mastodon 4.7.3+glitch+0s#Covid and #LongCovid aware, continuing to #WearAMask and the majority of my posts are about Covid, with lots of Covid-related boosts.
#ActuallyAutistic and glad to be so.
#TransRightsAreHumanRights
Sigh.
New boss: “You’re good at writing notes.”
Me: “Thank you, it helps me to remember so I have been writing summaries for many years.”
New boss: “You should try CoPilot and see what it can do.”
Me: “Well I enjoy summarizing my notes, and it helps me to learn and remember.”
New boss: “Let me show you something I did in CoPilot.”
Ugh. Writing it myself helps me LEARN and REMEMBER. Why are these AI zombies so intent on changing a process that is helpful to me? Feeding notes through CoPilot won’t benefit me when it’s the act of writing that works for me.
I went to an annual appointment at my cancer hospital yesterday in my N95 mask. My doctor and nurse sort of accommodated me; my doctor wore a surgical mask and commented proudly that she didn’t need to be asked again to put one on this year, while the nurse seemed to actually consider air flow and asked if I wanted to have the exam room door stay open.
When I arrived, I sat in the waiting room near the only other masked people, two people wearing surgical masks. They soon got called in, and then I was the only masked person. An unmasked guy walked past me talking to his companion, and said something like, “she’s wearing that shit.” I readied myself for confrontation, but they didn’t come back.
Lots of people there were coughing and clearing their throats.
My doctor excitedly told me that all my numbers are good, and that I am still beating the odds in surviving the aggressive cancer that I had. But I’m now surviving in spite of the masses who have “moved on” from Covid. And in spite of those who use a “risk assessment” that allows them to fool themselves into believing that they are somehow still my ally.
It doesn’t have to be this way. I want to fight harder for humanity, but humanity doesn’t want to fight for me.
Good things: I had to go to the dentist this week. As I was waiting for my appointment wearing an N95 mask, the dentist peered into the waiting room to tell me she was almost done. She was also wearing an N95 mask, a 3M Aura!
Then a few minutes later she walked out again with the patient ahead of me, and that person was also wearing an N95! Three of us in one room with N95s out in the wild and not at a special masked event, it's been a while since I've experienced that!
I've been seeing conversations this week about being Covid cautious and what that means.
The concept of "risk" is not straightforward. There is a risk to myself, and also a risk to others, when it comes to Covid infection and being cautious. If I get infected, the risk isn't only my own. It becomes a risk to others if I then carry that infection in a way that causes it to transmit to others.
This is different from a risk of, say, jumping out of an airplane. If my parachute doesn't work, then the risk result is only mine to bear. If I catch a disabling virus, then the next steps I take become very important concerning other people, and part of the risk of infecting others is on me to responsibly mitigate.
I think this is where the discussion can break down. It's the same with mask and vaccine mandates. Some people focus on their own personal risk to talk about whether masks and vaccines work, but the conversation needs to include the next step of how an infection would then put others in the vicinity of the infected person at risk.
Taking a risk of contracting Covid is one step, and one consideration. But what happens next? What is the plan for how you conduct yourself after experiencing that risky situation? Since so many Covid infections are asymptomatic, you can't rely on whether or not you feel sick to determine whether you are then putting anyone in contact with you or your air space after your risky behavior at risk of contracting Covid. It is always a risk for those people.
So does it then come down to others, and their own risk assessments? Is that the moral decision, to allow others to decide how to conduct themselves? What about people who cannot mask for medical or other reasons? Are you ok with taking your risk assessment and carrying it forward over the next few days into every place that you go, and bringing that risk forward to others?
This is a large reason why I still mask absolutely everywhere, and why I am so cautious. For myself, and my family, but also for all those unknown-to-me others who I am in direct contact, or who will experience the same air as I have exhaled into. Not taking them into consideration gives me the same feeling that I'm sure many people have when we read about someone with Measles showing up in an airport: Why didn't it occur to them that they would infect other people?
Well well well. I am getting asked about Hantavirus now by people who stopped paying attention to Covid a long time ago.
They are very worried. I tell them, "I hate to break this to you, but there are other things still going around that you should be more worried about."
They know that I'm still wearing masks, so they ask where they can get those. And they want to know about "good" masks. And how they work, and how often to change them.
I tell them that I haven't been sick since 2019. They ask if I've had Covid, and I say "Not that I'm aware of, but you can get it and not have symptoms." Then they tell me about the "one time" they had Covid, because their Covid brains have made them forget about all the other times that I've observed them getting Covid, and the multiple times they told me themselves that they had Covid.
Then they pause and fall silent. I worry that telling them they should be more worried about Covid will mean that instead of protecting themselves more, they will decide Hantavirus must not be so bad.
I’m not sure what will happen with my job if I just don’t use GenAI, but I’m going to find out.
The Sick Times offers a webinar on 28 April on how to track Covid levels in your local area.
"This webinar will help you find data on COVID-19 and other pathogens in your area, and interpret those data to inform safety measures for you and your community."