Here’s a comic you’d like to ingest some covid-related information in comic form.
I feel like every so often I need someone from outside Hexbear to say the very obvious thing because I feel like I’m just being gas lit by the entire world around me. Basically nobody masks anymore. Other healthcare workers all dropped the mask once they were given the green. You’d think you’d have more people that actually understand this stuff in healthcare but in reality everyone wants to just move on when it does basically nothing and condemns us to continue this nightmare.
Yeah. You feel like you are being gas-lit because you are being gas-lit. Everyone is. The entire media apparatus, and everyone who is dependent on it for their worldview have moved on. They’re hiding this ongoing, preventable tragedy in plain sight like they do with everything else. People, even highly educated people, are convinced that they know critical thinking, yet we’re all being farmed and shepherded like lemmings off a cliff. We’ve got to keep being the ‘weird’ people who mask, who keep taking measures to be safe, who keep questioning the official narrative and trying to figure out what’s actually going on. Maybe we can create the beginnings of a cultural shift towards masking and paying attention. As the death toll grows, as more and more people become disabled and lose loved ones, perhaps the worldview of some will shatter, and they’ll see that those masking were right all along. And then we can get some of them to be careful too. Every case prevented can save a life, can save a person from the difficulty of unnecessary disability.
Being reminded of that heat map going from red to blue when they changed what it was measuring still blows me away with its bluntness.
Yeah. They wanted the pandemic to be over, they decided it was “over”, and they changed the data they reported to support that. We basically have to piece together for ourselves what’s going on, and do our best to protect ourselves and others, because the governments will alter reporting however it suits them.
Edit: spelling
I feel fortunate that I have several coworkers who mask and have normalized it in our workplace.
That’s great! I hope mask culture will be normalized elsewhere as well.
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Looked up pre and post exposure nasal sprays, looks like the NIH recommends against them, and there’s nowhere to get them.
You can get Covixyl from their website or Amazon. Target and Walmart also sell covixyl, but a family member who tried to get some at Target found that they had to order it for pick-up, as it was not in stock. It is very safe.
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Another safe alternative to Covixyl, that is probably just as effective as Covixyl, is iota-carrageenan nasal spray/Betadine nasal spray. Its only ingredients are iota-carrageenan, sodium chloride, carrageenan, and water.
I’ve gotten it online before here (they import from Canada), but it’s not for sale within the US because it claims to defend against colds, reduce the duration of colds, and reduce the spread of cold viruses, and the FDA has not approved it to claim any of those things.
If you google Betadine nasal spray, a lot of the results mistakenly talk about povidone-iodine, since Betadine is just a brand and there are other Betadine-branded products that contain povidone-iodine. Betadine nasal spray does not contain povidone-iodine, and it’s very important to avoid povidone-iodine nasal sprays, as they can be harmful. The FDA has cracked down on a number of these. From one of their warning letters:
Consumer antiseptic products intended for administration inside the nostrils are not permitted under the 1994 TFM, as further amended by the Consumer Antiseptic Rubs Proposed Rule.
I sort of wonder how Covixyl can be sold, since one of its listed ingredients is povidone. Maybe it’s low enough percentage povidone that it’s not in violation? Maybe @TheModerateTankie@hexbear.net (or another knowledgeable community member) knows.
I’ve used both betadine and covixyl, and betadine doesn’t sting my nose at all, while covixyl does. I don’t know if that ingredient is the reason why, but if you don’t like the sting try switching to betadine. I’ve gotten family members to use betadine because it doesn’t irritate the nose.
A quick search led me here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8026810/
Safety of PVP-I Oro-Nasal spray
Oral PVP-I gargle, throat spray, nasal spray formulations are currently available as over-the-counter medications in many countries, including Japan and Canada. PVP-I in low concentrations has not been known to stain teeth or to cause any major adverse effect. PVP-I oronasal spray should better to avoid in patients with iodine allergy or those undergoing radioiodine treatment or thyroid dysfunction. In a study PVP-I is proved ciliotoxic in concentrations of 5% and 10%, but not in proposed low concentration 8.
The topical application of iodine (in low concentration) intranasally for the treatment of recalcitrant chronic rhinosinusitis has been described by the St. Paul’s Sinus Centre team in Vancouver. They found it was beneficial for the management of this condition, but also did not lead to any significant effect on thyroid function, mucociliary clearance or olfaction 4,5.
In a study conducted by Gluck et al. three groups received liposomal dispersion with PVP-I (2.2, 4.4 and 0% as control) in single and repeated use. Application of liposomal PVP-I spray to the nasal mucosa does not result in any demonstrable limitation of the nasal function nor in detectable damage to the multilayer ciliated epithelium of the nose. Improvement of various parameters of nasal function under liposomal PVP-I suggest improved mucociliary clearance. Explanation could be humidification, improved surfactant (phospholipid) level and/or sufficient mucolytic activity of iodide due to local application of the constituents [4, 5, 11]. So 0.6% PVP-I Oro-Nasal spray is safe for long time use Figs. Figs.1,1, ,2,2, ,3,3, ,44 and and55.
So, yeah, the low concentration is probably why it was approved.
There are other sprays, too, and this twitter thread goes over the options and what’s known about the effectiveness: https://nitter.poast.org/Clean_Air_Club_/status/1685790242681331713#m
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I haven’t tried it yet as a lot of the reviews complain about getting broken bottles.
Sounds like Amazon sellers aren’t cushioning the bottles. I’ve gotten like 30 of them from https://www.northernvitality.us/products/betadine-cold-defence-nasal-spray-20ml and have never gotten a broken bottle, they always cushion their packages with large bubble wrap and also wrapp them together in packs of 3 so they don’t shake around.
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Same, I’ve gone with Covixyl for myself (as has my immediate family), though I’ve had an easier time getting masking-hesitant extended family to use Betadine nasal spray since their packaging and glass bottle look a little more official.
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US probably based on NIH but weird they didn’t answer by now
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As a single image (with attribution added at the bottom):
Thank you!
