Pay attention. Please. I can not keep living this way. I can not keep feeling like I carry this alone.

If you feel shame, good. You should. But being ashamed of what you've done doesn't mean it's too late to change. Wear a mask. Educate yourself, then others. Report on policy solutions and the lack of them. Agitate for clean air in your communities. Use tests to prevent spread.

Then I asked what he did.
He's a family doctor -- semi-retired.

I can not express how sad and furious I feel thinking about this. Wake up, folks. You have been fucked with. Doctors do not know their shit. I'm so tired of those pretending they do -- especially fellow journalists.

He told me how surprised he was to hear all that and shared that he doesn't like wearing a mask -- that it feels like showering with your clothes on. I told him I understood, and I definitely do not enjoy wearing a mask either. I do it to protect others and to protect myself.

-265,000 in the US died from covid last year
-we're undercounting infections, deaths, and long covid by A LOT

I told him I'm a journalist and the public has been misinformed by the government for political reasons and the press has largely been an agent of those political lies.

-5 to 20 percent of infections cause long covid and there is no cure
-it can affect every organ of the body
-it's not the flu or a cold
-risk increases with reinfection
-vaccine efficacy wears off and the vast majority of people haven't had a shot recently

Today someone asked me why I was wearing a mask. Was I just worried about a new variant? Was I vaccinated? He was shocked when I told him that:

-60 percent of Americans dying from covid are vaccinated
-it's the 3rd leading cause of death across age groups
-covid never went away

let's all marvel at Dan Aykroyd in 1988 presciently rendering today's Midwest Republican Politician with near 100% accuracy