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Time to act: thread on why we need to close schools, borders, and ban all household mixing RIGHT AWAY.

To those arguing winter is always like this in the NHS: you are wrong. I faced four serious winter crises as Health Sec and the situation now is off-the-scale worse than any of those.

It’s true that we often had to cancel elective care in Jan to protect emergency care but that too is under severe pressure with record trolley waits for the very sickest patients


Even more worryingly fewer heart attack patients appear to be presenting in ICUs, perhaps because they are not dialling 999 when they need

Full credit to NHS for keeping cancer services open but in Wave 1 there was still a 2/3 drop in cancer appts: people didn’t come forward to GPs or want to go to hospitals, with many potentially avoidable cancer deaths. We hoped to avoid that this time but now looking unlikely.
For those of you concerned about the "damage" done to the field and academic freedom by the push to cancel transphobes in philosophy, I have this to say


The above is from Gen. Sherman on what is necessary to restore the Union during the Civil War, the sentiment is apt for my position on philosophy: if we are to have an inclusive field and the structure of the field prevents that, then that structure must be destroyed. (2/n)

Now, I understand that this sounds harsh, but consider why it sounds harsh: so much of the pushback against transphobia in philosophy, and the recommendations made to address transphobia in philosophy sounds like "damage" to philosophy by established philosophers. (3/n)

And in response to that perception of damage or destruction, they push back hard to preserve the "integrity" of the field, regardless of the harm being done to the marginalized people who have to survive an inhospitable field that refuses to change. (4/n)

Now, this position was anticipated by Sara Ahmed in the following:

“Indeed so often just talking about sexism as well as racism is heard as damaging the institution. If talking about sexism and racism is heard as damaging institutions, we need to damage institutions.” (5/n)
Good questions!

Thread 1/5
RE: Staffing/Fair wages:
I've talked about how this system reflects the trifecta of racism/sexism/ageism: https://t.co/hcjb0fB5xr
*We have a majority older, female resident population cared for my a majority racialized, female workforce.

20 years ago (pre-Harris privatization), nursing homes were staffed primarily by NURSES (hence the name, NURSING HOMES).

Privatization kicks in....and these FP owners need to cut costs to increase their profits. How? STAFFING, TO START.

What unfolded over the last 20 years as Privatization increased was the reversal of the staffing mix from majority nurses to majority PSWs (who are an unregulated workforce comprised primarily of racialized women who are often new to Canada).

This strategy is NOT NEW (its how the 2nd phase of predatory capitalism took hold) by expanding quite literally on the backs of women, often from the Global South whose labour is assumed to be both cheap and disposable (I studied this in my PhD).

And indeed, @Revera_Inc in their recent report defending their COVID performance expressed these same calls for an increased use of a gendered & racialized workforce....seeking to have @fordnation adjust immigration policies as a result
1/ "Unbelievable: WHO warns of unreliability of PCR test" https://t.co/659Xk3WOBO
pcr-test/ 22.1.21 Auto translation quotes below
'Anyone who expressed doubts about whether the PCR test, co-developed in large part by Christian Drosten, can really provide evidence of infection..'

2/ ..'is virtually considered a heretic in Germany, or worse, a Corona denier. When Luthe, a non-party member of the Berlin parliament, saw doubts about the test's informative value in terms of the Infection Protection Act confirmed by a response from the Berlin Senate..'

3/ ..'in November 2020, I reported on it [
https://t.co/RvCq02qib3]. The report was accompanied by a warning from Facebook that fact-checkers had found it to be false. In doing so, they proceed with argumentative shell games (as I described here)

4/ 'And now this! All the self-proclaimed "fact-finders" have to dress warmly. In a new "information note" [https://t.co/mMKpFQarXr], the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced something remarkable on Wednesday. I ask for your understanding if I now reproduce all the..'

5/ ..'technical terms in the original - but for the sake of accuracy it has to be. I'll try to explain them afterwards: "WHO diagnostic test guidelines for SARS-CoV-2 state that careful interpretation of weak positive results is required. The cycle threshold (Ct) required..'