevent infection.

Nasal sprays: If an uninfected person uses a nasal spray (not just any nasal spray, but we'll talk about that later) then the viral particles that they breathe in from the air will be less likely to bind to receptors in the nose, making infection less likely.

The takeaway here is that while airborne transmission is daunting to prevent, it is not impossible, and every layer of protection counts. Don't lose hope!

Respirators

A respirator is a covering over the nose & mouth, intended to reduce the likelihood of the wearer breathing in the virus. While some people use "respirator" synonymously with "mask," I am moving away from doing so, for two reasons:

"Mask" has become emotionally and politically charged, making people less likely to engage when they see it recommended

"Mask" evokes a loose blue surgical mask, which is essentially only useful in protecting others from the wearer, not in protecting the wearer

A respirator is intended to protect the wearer. To do this, it must have a proper seal on the face; meaning, if the wearer can breathe in any air that does NOT first pass through the respirator, then the respirator is less effective.

Here is a thorough breakdown of the effectiveness of different kinds of respirators.

How can you tell if you have a proper seal on your respirator? This resource will help.

Here is a source for decent quality respirators online.

If you are willing to pay more for a reusable yet effective respirator, I've heard excellent things about the Flomask.

Air safety

How to provide circulation:

Essentially, as I understand it, the air in most indoor spaces is stagnant. Whatever people breathe out into stagnant air will stay there for hours. In order to prevent virus transmission, you want to have as much air circulation (movement), air replacement (new air), and air cleaning (rendering the existing air safer) as possible. A common standard is 6 ACH, which means six air changes per hour. Being outdoors (with a breeze) is approximately equivalent to 12 ACH. For more of the science behind this, check out this source.

Fans, especially ceiling fans

How to provide air replacement:

Open windows

More sophisticated central air systems

How to clean the existing air:

Open windows (these provide about 1 ACH)

Sophisticated central air systems

Air filtration. You want HEPA filters, which are designed specifically to trap airborne particles like viruses. When looking at air purifiers, look for the CADR, which stands for "clean air delivery rate." The higher the CADR, the better.

Far-UV. This is a relatively new technology that uses certain wavelengths of UV light to kill viruses in the air. It's highly effective, but also expensive at this stage

Some suggestions for how to make your air cleaner to breathe:

In an ideal scenario, you want to have all 3 of these things in your space: circulation, air replacement, and air cleaning/purifying. However, any is better than none - remember the Swiss cheese model.

If you're handy, try building a Corsi-Rosenthal Box. This is a DIY air purifier that has been proven to be pretty effective at cleaning the air. Here is more information on what it is and how to make one: https://cleanaircrew.org/box-fan-filters

Non-DIY air purifiers can be found in stores and online. Again, look for ones with HEPA filtration and high CADR

Open windows whenever possible

Helpful Pharmacy Finds

Turn on fans whenever possible

Nasal sprays: some nasal sprays can help prevent infection with COVID-19. Some are better than others at this. Not all of them can be found in pharmacies or in all parts of the world, but online shopping should help compensate for that. Here is a breakdown of the best active ingredients in nasal sprays and which brands carry them.

Other brands I've heard are good are Covixyl and Enovid.

Mouthwash: A study has found that mouthwashes containing cetylpyridinium chloride can kill viruses in saliva, which is a main place in the body that viruses congregate. I was easily able to find a mouthwash containing this ingredient at my local pharmacy. Here's the study. https://t.co/k2mmpFj3xS

Rapid antigen tests: Most people know at this point that rapid antigen tests often provide false negatives. However, not everyone knows that there are ways to make them more accurate, and that is to swab the inside of the mouth & throat in addition to the nose. Here are detailed instructions as to how:

Paxlovid: Paxlovid is an antiviral drug that can help prevent an existing infection from becoming severe. It must be prescribed by a doctor, and must be taken within a few days of symptom onset. I don't have a lot of information on this, but given that you'd need to see your doctor to get it anyway, the doctor can fill you in on more.

When I take zero precautions:

My personal precaution philosophy

Alone with my girlfriend, who lives with me and who is also COVID-conscious

Alone outdoors, such as when hiking

When I take the most precautions (nasal spray beforehand, sealed respirator during, mouthwash afterwards, trying to stay in ventilated & filtered spaces):

Indoor public spaces, such as work, the grocery store, public transit, concerts, and the doctor's office

Outdoor public spaces. If crowded (i.e. social distancing of 6 ft cannot be achieved) then I use nasal spray, respirator, and mouthwash. If not crowded, I may rely solely on nasal spray and mouthwash.

Air travel

When I take some precautions, and what precautions I take:

Indoor private spaces with friends & family I don't live with, and/or friends & family who aren't COVID cautious. I do my best to establish clean air & ventilation, and then I use nasal spray & mouthwash. If someone is known to be sick, I avoid contact until they are better.

These are my personal precautions, in case you find them helpful. You may take more or fewer precautions for yourself depending on your own risk assessment.

COVID deniers & minimizers who clown on this post will be blocked.

Thank you for reading to the end of my post! I hope you've gained some helpful knowledge. If you have more information or resources to add, please feel free to reblog with them. Let's stay safe together!

#not su but important

312 notes · View notes