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Beiträge, die mit Ableism getaggt sind


If you spent the holiday traveling, socializing etc with zero covid mitigations… You probably don’t have food poisoning. Or jet lag. Or allergies.

Covid is surging. RSV is too.

For the sake of everyone else - please stay home. If you can’t - wear a respirator.

Some of us spent our holidays alone. Isolated because no one will take precautions

Many of us have necessary hospital appointments and/or in person needs in the New Year

We don’t deserve to be infected because you took risks & then deluded yourself into believing you were “fine”.

Wear the mask.

#covidisairborne #covidisnotover #longcovid #sarscov2 #ableism #disability #wearamask


A study for the Guide Dogs charity in 2022 found that 76% of guide dog owners had been refused access to a business or service.
49% have changed or restricted their plans because they were worried about being challenged or refused access.

#Ableism #Discrimination

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6233rv397yo


New introduction post - joined in Nov 2022 (as many did) and back now after a hiatus. I write about Covid, disability justice, ableism, eugenics, the experience of being chronically ill during a pandemic and life, loss and grief. Looking forward to connecting with people here again! #CovidIsNotOver #COVIDisAirborne #chronicillness #Ableism #DisabilityJustice #WearAMask #MaskUp #CleanAir #DisabilityRights


My latest article is about the shooting of CEO Brian Thompson and how NYC Mayor Adams seems poised to use it as an excuse to bring in a ban on masks (which he’s wanted to do for awhile).

Mask bans are discriminatory, ableist and put lives at risk.

We are still IN an airborne pandemic. Everyone - whether disabled or not - should have the legal right to protect themselves from infection.

People need masks for all kinds of reasons. Pollution, wildfire smoke, allergies AND Covid. No one should be forced to risk their health because a necessary medical device has been criminalized for absolutely no reason.

Make no mistake - these bans won’t stop crime. Studies have shown that sunglasses obscure identity more effectively.

The only reason to ban masks is to pander to those on the right still angry about mask mandates - and to make it easier for the government to surveil its citizens.

Ironically those who screamed the loudest about freedom and bodily autonomy during mask mandates are eerily quiet about mask bans - despite the fact that they represent escalating fascism and government overreach.

We really are on our own.

Please - mask up. Do it in solidarity with disabled people who NEED masks in order to safely access public spaces. Do it to support the Covid aware people who just want to avoid infection. Do it to send a message to the government that you don’t believe anyone is expendable. Do it to protect our right to mask in the future.

It’s not too late - but we must get loud, work fast and wear our masks.

https://www.disabledginger.com/p/nyc-mayor-wants-to-ban-masks-in-the

#maskbans #nomaskbans #noNYmaskban #covidisairborne #covidisnotover #sarscov2 #wearamask #respirator #brianthompson #luigimangione #ableism #discrimination #disabilityrights #disabilityjustice #maskup


I can’t believe this needs to be said - but masks don’t kill people. Guns do.

I find it extremely concerning that the media reports about Luigi Mangione say he had a gun, ammo and “box of masks” in his backpack. As though they’re the same.

Masks are a personal protective tool. They can’t harm anyone else.

The U.S. has a terrible problem with gun violence. Yet whenever a mass shooting occurs and someone suggests banning guns - they scream about their right to carry & “freedom” to protect themselves.

How far we’ve fallen that people are more concerned with banning masks than guns.

Masks bans won’t stop crimes. All they will do is fuel hateful anti-mask rhetoric and make public spaces even less safe for disabled and high risk individuals.

If the “freedom” to protect oneself is truly of paramount importance - the right to wear a mask needs to be preserved.

If you’ve stopped masking - please mask back up. We need you now more than ever. Send a loud and clear message that masking should not be considered a crime - and that you refuse to contribute to the spread of a dangerous virus.

#nomaskbans #noNYmaskbans #covidisairborne #covidisnotover #luigimangione #brianthompson #ericadams #ableism #discrimination #disability #disabilityjustice #sarscov2


"Do you have to, or do you choose to?"

A thread on responsibility and empowerment.

https://mas.to/@KatyElphinstone/113497267768310150

#Marginalized #Discrimination #Ableism


Never underestimate the power of wearing a mask.

It’s an act of solidarity with disabled people.

It’s an act of resistance against governments trying to convince you the covid threat is over and that certain people are “expendable”.

It’s an act of compassion. You’re showing your unwillingness to be responsible for the death or disability of another person.

It’s self care. You’re protecting your health and the health of those around you.

We could have chosen to learn from the early period of the pandemic. We could have been excited about eradicating an entire strain of the flu - and adopted masking as a powerful public health tool.

Instead we made them political - and to this day people are willing to be repeatedly infected with Covid rather than do something different.

They cling to the narrative “we didn’t mask before Covid so why should we now?”

The answer is simple. When you know better - you do better.

We know Covid is a serious multi system virus that’s causing long term harm. We know a good respirator prevents catching or spreading it.

We need to adapt - and it’s not too late.

#covidisairborne #covidisnotover #sarscov2 #longcovid #wearamask #disability #ableism #cleanair


The Covid response has been to say - at every available opportunity - that “only the vulnerable” need to worry.

If someone dies or becomes disabled - the first question is almost never a compassionate one. It’s “how many comorbids did they have?”

People desperately wanted to go back to normal - so they accepted the narrative that THEY were safe and only those “other” people would become disabled and die.

First - it’s not true. Covid is a risk to everyone.

Second - you can’t decide to toss entire groups of people to the wayside and not have it impact your moral compass.

It may be subconscious - but it IS happening.

You’re being taught that it’s ok to harm people as long as they belong to an undesirable group. You’re being conditioned to believe you’re superior.

It’s not at all hard to see how this can pave the way for authoritarianism.

https://www.disabledginger.com/p/how-did-we-get-here-and-what-comes

#covidisairborne #covidisnotover #eugenics #ableism #discrimination #disability #longcovid #fascism #authoritarianism


Inhaltswarnung: Assisted dying, MAiD, eugenics


Whenever I catch up on the UK Covid inquiry - I’m horrified by how much denial and ignorance is on display.

By the fact that they’re discussing the death and disability of millions - yet continue to refer to the pandemic in the past tense.

The only mask I’ve seen was on Cathy Finnis - a clinically vulnerable patient who testified as to how difficult it is to access safe care. No one else in the room masked to protect HER.

Perhaps the most galling example of denial is this video of Matt Hancock - where he talks about the importance of vaccination because without it healthcare workers may unintentionally infect someone in their care.

They’re literally infecting people in their care now. The NHS has discouraged healthcare workers from testing - and IF they do test positive they don’t have to isolate. There’s no requirement to test negative before returning to work. They can treat patients knowing they have covid - and they aren’t even required to wear a respirator.

Hospital acquired covid has a 10% fatality rate and yet many facilities are doing absolutely nothing to protect the most vulnerable among us.

Patients like me didn’t ask to be clinically vulnerable. We didn’t get a choice in being high risk. We can’t “stay home” from the hospital. We go for life saving care - only to have our lives and baselines put at risk because no one is mitigating the spread of Covid.

It would be so easy to mandate masks in healthcare. To upgrade air quality and ventilation to reduce the spread. To have regular testing and ensure those who are positive are isolated.

They just don’t want to. We’re acceptable losses. Expendable. Not worthy of protection.

After all - how many times have we heard “only the vulnerable are at risk” as a means of justifying a whole host of risky and unjustifiable behaviour?

At this point I find it hard to say that infecting patients is “unintentional”. I desperately want to give people the benefit of the doubt - but we are five years into this and we KNOW it’s airborne.

If you’re working in healthcare and choosing not to test, isolate or mask - is it unintentional when you infect a patient? Or inevitable?

These questions keep me up at night.

I feel absolutely sick knowing people like me can no longer access safe healthcare. I feel deep unyielding pain when I think of all those we’ve already lost. I feel anger and rage when I consider how easy it would be to change course - and how few people care enough to even bother to try.

We can do better. We must do better. We all share the air - we’re not safe until everyone is safe.

#ukcovidinquiry #masksinhealthcare #sarscov2 #pandemic #covidisairborne #covidisnotover #keepmasksinhealthcare #WearARespie #ableism #eugenics #disability #clinicallyvulnerable #LongCOVID #chronicillness


UK Covid Inquiry: Adam Wagner asks Eluned Morgan if she agrees air filtration should be investigated for use against COVID in hospitals.

She says "yes" but laments her air purifier was worst present she ever got, she barely uses it & has "no idea" if it made any difference.

Good grief - you have to use it for it to work!

This response was so privileged and callous. I wonder if she realizes how many people would LOVE to be gifted an air purifier or desperately wish healthcare facilities cared enough about their patients to clean the air?

#UKCovidInquiry #cleanair #COVIDisAirborne #CovidIsNotOver #clinicallyvulnerable #keepmasksinhealthcare #ableism #privilege #eugenics


I’ve had people ask me why I’m concerned about mask bans given there’s a “medical exemption”

Mask bans are a return to ugly laws that will further isolate & exclude disabled people from society.

Medical exemptions are inadequate & leave many people behind (like healthy covid cautious people)

My article goes into it in more detail - but police are NOT medical professionals. It shouldn’t be up to them to determine who’s “medically justified” in wearing a mask

Many of us have invisible illnesses & struggle to convince our doctors to take us seriously

What hope do we have with police?

Moreover - disabled people don’t exist in a vacuum. We have friends, family and caregivers who we rely on to mask to protect us. They don’t qualify under most medical exemptions.

If you’re non disabled and want to stay that way? If you’re trying to avoid covid? That also doesn’t qualify.

These bans represent escalating fascism. They’re preying on people’s hatred for the disabled as well as their anger over mask mandates and covid policies.

The best way to push back? Wear a mask. Right now.

Call local lawmakers & tell them you won’t visit any state or county with a ban.

The Governor of North Carolina vetoed the bill - but the senate super majority overrode his veto.

Right after the mask ban bill passed - a woman with stage 4 cancer was accosted for masking.

The man called her a liberal, identified himself as a conservative & coughed on her.

What’s even more appalling - is that if you read the language of the North Carolina bill - it says any OCCUPANT of a public space can legally demand you remove your mask.

Its essentially deputizing the public to enforce mask bans - and designed to dissuade people from masking in the first place

Given these bans have been pushed by Republicans - and JD Vance spearheaded the federal ban on mask mandates - it’s prudent to fight back now while we still can.

Wearing a mask in public shows solidarity. It helps normalize them as a medical device. It will make them harder to ban.

My full article on the Nassau County ban and why medical exemptions aren’t the answer is below - I just found out Facebook has removed it for “disinformation”. And we wonder why more people don’t know mask bans have already happened 😞

https://www.disabledginger.com/p/nassau-county-ny-makes-masking-illegal

#nomaskbans #maskbans #wearamask #CovidIsNotOver #covidisairborne #ableism #eugenics #discrimination #disability


i found this on tumblr, so accurate tbh

#ableism #disabled #chronicallyill #chronicpain #chronicfatigue #actuallyautistic #neurodivergent

i am 'not disabled enough' for the judicial system but for my doctors i am 'too disabled or the right amount of disabled', no wonder i had to find a lawyer
[ID: Venn Diagram of “Not Disabled Enough” and “Too Disabled” overlapping with a thin slice of “Right amount of disabled.” There’s points alongside ranging as a scale.

Not Disabled Enough:

    Thrown off benefits
    Dying after being deemed fit to work
    Seen as scrounger 
    No suitable or accessible jobs

Right amount of disabled:

    Inspiration porn

Too Disabled:

    No ventilator if you catch Covid
    Social care cuts
    Independence thwarted
    Seen as burden
    “There’s always assisted dying”

/end ID]


“If you’ve been fighting for Covid mitigations for the last five years - you more than likely saw this coming. It was painfully obvious when the great unmasking occurred that many people on BOTH sides of the aisle didn’t care about the “vulnerable”. Didn’t care about community or protecting their neighbours. Didn’t care about anything other than their own ability to go to brunch, travel, socialize and get ‘back to normal.’

I’m not saying people should have shuttered inside their homes forever. None of us are. But they should have kept masking. There was no reason to stop. Respirators are highly effective at stopping the spread of Covid. The vast majority of people CAN wear them. We have mask blocs all over the world to provide masks to people who can’t afford them. It’s a simple thing you can do to protect yourself and - perhaps more importantly - protect others.”

If you missed my latest - it’s about the U.S. election, disability rights, eugenics, fascism and how we got to where we are. Perhaps more importantly - it’s about what comes next.

https://www.disabledginger.com/p/how-did-we-get-here-and-what-comes

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #CleanAir #WearaMask #Disability #LongCovid #Ableism #Denial #CleanAir #Pandemic #PublicHealth #InfectionControl #Eugenics #SafeHealthcare #N95 #Respirators #MasksWork #MaskUp #Spoonie #Discrimination #Dysautonomia #mecfs #pots #mcas #communitycare #wearamask #chronicillness #keepmasksinhealthcare #MaskBans #NoMaskBans #fascism #election2024


People spend their lives running from suffering. Doing whatever they can to avoid feeling pain. The idea of “forever suffering” is terrifying to them. I think this fear is behind a lot of the disdain we see directed at disabled people.

We remind others that suffering can be permanent. That it can’t always be outrun.

We exist in the grey. Our illnesses won’t kill us - but they also won’t ever get better. There’s no cure on the horizon. No “are you better yet?”

This reality scares the crap out of people.

As such - they pull away from us. They abandon us or treat us with such disdain that we walk away from them. The ones that stay often expect us to hide how sick we are. To plaster a smile on our face and say we’re “fine” so that they don’t have to feel uncomfortable.

When they ask how we’re feeling or if we’re “any better”… they don’t want to hear the truth. In fact - if you tell them the truth you could find yourself facing a lecture on “positive thinking” or how you just need to “try harder” and you will suddenly overcome your illnesses.

People are unable or unwilling to face the realities of chronic illness - so they make it harder for us to face it as well. They treat it like it’s our fault. Like we did something to become ill or like we could get better if we “really wanted to”.

They will push our boundaries, gaslight us and yes - put us at risk for covid. So this is your reminder that it is ok to set and hold boundaries. It’s ok to protect yourself. If someone won’t be there at your worst - they don’t deserve you.

https://www.disabledginger.com/p/we-dont-do-sick-if-you-cant-hide


#CovidIsAirborne #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #CleanAir #WearaMask #Disability #LongCovid #Ableism #Denial #CleanAir #Pandemic #PublicHealth #InfectionControl #Eugenics #SafeHealthcare #N95 #Respirators #MasksWork #MaskUp #Spoonie #Discrimination #Dysautonomia #mecfs #pots #mcas #communitycare #wearamask #chronicillness #keepmasksinhealthcare #MaskBans #NoMaskBans


People are angry that hospitals are bringing back mask mandates due to COVID outbreaks.

Patients like me are angry that we have to risk infection to get medical care. Some of us have died due to hospital acquired COVID.

Masks make sense in hospitals - why oppose them?

I’ve yet to hear a decent argument against mask mandates in hospitals.

The people who oppose them are almost always the ones screaming about how strong and healthy their immune systems are - so theoretically they never spend any time IN a hospital. Why do they care?

Inevitably people just trot out the tired “if your mask works then no one else needs one”… which just highlights that they’ve never spent any significant time in the hospital.

If you’re sick enough to need the hospital there’s decent odds something might prevent you from masking.

Even if you CAN mask - if you’re admitted what do you do when you need to eat, drink or brush your teeth? What if you require oxygen, having vomiting or airway complications?

The responsibility to stay covid safe shouldn’t be left to the patient.

It’s cruel and unusual punishment.

Mandatory masks mean that patients are protected by those around them - which is how it should be.

No one should have to risk covid to get care - and the normalization of hospital acquired covid needs to stop.

If you’re someone who opposes masks in healthcare - or who doesn’t understand WHY they’re necessary - please read my plea to healthcare workers.

Vulnerable patients feel unsafe. Expendable. Terrified.

Needing the hospital is scary enough - we shouldn’t have to worry about forced infection too:

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

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #CleanAir #WearaMask #Disability #LongCovid #Ableism #Denial #CleanAir #Pandemic #PublicHealth #InfectionControl #Eugenics #SafeHealthcare #N95 #Respirators #MasksWork #MaskUp #Spoonie #Discrimination #Dysautonomia #mecfs #pots #mcas #communitycare #wearamask #chronicillness #keepmasksinhe


A few months ago a friend told me I needed to stop “being a burden” on those around me & find somewhere with round the clock care to live & accommodate my disabilities. Knowing no such place exists for someone like me - I gave them a challenge.

I told them that I had looked for such a place many times - and I’ve come up empty because people like me (relatively young with unstable chronic illnesses) fall through the cracks. We aren’t considered when care homes are being established.

We have homes for the elderly, rehab centres and hospices but almost nothing for a young person who isn’t imminently dying but also has no expectation of improvement. I challenged this friend to find me a place - within a reasonable budget - and said if they did I would move.

Of course they were unable to find anything - and in fact even when they tripled their budget they came up empty. There was one contender that provided a brief glimmer of hope - but as soon as they discovered my heart condition they said no.

The reason? “She’s too unstable and we don’t have adequate monitoring. She should be in hospital or try hospice.” Most chronically ill people know that hospitals are short term solutions & will often discharge you before you’re strong enough to be on your own.

And hospice? You can’t enter hospice unless you are imminently dying. So around & around this friend went… hitting all the same roadblocks I’ve hit time and time again. Finally they asked if I considered private in home nursing?

In home nurses where I am start at around $36/hour. If you need round the clock care that’s just over $6000 a week. Clearly not an option for the vast majority of people.

Finally my friend conceded that I was right and there was no magical place where I could have round the clock care & cease being a “burden” to those around me. They were flustered and apologetic & kept saying “I just assumed you hadn’t really looked”.

Therein lies the problem for so many of us - our friends & family always seem to assume they know better and/or that we have simply failed and not “tried hard enough”. The reality is we often spend all our energy looking for solutions - but those solutions simply don’t exist.

I thanked my friend for apologizing & for their efforts in trying to find a place - but I also asked them to consider how it feels to be called a “burden” just for needing support to survive. To be told you needed to go away & stop “bothering” friends & family?

Of course my friend didn’t have an answer - just uncomfortable silence followed by some muffled apologies. I share this story to implore people to stop assuming disabled people haven’t already tried the things you’re suggesting.

This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to make suggestions. But if we tell you we’ve already tried it and it’s not an option - believe us. It’s exhausting spending your days dealing with chronic illness - we don’t need to be explaining ourselves to people who should have our back.

Lastly - disabled people are NOT a burden. There’s nothing wrong with needing help to survive. Telling someone they should feel bad about receiving that help is an unkind thing to do. Please offer help or keep quiet. Most importantly - believe us when we say we’ve tried.

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidIsNotOver #CovidCautious #sarscov2 #maskup #WearAMask #CleanAir #Pandemic #Disability #accessibility #DisabilityRights #N95s #Ableism #CommunityCare #Eugenics