Jason Steffins

@michael_hoerger Texas doesn't look like it should be categorized as 'low' to me. That looks 'high' with all the cities painted in RED.

Here's the new official CDC map for Texas. Readily interpretable. Now that they're not just using shades of blue, it is easy to see that Houston is "Very Low," and most other places are not. Look at all those "Very High" sites. Again, this will save lives.

@michael_hoerger No Bloomberg @business it's not. People are still getting infected, disabled and dying at way too high of rates.

"The pandemic might be over." -Bloomberg

@envidreamz I really think you've nailed it Covid being normalized or worse yet, treated like a joke. Nobody reads the new variant information because it's all fake news and just a cold. 🫤

This is exactly why so many people can’t stay safe and keep getting sick. This belief system is so deeply embedded in the collective mindset, it shows up everywhere including every corner of society and even within our own homes. Society has normalized repeated infections like it’s no big deal. We have been taught repeatedly to see Covid as a quick illness and then move on. But that’s not how it actually works. And that disconnect is where the risk lives and why most of us are never really safe.

Here it is. So many people are starting to realize that you can't keep getting Covid. It can disable you. She is lost like I was/am. Nobody can help, so we search and search for anything to help.

@envidreamz Nobody ever understands. My wife and son see it, but can't relate. I mask, and protect myself and hate every minute of it that I have too. It's exhausting.

Covid infuriates me because it’s not like any virus we have seen. In my house, Covid hits twice a year (thanks to school and family who won’t mask or vax, no matter what I say or do). Everyone gets different symptoms or NONE AT ALL. My overweight, smoking husband and 5yo son? Just sneezes for 2 days, done. They call it “just a cold” and laugh it off. Me? In my 30s, teaching fitness classes, and every wave wrecks me. Last wave in September, my BP skyrocketed and cardiologist said Covid inflamed my heart, tore a hole in the chambers. Needed surgery and lifelong meds. Chronic damage piles up each round. Remember old colds/flus prior to 2020? Whole family down with sniffles for days but not impaired and could still manage life or work. Then a few days later, we are all fine and have no wrecked organs or forever conditions. And we didn’t have some running around practically asymptomatic mocking people like me who have organ damage from infection! Covid is very different. Anyone else dealing with this unequal BS?

@envidreamz 100% me. Damaged my brain, gut and nervous system. Exercise intolerance (was an elite athlete in my given sport). I prided myself on my health and cardio fitness. Now? 25 pounds heavier, exhausted, mental and Physical PEM, can't perform anything high cardio. No longer myself.

@envidreamz Unfortunately, this is darwinism at work here. Nothing we can do for some of these people.

She wrote an entire paragraph describing the Covid… …then ended it with: “Never caught the Covid.”

@envidreamz Between toxic fog, 5g, flat earth, and birds aren't real, A.I. robots, we should be taken over by now and all diseased!

Yep, it’s totally the sky ninjas spraying us with invisible death juice!! ✈️ ✈️ Why blame a silly virus like Covid when you can point at clouds? Welcome to the “NOT COVID” era, where logic is the only thing that takes a sick day!

@michael_hoerger Annnd is this the start of another wave?? The spring 🌼 🌱 wave is here....

Nationally, estimated COVlD levels are higher today than at this point in 2021 or 2022... the time period many identify as #DuringCOVID

@FLPublicAffairs @envidreamz @jimmykimmel @1capplegate That is fucking insane. What is wrong with people. Why can't we behave like people should and care about spreading diseases. She should have cancelled and thought about others. She is already disabled. Unbelievable.

@envidreamz How about this $hit?? ⬇️ @jimmykimmel and @1capplegate could singlehandedly help us get rid of COVID if they would have simply displayed basic infection control like wearing respirators and putting a HEPA filter on the desk. Wanton carelessness. x.com/keetmuise/stat…

I just read a post that said: “ER visit for TJ = pneumonia. 2 days from when he started feeling sick till pneumonia.” Mom also has a “cold that isn’t going away.” First response to post: “I choked on water Tuesday afternoon and by Thursday it was full blown pneumonia.” Excuse me??? What on earth is going on here?! Since when does choking on WATER turn into pneumonia in 48 hours for a healthy person? That is called aspiration pneumonia. And in people with normal immune systems and intact cough reflexes, your body usually handles that. You cough. You clear it. You then move on with your life. You do not unlock a secret pneumonia express lane! And a cold that “isn’t going away” while your kid progresses to pneumonia within 2 days is not just typical seasonal illness behavior. That is Covid immune dysregulation. We have fully normalized: 1. Colds” that last forever and that never go away. 2. Normal, healthy kids deteriorating into full blown pneumonia within 48 hours 3. Adults getting pneumonia from sipping Aquafina wrong 4. Going to the ER being a recurring calendar event We are watching people describe immune dysfunction and then laughing about being a “lovely bunch of coconuts!” 🥥 🥥 💜 This is what happens when a population level immune hit gets rebranded as “Just a cold.” And the wildest part is people truly think this is totally normal now.

@envidreamz "We are not imagining this. We are the only early warning system the world has." Nailed it. 🙌🏼 If only our sirens were loud enough for all to hear ....

-Marked by the Never Ending Waves- I live in a southern conservative USA state where Covid became a punchline before it ever became policy. Where the “mask mandate” lasted 8 weeks and most people wore craft store fabric under their chins like it was a joke we were all in on. By the time Hurricane Ida hit in summer 2021, even the symbolic masks were gone, along with any illusion that this pandemic was being taken seriously. Since 2020, I have watched the same sequence repeat with clinical precision. Wave after wave moves through my community. Most people shrug, test positive once, maybe twice, and continue onward effortlessly as if their bodies signed a private immunity contract with politics and luck. They do not mask. They do not ventilate. They do not think about viral load or immune dysregulation. They simply proceed. And then there is the rest of us… The same names. The same households. The same few families quietly absorbing every surge like human lightning rods. Reinfection after reinfection. Lingering symptoms that do not resolve. Fatigue that rearranges careers. Permanent damage to our bodies that does not photograph well and therefore does not exist to anyone else. Some people clear this virus efficiently. Others do not. Some immune systems recalibrate. Others spiral. Every now and then an asymptomatic person suddenly becomes permanently symptomatic and suddenly wakes up. It is as if a hidden switch flips, and whatever genetic protection once buffered them no longer holds. Research has already shown genetic differences influence immune response, inflammatory pathways, clotting risk, and susceptibility to severe outcomes. It is statistically improbable that Long Covid strikes purely by chance. This looks like targeted genetic susceptibility. 🧬 I sit in rooms where I am the only one still caring, the only one still sick, the only one tracking reinfections like anniversaries. The unaffected majority moves freely, untouched, while a subset of us cycles through illness again and again as if we have been marked. Imagine being genetically predisposed to viral persistence or immune dysregulation and living in a place where no one mitigates exposure. Imagine knowing your body does not recover the way others do, yet having no structural way to avoid repeat infections. Imagine being told you are anxious, overdramatic, obsessive, ridiculous, when your medical record or personal history tells a different story. We need serious genetic research into susceptibility to Long Covid. Not to divide people. Not to scare them. But to explain why the burden falls unevenly and why some of us cannot simply move on. Because when only a subset of the population is repeatedly infected and chronically ill while the majority remains outwardly fine, the minority begins to look irrational instead of injured. Silenced instead of studied. Dismissed instead of protected. And one day, when the long term consequences of genetic susceptibility to Covid are impossible to ignore, there will be a record showing that some of us saw what was happening long before anyone wanted to name it. We are not imagining this. We are the only early warning system the world has.

@LauraMiers Keep preaching sister! I wish I could open up my brain for all to see the damage it's caused! I most definitely have early signs of dementia now.

In 2020, we knew Covid causes shocking neurovascular/cognitive complications. Young people began dying of strokes en masse. We heard a “tsunami of dementia is coming.” In 2024, the US reported a 43% increase in people reporting a cognitive disability since 2019. The Plan:

@envidreamz The medical community is allowing their personal judgements to impede on what the reality is. Covid does not give 2 shits if you are an athlete or young or elder. As an elite athlete pre-covid, these people need some serious education. Keep sharing your story.

At my appointment today the nurse asked how my week was the way people ask about weather expecting small talk instead of wreckage. I told him a week ago I had heart surgery because Covid carved something permanent into my body. He blinked at me like I was a glitch in the system. Shocked. 🫢 “But you look so healthy,” he said. “People who are fit like you don’t get sick like that. Usually it’s old or unhealthy people.” He verbally rewrote my life to me. He said my symptoms with Covid must have been mild. He said if I didn’t take care of myself, I probably would have ended up in the hospital or DIED…. I didn’t argue. I just stood there thinking… I did die… Yeah. I DIED listening to this. ☠️ 🪦 😣 Apparently Long Covid has a dress code. Apparently Long Covid has a body type. Apparently Long Covid comes with a look. But Covid does not check resumes. It does not ask about diets or workouts. It does not care if you are disciplined, athletic, thin, or take all the right supplements. Covid takes whoever it can reach. And sometimes in a single blink your health is not a lifestyle anymore… It is history.

@beccajiggens @michael_hoerger Love this! I am much more focused and prone to fewer mistakes at home as well!

My business is 100% remote work, our full time staff save 10+ hours a week travelling, our majority disabled staff save their energy for living, not commuting, and they are way more productive than I've ever known office based staff to be.

@michael_hoerger I don't know, but I am sure loving it. Extremely smart young athletes. I bet they've been told about long covid and its affects on ANYONE. It does not discriminate.

If the pandemic ended 1,240 days ago, why are Olympic athletes wearing masks?

This is an older article, but the protocols are very much relevant. Galen’s Long Covid Survival Guide | by Galen Panger | Medium share.google/mdd8wBRAlCN68U…

@LauraMiers Wow. Thank you for this. I had no idea. It is honestly so disheartening. I don't even know what to do or where to turn.

@LauraMiers We expected ours to as well. Instead, he has a damaged nervous system that has now morphed into an audible tic. I have had LC for 4 1/2 years ranging from severe to now moderate. We are seeing a mass disabling event right before our eyes.

In 2020, I expected my kids to go to college & thrive, but today, survival is the only goal. My junior in HS has been in-person for 3 years now. He’s sick all the time & he misses A TON of school. Society does not acknowledge any of it. So many kids will be disabled by adulthood.

Great interview of @BaileyDevine20 by @NatalieBenci open.substack.com/pub/factsoverf…

@michael_hoerger Midwest is on 🔥🔥🔥🦠🦠🦠

We've now had 60 days of high COVlD transmission. Using wastewater data, we estimate that these states have the highest prevalence: 🔸MI: 1 in 28 residents actively infectious 🔸ME: 1 in 27 🔸IL: 1 in 24 🔸OH: 1 in 23 🔸IA: 1 in 22 🔸IN: 1 in 20 🔸SD: 1 in 19 THREAD 🧵1/5