I ***cannot stress enough*** that as the public health infrastructure of the US is toppled, we MUST take what we learned from the COVID pandemic and implement safety and support measures.

*Regular vaccination
*High-quality masks (require at all events)
*HEPA filtration
*Meet outdoors if possible
*PCR-like testing (such as PlusLife)
*Social distancing
*Mutual aid
*Systems of care so that sick people can stay home

Most critically:

Center disabled and immunocompromised people so that they can participate in society and have their needs met.

It wasn't until I got pregnant that I truly FELT the terror of being a high-risk person who society had left behind—a person who nobody cared about, carrying another person who nobody cared about.

We are essentially still in quarantine because we do not plan to expose our 6-month-old to COVID (or avian flu, measles, etc) any more than we absolutely have to.

As a collective, when we decided that vaccination was enough to drop mask mandates and other essential safety measures—even though there were people who can't get vaccinated, and even though the vaccine does not stop transmission or illness entirely—we said a big "fuck you" to every high-risk person. The oldest, the youngest, the sickest, the weakest.

That dehumanization is a form of eugenics.

It is DIRECTLY LINKED to the global rise of fascism.

Wear a mask, get your boosters EVERY YEAR and all other shots on a recommended schedule, require masks and vaccines at any event you run, make your spaces accessible, revisit safety protocols, and stop discarding human lives then being surprised when other people discard human lives.

Be the change. Don't practice eugenics. Don't uphold fascist ideology because "the scientists said it was fine." They did not. The politicians said it was fine and we NEVER should have listened.