Why should I care about COVID?
50% of infections are asymptomatic.
At least 10% of infections end in long COVID.
Reinfections destroy us. There is no way to “train” the immune system because it is not a muscle. There is a common misconception that exposure to harmful germs strengthens the immune system. Viral diseases like COVID, flu, measles weaken the immune system, leaving the possibility of lasting damage. The reality is that you don’t build your immunity with repeated infections, vaccines strengthen the immune system by teaching it to recognize pathogens without all the risks. Focusing on infection prevention is key.
A rapid antigen test only successfully detects about 60% of early symptomatic infections and about 22% of asymptomatic infections. PCR and molecular tests are the most accurate tests.
COVID spreads and moves like cigarette smoke. Think of the people around you and yourself as people who smoke all day long. It becomes more visual to understand how COVID moves.
In infections with symptoms, it takes a couple of days to show symptoms, which means that you are infecting for at least a couple of days without knowing it.
Vaccines are important, but forms of protection such as masks and air purifiers must be added. The levels of antibodies produced decrease significantly in the months following vaccination. Vaccines are not preventing reinfections, contagion, or long COVID.
You are infectious with COVID for at least 10 days.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a great deal of propaganda around the normalization of the disease and a meritocratic way of understanding immunity (the best is that you will never be affected, the weak is that you will 'have to die' for prosperity).
The new variants are complex because of 1) the continuous transmission that we do between humans, as well as that which occurs between humans and other animals, creating more complex mutations; 2) the lack of research, lack of socialization of barriers against COVID, of antivirals when you have infections, and of PCR or molecular COVID tests. All of this is not isolated from the world of oppression where we live, in fact, that is where its origin is. Care against COVID is community care for workers, disabled, queer, anticolonial struggle and against all forms of oppression.
We have the tools to fight against eugenics, let's organize!
What can you do?
- Wear masks (check out maskbloc.org)
- Organize mask blocs / distribute masks (reach out to us if you want help!)
- Talk about eugenics wherever you go—on social media and in activist spaces.
- Vaccines, clean air, COVID testing.
- Amplify the voices of Long COVID experts, such as @haziethompson or @vozdelpacientecovidpersistente.
- You can choose to stop abandoning the communities most affected by this eugenicist system.
Ending the state of emergency has left us more vulnerable than before.
In 2023, governments systematically declared the end of the public health emergency. But the pandemic continues.
The return to "normal" is about profits, not people—it means that governments no longer have to fund public health measures that have been proven to keep us safe. It means that millions of people live with Long COVID, disappearing from public spaces while research is delayed, empathy decreases, and protective measures are abandoned.
Businesses have a clear interest in keeping you from worrying about COVID, and governments want to take credit for "solving the problem" by pretending it doesn’t exist. They want you working, shopping, traveling, and attending events at the same pace as in 2019—without demanding paid sick leave or workplace improvements for cleaner air.
Health ministries did not want to publicly admit that COVID is airborne because that could have led to lawsuits demanding workplace safety improvements. Masks are a visible reminder of the ongoing danger.
A 2020 study found that people who wore masks spent 25% less time shopping. In 2021, health ministries reduced isolation time for COVID-positive individuals at the request of the Delta Airlines CEO.
“Only high-risk people are affected by COVID.”
Disabled people are not disposable. Governments have ignored the serious health consequences of COVID by telling us that only "high-risk" individuals need to take precautions.
(And if you’ve been infected before, you are now part of this category.)
1 in 5 cases will develop into Long COVID. Everyone should be able to safely participate in public life. Mitigating COVID is our collective responsibility.
1) Even if this were true, our elderly, high-risk, and disabled community members are not disposable. Their lives are worth protecting. To suggest otherwise is a eugenicist stance. Capitalism perpetuates the myth that a person's worth (and their "disposability") is based on their ability to work.
2) Anyone who has had COVID should consider themselves immunocompromised. Fighting COVID does not "strengthen" our immune response—COVID attacks the immune system and weakens its ability to fight future infections. Each infection makes us more vulnerable.
"We’ve reached herd immunity."
The reason we have so many variants is because we have allowed the virus to spread unchecked. Governments lifted mask mandates, dismantled testing infrastructure, and removed other protective measures from the start.
We do not have to accept the defeatist stance that everyone on the planet will eventually be infected. We can keep our communities safe by continuing COVID precautions: wearing masks, testing regularly, and staying informed can save lives.
"Didn’t the Ministry of Health say COVID was mild?"
It’s not. COVID is an airborne virus that attacks every organ system in the body, regardless of whether symptoms are experienced or how mild they may seem initially.
In fact, the virus is becoming more lethal as it evolves, spreading unchecked through our communities. Each infection increases your risk of permanent damage or Long COVID.
This damage may not be immediately visible. But COVID causes brain damage, blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, and even cancer.
"I had COVID and I was fine."
The truth is, many people who have died or become disabled from COVID (or Long COVID) had no prior health concerns.
You might have been "low risk" before your first infection, but repeated reinfection exponentially increases the risk of harm to your body.
COVID complications include severe damage to every organ system, including the heart, brain, and gastrointestinal system.
"COVID deaths and cases are low."
We have no control over how mortality is reported.
For example, governments changed the statistical baselines by including the years 2020-2022, meaning that the "new normal" will obscure delayed COVID deaths—such as heart attacks and complications from other illnesses—making them invisible.
Additionally, Long COVID represents a systemic disease that can impact nearly every organ, but is not counted in official statistics.
"COVID is milder now." / "I'm vaccinated."
Newer COVID strains are just as severe as previous variants.
Even if a new strain is considered "less deadly," it can be more transmissible, which ultimately leads to more deaths overall.
Vaccines do not prevent illness or transmission—they reduce the risk of hospitalization.
A virus constantly mutates to evade immune detection. It does not mutate in isolation—it needs a host.
Once inside a host, the virus replicates until it is neutralized by the immune system. The longer it can reproduce unchecked, the higher the chances of acquiring mutations.
If one of these mutations gives the virus an advantage, that variant will continue to spread.
We can try to prevent being hosts by wearing masks.
And if we do get infected, we can try to stop the chain of transmission by isolating while sick (if possible), testing frequently, and, yes, wearing masks.
“Actually solving the pandemic was never in the cards for the U.S. and the rest of the capitalist world. It would have necessitated deep international cooperation, massive investment in clean air infrastructure, a persistent information campaign (and censoring of hazardous misinformation), efforts to build public trust in government, guaranteed paid leave, nationalization of key industries, and more. Basically, it would involve massively undercutting the philosophy of free market capitalism.
Instead, the explicit goal of the ruling class has been to make the pandemic simply disappear from public perception. Any reminder of the existence of a highly-transmissible, highly-dangerous, mass-disabling disease could trigger panic, or worse: organized, militant labor action. Averting this crisis required a careful campaign of culture-crafting; the people themselves needed to become convinced that there was no reason to fight. Consent for protracted mass infection needed to be manufactured.” Let Them Eat Plague! – The Red Clarion
“Every chain of transmission that is broken COUNTS. Every person who doesn’t get sick, who doesn’t lose THAT WEEK OF WORK, who doesn’t DIE or become DISABLED, from the smallest of inconveniences to the BIGGEST of losses – every single one of these things COUNTS.” - Becca on the Death Panel podcast