Covid Day of Reflection - a photo on Flickriver

            © Leanne Boulton, All Rights Reserved

Selfie captured on the streets of Glasgow, Scotland.

Today, 9th March 2025, there are events all across the United Kingdom marking a national Covid Day of Reflection.

At the London Covid Memorial Wall I just heard, on the news, a nurse say, "...just because Covid-19 isn't with us anymore..." and I have to speak up. Covid-19 never went away - the pandemic is not, and has never been, declared over. Covid-19 is still with us.

The 232,000 or so deaths recorded officially as attributed to Covid-19 in the UK is a grotesque undercount. It completely ignores deaths due to post-Covid sequelae.

SARS-nCOV-2 is an infection spread by respiratory aerosols (airborne) that hang in the air like smoke in a poorly ventilated space. It is not, however, primarily a respiratory disease. Covid-19 is a cardiovascular and neurogenic disease that also damages the immune system in a similar way as HIV.
Each single infection and re-infection (as it mutates so rapidly that we never gain lasting immunity) causes permanent internal damage that may not be immediately apparent to us.

I am certain that you or someone you know has lasting effects of Covid-19. Brain not quite as sharp as it once was? Short term memory problems you never used to have? Changes in personality? Angry outbursts? Problems concentrating? Can't find the words? Easily breathless? New onset of diabetes? Sudden tinnitus? Deterioration of eyesight? Erectile disfunction that they never used to have? The long-lasting and permanent damage caused by SARS2 is a very, very long list. This is just a snippet.

Most people don't realise they have 'Long Covid'. It's easier and less worrisome to explain it away. Normalcy bias is a human trait after all.

There are over 440,000 peer reviewed studies by the leading virologists, scientists and clinicians around the world all concerning the devastating effects that SARS2 has upon the human body.

You can see the effects in graphs of heart attacks in working age adults, long-term sickness rates, disability benefit claims and much more all ramping up from 2020 onwards. This is a mass disabling event that major financial markets and insurance actuaries are taking notice of already. A complete failure of public health.

You can protect yourself to a degree with FFP2/3 respirator masking, HEPA filtration of indoor air and adequate ventilation. We have the tools to reduce the burden of disease massively but governments and businesses opted to put the onus on you - by telling you to wash your hands - instead of cleaning the air in their buildings.

I have symptoms of Long Covid following one single infection in the last 5 years. I can't afford to get ill again with the chance of compounding what I already have to live with on a daily basis. So I mask indoors and in crowded spaces.
All of the great smiles in my shots I have captured while masking like this. Because a smile can be seen from behind a mask.

I am not anxious. I am not afraid of Covid-19. I am not afraid of death.

I am afraid of becoming even more disabled and I am aware and educated about Covid-19.

When you know; you know.

Take care my Flickr friends.

Taken in: UK / Scotland / Glasgow (show map)

Taken on: December 8, 2024

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