A friend texted me this photo.

Today is a good day to practice community care! Disabled lives deserve to be cared for, just like all oppressed lives. Wearing a mask is putting this idea into practice. I wish you all a wonderful day, may mutual support and solidarity inhabit your practices and hearts. And may complicity with eugenics burn. Let's oppose the culture of trivializing infections.

My recommendation: start wearing a mask outdoors in your neighborhood, take a walk, and start getting used to the feeling again!

I also recommend being able to be in communities of people who wear masks, especially online, but also in person in some places! search your mask bloc in @maskbloc.org and I'm always available to chat and try to support you through this process, which I know is a difficult transition. My telegram is demianmasks.

Whenever someone makes you feel like you're exaggerating, please remember that COVID causes disability and death. In my case, my life is miserable because of persistent COVID. Not everyone knows the great work you're doing by wearing a mask, but we know it's the right thing to do, and that's why we practice it.

• 50% of COVID infections are asymptomatic.
• AT LEAST 10% of infections end in persistent COVID.
• Vaccines don't prevent infections.
• Reinfections destroy us. There's no way to "train" the immune system because it's not a muscle. The reality is that you don't build your immunity with repeated infections. Vaccines strengthen the immune system by teaching it to recognize pathogens without all the risks. Focusing on infection prevention is key.
• Antigen tests give false negatives. The way to know if you have COVID is with a PCR test.

If you’re going to the No Kings protest in Nassau County, be aware they have a mask ban (including respirators).

The “medical exemption” is 100% police discretion. You have to prove you’re “sick enough” to mask.

Mask bans are the result of people refusing to help disabled folks normalize masking.

If more people had masked for public health, they would have been harder to ban.

We begged for solidarity.

We said we didn’t want to be left by the wayside.

We screamed about the risks of Long Covid.

We referenced ugly laws from the past.

It didn’t matter. Non disabled people wanted to go “back to normal”, and now we’re stuck fighting discriminatory bans.

2025-June-13 Friday

196 Americans Died Last Week From COVID 19

1,229,069 Americans Dead From COVID 19 In Total

I'm having Post-Covid again, ...
because YOU couldn't wear a mask.

Last time it was 2 months of overexhaustion and constant brain fog. I'll forget to answer a LOT of questions and requests I get from fedizens and I'm sorry for that.

Try to reach out again in fall* if I don't answer.

*I mean the season, but if the global fascist empire has fallen by then, good.

I’m going to cry. My friend in her early 40s who contracted Covid last month driving a bus for graduations just found out she has a heart problem. She never had a heart problem before. The 4 to 6 or 8 or however many Covid shots she’s had didn’t save her. She doesn’t wear a mask because she’s a Democrat who believe believed the Covid vaccine would save her and now she has a fucked up heart.

A protest guide from #MEAction for folks with ME/CFS, Long Covid, and other chronic illnesses that cause limited energy:

https://www.meactions.org/_files/ugd/b5886a_67f8935af3594508b1a7bcd86e6b7c58.pdf

"We hope this guide can help activism become more intersectional and enable those attending events to do so as safely as possible."

@mecfs @longcovid

Me: If you can wear a mask, I'd appreciate it.

Silence

Nurse: why do you ask that?

Me: for prevention.

Nurse: I have bronchitis developed due to influenza A I had a year ago, and wearing masks is very difficult for me. I'm suffocating.

Influenza A and B, and COVID, are transmitted through the air. This person has developed a disability due to an infection, and wearing a mask would be the absolute first step (because if an infection has done this to her, you can imagine that more infections aren't going to be pleasant). There are people who are so disabled that they depend on others wearing masks.

In this case, she may not know that she can't afford more infections, and perhaps she doesn't know that there are masks that are more accesible.

But the fact that she's a nurse and has already developed a disability due to influenza and continues to work without a mask is a crime. She's doing enormous damage to her own body. It's a ticking time bomb. How long will it take before she becomes so disabled she can no longer work?

How many nurses are in a situation like this? How many people in the hospital have developed bronchitis that could even be from COVID, but since they don't do a PCR test, they don't know? How many cleaners have had to take sick leave because they can no longer work and are now more poor than ever?

How many workers have to be disabled by these infections for us to talk about how COVID is a labor issue?

There is a political class that can afford to get infected, and there is a political class that can't afford to get infected. Ironically, the bourgeoisie, who are the ones who can afford to get infected, have the money invested in private healthcare. The state abandons us to eugenics, and we're given private healthcare as the only solution.

How many workers have died and been disabled by this mass murder we're experiencing.

In Nassau County it’s a crime to wear a mask (including N95 or surgical mask)

The “medical exemption” is police discretion.

They get to decide who’s “sick enough” to wear a mask.

The police are NOT doctors.

Medical information should be private

Everyone needs the legal right to protect their health.

It’s also patently absurd that under this fascist regime, ICE agents hiding their identity with gaitors could arrest an immigrant & revoke their status for wearing an N95 mask.

It was never about health or crime.

It was about white supremacy and eugenics.

Today a large “leftist” influencer took a screenshot of one of my Bluesky posts about masks and shared it to X/twitter to encourage people to harass me.

It was condescending and mocking, and I spent the entire time having to block and delete comments.

People actually opened Bluesky accounts just to harass me.

This guy has hundreds of thousands of followers, claims to be on the left, and yet spent his day encouraging others to harass a disabled woman advocating for her survival.

This is exactly why I’m shouting about ableism and eugenics every day damn.

We may want to believe it’s only the MAGA crowd that hate us, but unfortunately there’s quite a few eugenicists on the other side of the aisle as well.

We see evidence of this all the time.

Disabled people’s lives are not valued.

We’re talked over or talked down to. Stripped of our autonomy. Not factored into policy decisions. No one fights for us.

Which is why we must keep fighting for each other.

I was tempted to block this guy, but instead I responded calmly and explained my position

I explained that for myself and members of my community, wearing a mask is a matter of literal life and death

I explained that his choice to use me as fodder was causing me harm and robbing me of spoons

I took the high road and stood up for myself while appealing to him to be better than the MAGA crowd he fights against.

I asked him to delete and apologize.

I doubt he will, because I suspect the feelings of a disabled person don’t matter to him.

But at least I tried. I stood up. I said “this is not ok”

I will keep saying it every day until things actually change.

@reiayanami #WearAMask Protects from germs, and AI stuffups.

If not being able to clear a virus for 4 months and losing both taste and smell for a year and a half won’t convince a person to #WearAMask, I really don’t know what will. They’ve had it multiple times since, had a heart condition before all this, and are not unaware of the potential for side effects.

I guess none of it is rational and maybe treating it as such was a mistake. #CovidIsNotOver

Neither of my gym buddies can join me tomorrow, one thinks they have covid and one "has a cold." #WearAMask #CovidIsNotOver

I had an ultrasound procedure done today, where I had to retain water for the first part, and then go pee before the second part. So I was forced to use the bathroom attached to the ultrasound room.

I hadn't used any form of public rest room since before the Covid pandemic began. I'm not thrilled about a small room with a lot of dividers causing air to stagnate and collect in the only spaces that I can move through, plus the humidity caused by forceful public toilet flushing, handwashing, and air hand dryers helping to hold stuff in the air. It was bad enough before the pandemic, when the women's rest rooms' air was just filled with nausea-inducing perfumes.

I'm crossing my fingers that my FloMask kept me safe in the waiting room, exam room, and rest room. Of course I was the only one masked, surrounded by people coughing and clearing their throats repeatedly, but I probably don't even have to mention that any more. Haven't the scary news reports lately about the new "razor-blade-throat variant" caused any alarm? No? No.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8192832/

https://news.mit.edu/2022/covid-humidity-spread-1116

I'm meeting my youngest client yet, in 15 minutes. They're only 35 years old. #Covid infection from 3 years ago is why they're now one of my clients. They never got better after 2 infections & 2 organs are shutting down.

Please, everyone, #WearAMask. I don't want any of you as my future clients in #DeathCare work.

“If your mask works why do I need one?”

We know two way masking works best.

We know there are people with disabilities that are unable to mask.

We know people may need to drink or take meds & need others protecting them.

Also, if you mask you’re protecting your own health. Why not do that?

This is especially true in healthcare settings.

Almost half the times I’ve needed to access emergency care, I’ve been unable to mask due to airway issues and/or vomiting.

If everyone else is masked up, my odds of avoiding infection are considerably better.

Patients deserve protection:

https://www.disabledginger.com/p/a-plea-to-maskless-healthcare-workers