The cor*na hoax thread. How and why, best as I can tell. First, how does the new virus work? The vast majority of cases are asymptomatic or indistinguishable from the common cold. A small minority of cases affect the lungs. But how it does should be clarified...

I’m deeply saddened to learn that Dr Joseph Sonnabend, one of the most important figures in the history of AIDS, died yesterday. I spent time with him in 2018 for one of the last interviews he ever gave. Let me tell you about this man and what he did:

Sonnabend was one of the first doctors to raise the alarm. In 1979, while running a sexual health clinic in Greenwich Village, he wrote to the NY Health Dept to warn them of the symptoms he was seeing: low white blood cell counts, enlarged lymph nodes. He didn’t get a reply. 2/

So he kept speaking out. When a patient of his developed a very rare cancer – Kaposi’s Sarcoma – he linked up with a dermatologist at NYU who said that over a dozen gay men had it. Sonnabend knew there was something very wrong. He started working at the lab at NYU — for free. 3/

It was soon after this in 1981 that the New York Times famously reported “Rare Cancer Found In 41 Homosexuals”. The next decade would kill most of Sonnabend’s patients and friends — and all of his lovers. What Sonnabend did was to fight for every single of them. 4/

Want to know who was the first to publish advice to wear a condom? That was Sonnabend. In 1983 he co-authored the first safe sex leaflet to fight AIDS: “How To Have Sex In An Epidemic”. 5/

After therapy sessions, it is occurring to me how my parents and maybe most desi parents don't really grow as parents. For example, a person would be a very different to a baby and to a teenager because the needs and vulnerabilities are so different.

But here, I feel that growth for parents stagnants sometime around when a child is 12-13. None of our parents really talk to us about puberty and growing up. None of us are taught or can talk about relationships because of moral reasons. So what do you have?

You have parents who are still parenting their adult children like kids, not apologising to us but asking us to eat, reminding us to wear jackets, locking up cars. They care. But they are coming from a care where the parent is always concerned about keeping the kid safe and alive

which imo really reduces the kind of parental advice and care one needs as an adult. Because adults know enough about the world to no longer be infantilized but we still have parents who expect us to be the same children because they're still the same kind of parents.

This is why so many of our parental relationships are strained or just based on civilities. We're forced to hide a lot from them because parents refuse to grow as parents and acknowledge us as adults. How many of us are still lectured, have curfews, other restrictions?

A week ago I voluntarily admitted myself to the hospital to get help bc I am losing weight as a result of increased food intolerances, secondary to my very severe #MECFS. A psychiatrist here decided that im mentally ill, 1/

purely on the basis that the medical workup was unable to explain my food intolerance. My psych eval only found mild anxiety and depression. 2/

They have put me on a 72hr psych hold while they work to get the county courts to commit me to a psych ward. This is a nightmare. They have taken away most of my belongings, put me in a new uniform, and are keeping me under 24/7 video surveillance. 3/

In the middle of the night last night when I sat up to use the urinal loud alarms sounded, as though I was trying to escape. I can’t even walk and hadn’t even left my bed. 4/

If they succeed in having me fully committed I will lose ability to communicate with the outside world except for an occasional phone call. I will lose all agency, and will very likely have treatments forced upon me. 5/

@MSF was allowed to enter #Mekelle on 16 Dec & here is their account 👇

"no basic supplies. The local hospital was running at 30 to 40 %, with very little medication"

This is why one of the reason why we demand unfetters #HumanitarianCorridor
#TigrayGenocide

#Adigrat "The situation was very tense & its hospital was in a terrible condition. Most of the health staff had left, there were hardly any medicines &there was no food, no water and no money"
#StopWarOnTigray
#TigrayGenocide
#HumanitarianCorridor
#EritreaOutOfTigray

After 1 month since @AbiyAhmedAli declared victory

"#Adwa & #Axum. There we found a similar situation: no electricity & no water. All the medicines had been stolen from #Adwa general hospital & the hospital furniture & equipment were broken"

#StopWarOnTigray
#TigrayGenocide

"Beyond the hospitals, around 80 or 90 per cent of the health centres that we visited between Mekele and Axum were not functional, either due to a lack of staff or because they had suffered robberies"

#StopWarOnTigray
#TigrayGenocide
#EritreaOutOfTigray
@UN @POTUS @StateDept

"1 woman had been in labour for 7 days without being able to give birth. Her life was saved because we were able to transport her to #Mekele"

It is really heartbreaking to imagine how many of our mothers & sister have lost their lives.

#StopWarOnTigray
#TigrayGenocide
@UN