“A successful and healthy response to COVID would have seen our public toolkit expand over the last five years. Most critically, we would’ve seen a comprehensive plan for upgrading indoor air quality in all public buildings.”

A healthy public health response would have expanded, rather than narrowed, the tools in our anti-COVID toolkit since 2021. Instead, institutional mitigations like clean air were never implemented, and now the last tool standing is under attack. www.thegauntlet.news/p/with-rfks-...

adding @thesicktimes.org and @juliadoubleday.bsky.social 's the gauntlet, both phenomenal for public health news thegauntlet.news/subscribe

See also: Zero therapeutics for kids and no improvement on Paxlovid. We aren't even trying.

Applies to 🇨🇦 Canada too, which also dropped all #NPI mitigations in favour of a vaccine-only strategy, & this year is restricting "healthy" Canadians to only one vaccine - "We don’t have the tools. And we deserve more than one": @juliadoubleday.bsky.social www.thegauntlet.news/p/with-rfks-...

If you want to support my reporting, please do become a paid subscriber. I'll never paywall my public interest work, but paid members do receive access to additional personal essays, and I publish a new one each month. Thank you! www.thegauntlet.news/subscribe

Over the last 5+ years, the COVID-fighting “toolkit” should’ve expanded, not narrowed. Now, RFK Jr's attacks on the COVID vaccines throw into harsh relief the reality that we only have one "tool" left. Where is the institutional mitigation? My latest: www.thegauntlet.news/p/with-rfks-...

always read @juliadoubleday.bsky.social . systemic change means clean air, far UVC, CO2 monitoring, proper testing, and mitigations instead of wasted years of magical thinking

Nearly the same in Canada, especially with some provinces now charging for the vaccine. An inadequate, vaccine-only strategy (no clean air, no free tests, no paid sick leave), only with vaccine access now also at risk.

Over the last 5+ years, the COVID-fighting “toolkit” should’ve expanded, not narrowed. Now, RFK Jr's attacks on the COVID vaccines throw into harsh relief the reality that we only have one "tool" left. Where is the institutional mitigation? My latest: www.thegauntlet.news/p/with-rfks-...

"Celleux d'entre nous souffrant de #COVIDLong le sont par l'incapacité des gouvernements à mettre en œuvre des mesures de réduction des risques. Le déni des dangers du COVID crée également une stigmatisation massive autour de notre maladie, aggravant les préjudices et dangers." Article en anglais

As you may know, I never paywall critical public health information, but my personal essays, like the one above, are paywalled in order to fund The Gauntlet. If you can afford to support the newsletter, please do so and become a subscriber here. Thank you! www.thegauntlet.news/subscribe

Those of us with Long COVID have been grievously harmed by our government’s failure to implement disease control measures. That same government's denial of COVID's dangers has also created massive stigma around our illness, redoubling that harm. My latest: www.thegauntlet.news/p/long-covid...

Great post. One critical point to me is that people are "not making decisions about COVID mitigation downstream of their ideas about disease severity, they’re developing ideas about disease severity downstream of decisions about mitigation."

Tackling government manufactured #Stigma around #LongCOVID is the cornerstone of raising awareness about the need to count/treat/fund/prevent Long COVID. But governments won't address/mention Long COVID because it undermines their weak fiction that the pandemic is over. It very much isn't -

Those of us with Long COVID have been grievously harmed by our government’s failure to implement disease control measures. That same government's denial of COVID's dangers has also created massive stigma around our illness, redoubling that harm. My latest: www.thegauntlet.news/p/long-covid...

A really infuriating article discussing the fact that our officials in charge of keeping us healthy did a bang up job doing almost the exact opposite when it comes to COVID. Also, mask up, folks! We only have ourselves to rely on in the foreseeable future.

"The Agriculture Department will not require poultry companies to limit salmonella bacteria in their products, halting a Biden Administration effort to prevent food poisoning from contaminated meat." www.seattletimes.com/business/usd...

“At this point it's become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza. I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more.” - Valerie Zink

Last week went into a 6 day crash/severe migraine that I now think was caused by drinking a Thai iced tea (I forgot they have caffeine in them) 🤪 migraine finally wound down last couple days but so tired. Ty to gauntlet readers for your patience

The most important part of this article, to me, is the end. It challenges a false binary between “long COVID” and “everyone else.” Maybe it's a spectrum... 🧵 (1/5) www.bmj.com/content/390/...

In 2020, Arundhati Roy wrote a gorgeous, prescient essay called “The Pandemic is a Portal”. In this piece, I discuss who actually walked through it: the COVID conscious community, and why I’m proud to be a part of it. www.thegauntlet.news/p/the-pandem...

Outstanding article on covid’s impact on our immunity. We need to confront this emerging truth and stop this harm to all humanity. @nicktsergas.ca @senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social @senpatrickbrazeau.bsky.social @jmeddings.bsky.social @snyderinstitute.bsky.social www.bmj.com/content/390/...

As you may know, my public health reporting is always free, but my personal essays are paywalled to fund the newsletter and my survival as a disabled writer. If you enjoy The Gauntlet and my writing, become a subscriber! www.thegauntlet.news/subscribe

I developed Long Covid in late 2023, and became homebound by summer 2024. As the months drag on, it’s difficult not to feel like my life is on pause while the world moves on without me. My latest personal essay is about the pain of being left behind: www.thegauntlet.news/p/homebound-...

"Republicans are quietly rolling back Obamacare. Here’s how" www.cnn.com/2025/08/12/p...

Stop pretending to care about folks with Long Covid if you aren't willing to mask in public for them like this👇🏼

Direct link to the research mentioned in the post above: Ocular safety of 222-nm far-ultraviolet-c full-room germicidal irradiation: A 36-month clinical observation (Dec 2024) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... [FREE PDF is available]

Far-UVC and Eye Safety: Findings from a 36-Month Study (Jan 2025) uvmedico.com/news/far-uvc... #FarUVC #222nm #IAQ #AirbornePathogens #CovidisAirborne

"What can I accomplish when I’m too sick to work on 8 days of 10? When I get a migraine after a few hours of looking at a screen? When I often can’t get out of bed before 4 pm and am back in bed at 10 pm? When my daily average steps are hovering below 400..." @juliadoubleday.bsky.social 👇

Hot damn, I'd been hoping for this and didn't realize it had already happened: The Gauntlet—Julia Doubleday's staggeringly good writing on COVID—is available via a non-Substack outlet. Yes, I know, Patreon is far from perfect, but I'll take this. Go subscribe. Go read, if you haven't.

#SupportTrustedMessengers 🔽🪙🔽

I really hope that everyone I know reads this. It helps explain...*gestures vaguely around my tiny radius of existence and how I feel about it* Every personal reflection Gauntlet piece makes me cry, reliably enough so that now I treat it like a game, like, "what line's gonna get me this time?" 😆 --

If you're looking to subscribe but are not a fan of Substack, you can become a subscriber via Patreon! (That's how I subscribe)

Long Covid is so real-

Please support The Gauntlet. Important writing on #COVID, #ME/CFS, #disability, #chronicillness and more.

I developed Long Covid in late 2023, and became homebound by summer 2024. As the months drag on, it’s difficult not to feel like my life is on pause while the world moves on without me. My latest personal essay is about the pain of being left behind: www.thegauntlet.news/p/homebound-...

💯 #CallForPublicHealthAction & ICYMI this by the awesome @juliadoubleday.bsky.social: "unfortunately, we have a public [...] unaware of the problem, thanks to the tireless efforts of our political leaders [...] who pushed for a 'new normal' of forever COVID" "...what can we do about it anyway?" 👇

“They quite simply said, “no, I’m not going to accept that you’re making things even worse for the most vulnerable. I’m going to do something.” And they’ve been doing something! Every day since!” @juliadoubleday.bsky.social #CovidIsntOver

PS: I'm an annual subscriber to The Gauntlet. bsky.app/profile/juli...

Please read this brilliant, sobering, infuriating, heartbreaking, and painfully beautiful essay by @juliadoubleday.bsky.social. Friends, the COVID-19 pandemic continues, and it's certainly better to traverse the pandemic portal late rather than never.

The UK gov didn't even plan how this was suppose to roll out. So now we have every app and website implementing their own system. Most are just outsourcing to a random company that's never been vetted or has ties to Israel surveilance state. None of this will be safe or secure for our DATA.

Seriously, read and learn. You might be one infection away from complete disability. Long COVID info that your doctor should have and med schools should teach.

🤯🫶🏻💉

Due to mass confusion, clarifying again: Tsunami Watch: Tsunami of indeterminate magnitude is possible; stand by. Tsunami Advisory: Tsunami is likely *but will probably be small.* Evacuations unlikely. Tsunami Warning: Tsunami is likely *and may be large.* Evacuations needed.

"As most people allowed themselves to be swept, gently and surely, back into the waiting arms of self-centered individualism for the sake of consumerism and capitalism, a few brave people firmly refused to be gaslit by the state into accepting a “new normal” that was observably [...] worse" 💛

In 2020, Arundhati Roy wrote that the pandemic had the potential to serve as a portal to a different world, a better one. Last week’s piece was my love letter to the few who were brave enough to step through that portal while most returned to normal: www.thegauntlet.news/p/the-pandem...

NEW— "A lot of children have passed the point of no return...The gut lining has started to auto-digest & will no longer [absorb] water or nutrition. Death is imminent for 1000s" An American doctor who just returned from Gaza on where US-Israeli policy is taking us: www.huffpost.com/entry/gaza-s...

Pretty cool that we got one of the worst pandemics ever and the only thing we have managed to globally coordinate on is ignoring the persistent life-altering symptoms that affect hundreds of millions

I just caught up with some reading at the doctor today. @juliadoubleday.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/thegaunt...