know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!
hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh
3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million.
Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic.
The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.
I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.
It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases.
It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely.
The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe.
It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad."
It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.
Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body.
It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.
It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses.
People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.
(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.)
Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense?
They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."
Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.
Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.
People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it.
Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.
(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?")
One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.
I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.
She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.
And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile.
He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason.
I think about that a lot.
(Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.
He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.
He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired.
Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.
I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.)
Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.
But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.
It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.
(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)
(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!)
All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths.
Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.
We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons.
Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened.
During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID.
But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.
People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started.
COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example.
The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.
Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.
3,000,000.
Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000.
Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.
Five times as many.
That's bad.
I don't like that at all.
I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic.
Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:
Here's a non-paywalled link to it:
https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates
Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:
Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.
You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.
They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them.
These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)
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HEART SHAKER
PAIRING: gojo satoru x reader
WC: ~1k
WARNINGS: established relationship, suggestive language, flirting, attempts at humor. fluff, somehow.
A/N: super freaking unedited i just had to get this out bc i can’t believe it’s not smut LOL
“god, you’re squeezing me so hard, sweetheart.”
you look up through your eyelashes at your boyfriend, brows set low in a warning. he only smirks.
you pump harder.
“oh fuck, it’s so tight right now.”
you huff in annoyance, slapping both hands down on your legs.
“can you stop? i lost count!”
satoru laughs at you, throwing his head back.
you cringe at how loud his movements sound in your ears, the stethoscope you were using still pressed to his skin.
you release the pressure on the cuff around his arm, sighing deeply.
“once again, i’m going to ask you,” you enunciate the words slowly, your eyes aiming at his, right behind that blindfold. “why don’t you have shoko do this?”
you’re sure if it were her measuring his blood pressure she could get actual accurate results.
satoru tilts his head, smiling sweetly.
“and why would i do that?” he singsongs. “you’re the prettiest little doctor around.”
“resident,” you correct him.
you wish so badly that he was due for a vaccine or something, just so you would have an excuse to stab him.
of course, you weren't complaining. you’re incredibly lucky that shoko took you under her wing once you got a job at the school. you weren’t able to master reverse cursed technique at her level quite yet, but you were just as good of a regular doctor as she was.
it didn’t matter how good you were though, because you weren’t a pediatrician or a saint, and it takes one of either to deal with gojo satoru as a patient.
“why do we even bother with check ups?” he asks, leaning back on the exam table. “i am literally healing my body twenty-four-seven.”
you roll your eyes, grabbing the light test hammer.
“what kind of question is that? sit up straight,” you shuffle on your chair, getting in between his too-spread legs. whore.
satoru shrugs, kicking his dangling feet. “a valid one.”
you bring the hammer down hard on his knee to check his reflexes. naturally, it stops just shy of his leg.
you don’t even have to look. you know he’s smirking again.
“turn infinity off.”
“‘turn infinity off’? you’re so cute,” he replies. you try to hit him with the hammer again to no avail. “i need to teach you some combat skills, girl.”
“and i need to examine you,” you get up off your seat, facing him. satoru leans in with a grin. “behave.”
he won’t.
“wanna play doctor?”
you ignore his voice and the obvious glee in it, a retort dying on your tongue because you do actually have to carry out a check up, to the best of your abilities.
grabbing your clipboard, you skim through his most recent health assessment records.
he complained about a migraine to shoko.
it makes your heart seize for just a moment, to think of all the stress satoru puts himself through to have his technique active at all times.
“how’s your head?” you ask him.
“you tell me,” his foot grazes the back of your knee, coaxing you closer. “any complaints?”
a dissatisfied sound comes out of your mouth as you press your hands to his chest instinctively, forcing distance between you two.
“satoru, please.”
“do you worry, baby?” he reaches out to tentatively hold the side of your face. “don’t worry about me.”
“it’s literally my job,” you trail off, head dropping.
satoru lifts your chin up and presses his lips to yours for a second or two.
“sorry, sorry,” he says before you can chastise him. “couldn’t help it. you look so cute all worked up.”
at this point you just twist your lips disapprovingly, putting the stethoscope earpieces back on.
you press it to his chest and listen as he breathes in and out.
“satoru,” you frown. “are you okay?”
“hmm?”
you look at him knowingly, a smirk of your own blooming on your face.
“why is your heart beating so fast?”
at that, your awful, awful boyfriend finally has the decency to blush.
“and you’re breathing so hard, too—“
“it’s hard, alright—“
“—we might have to schedule some follow up exams,” you click your pen to fill out the form, neglecting the way he leans into you.
“anytime,” he huffs out, breath skirting on your face where you stand between his knees. “do i get a lollipop for being such a good boy?”
“no,” you reply, taking a step forward. “but you can have this.”
you plant a kiss on his lips, letting it linger for longer than it should as he holds your hips tightly.
he hums contentedly when you pull away.
“mm, smart and generous,” satoru noses your jawline. “how did i get so lucky?”
you fight the sudden shyness rising up at his words.
“the same way i got so unlucky,” you smile at his pout. “life’s just not fair.”
he coos.
“you sweettalk all your patients or am i special?”
despite your best efforts not to, you grin at that.
“the most special,” you say, interlocking your fingers. “now get back to work.”
satoru grumbles a complaint but hops off the table nonetheless.
“thanks a bunch for seeing me, doc,” he leans down to hover his face right above yours. you push him away with a fingertip to his forehead.
“no problem. now shoo.”
you walk up to your desk to hopefully do some actual work now that your most special patient is leaving.
“ah, but i was wondering—“
“yes?” you don’t bother looking up from your paperwork.
“if you could give me some anatomy lessons sometime—“
“out!”
he slips out the door before you can turn around to see it.
you take a deep breath.
you love satoru to death, but you’re beginning to understand why shoko picked up smoking as a stress reliever.
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★ ; addicted. -------------------
Infected! Leon S. Kennedy x Fem! Reader.
(kinktober day 1 ; breeding kink.)
idea was given to me by a lovely anon 🫶 (I don't have the ask cuz im an idiot and accidentally deleted it after writing this)
Tags ; kitchen sex, dirty talk, mentions of a lactation kink, soft dom leon.
MDNI.
It's been a few days, Hunnigan said this would pass in a day or two, that the vaccine should work quickly.
Yet right now you're getting pounded by Leon. He doesn't even look like himself, black veins running across his whole body, his sclera a shade of crimson.
“Don't spill it baby, keep your eyes on the bowl.” He groaned into your ear, pumping his cock into your cunt, you having cummed a while ago, the foamy ring around the base of his cock proving that fact.
“S-sorry.” You slurred, bent over the kitchen counter as you tried to mix the cookie batter properly in the bowl. But your mind is more stuck on the fact that there's pounds of cum just leaking out your pussy. You can't even count how many times he's came inside you, nor how many times you've came around his cock.
“I'm gonna get this pretty belly all swollen up, hm? What do you think about having kids?” He spoke, not stuttering once as his thrusts remained rhythmic. His balls slapping against your soaked pussy. “Yes- Mmgh- I wan' them.” You moaned out, your mind wasn't even working properly, your legs gave up a while ago, he's just holding you up by your hips at this point.
“That's right, you want my babies? I'll make sure you get them.” He huffed into your ear, speeding up his thrusts. “You'll look so pretty all swollen up, my pretty princess. You'll let me suck your tits, right? When they're all sore and heavy?” He spoke right against your ear, nibbling and licking the lobe.
“Yesyesyesyes- God yess!” You moaned out, arching your back and throwing your head back, cumming around his cock. He took this opportunity to grasp your head and lean his head back, sticking his tongue into your mouth and kissing you sloppily, drinking up your babbles and moans. “You're so cute.” He laughed, letting go of your head to dig his fingers into your hips.
His thrusts got sloppier, he groaned and gently bit down on your shoulder, rutting into you like a wild animal.
“God- Leon!-” You moaned, seeing stars as he pumped his load into you. Inhumane amounts of semen filling you up to the brim. There was no way you wouldn't get pregnant. “God your pussy is just- Sucking me in.” He groaned into your shoulder, nuzzling his head into your neck, rutting his hips slowy while the last strings of cum pump into your womb. The excess cum just spilling out your cunt and onto the kitchen floor, you felt light headed now.
You sighed in relief as he was finally done.
That was he slowly pulled his cock out, before slowly sliding it in. “Let's move to the bed, I'm tired of standing.”
all rights reserved to © madisonwritesstuff , please do not copy, repost on other platforms, translate, or modify my works without my permission.
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