As a coalition of scientists, public health officials, epidemiologists, health care workers, educators, community advocates, parents, and concerned citizens, we are asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to amend mask guidance in the following ways.

In Covid on Air - Episode 9: The Emperor Wears No Mask, our podcast host, Josh Farden talks with Nicolas Smit, a Canadian engineer working to get elastomeric respirators to healthcare workers around the world. After misinformation spread early on in the pandemic, Smit began working with the Canadian government and news outlets to promote elastomeric respirators as N95 mask alternatives.

In Covid on Air - Episode 9: The Emperor Wears No Mask, our podcast host, Josh Farden talks with Nicolas Smit, a Canadian engineer working to get elastomeric respirators to healthcare workers around the world. After misinformation spread early on in the pandemic, Smit began working with the Canadian government and news outlets to promote elastomeric respirators as N95 mask alternatives.

Most of us are eager to get back to normal, or to the more just and hopeful world we are working to create.

Precautions may still need to be taken during the visit, especially in the presence of particularly vulnerable household members, as the “six-foot rule” has been debunked as the gold standard for safe distancing, and gathering outdoors (safer than indoors, but still requiring masks and distancing)

As viruses reproduce, their genome is replicated in a process that often introduces errors or mutations. A virus with these mutations (one or more) would be a variant. If enough of these mutations accumulate such that the virus behaves very differently (e.g. evading antibodies or the immune system), then we have a new virus strain.

We begged people to not wait to be seen when they were having life-threatening symptoms but sometimes it was already too late.

…in our county, there is an estimated 8% chance of someone having COVID at a gathering of ten people

We have the capability, with a few weeks of strong action, to eliminate the virus and relax restrictions long before a vaccine arrives, minimizing mortality, morbidity, and economic harm in the long run. Here is why we should, and how we can, do so.

The psychodemic rests on three main pillars: misinformation, fatigue,and psychic numbing.