It is hard to overstate what a catastrophic failure the Govt & SAGE’s policy of continual restrictions & lockdown has been.

Not only has it caused economic devastation & misery for millions, it has not stopped high rates & surges in infections, hospitalisations & deaths.

A staple of anti-lockdown conspiracism in yoga/wellness is that public health measures are oppressive, authoritarian, and stifling what it means to be human. Masks suppress identity and speech. Vaccines assault the sovereign body. Influencers must rise up against tyranny! /1

Ironically, pandemic management in economies where yoga/wellness is lucrative has been a neoliberal, choose-your-own-adventure mess in which centre-right governments barter with public health to enact a patchwork of half-measures that punish the poor and marginalized. /2

The goal is not universal health rights, or protecting medical systems, or saving as many lives as possible. The goal is to return to business-as-usual, using public health as a pit stop on a productivity race off a cliff. The ice caps aren’t melting fast enough, I guess. /3

Right-leaning governments, like influencers, have assessed the COVID threat with the magical bias of limitless optimism. Then they work to normalize COVID casualties as a new cost of doing business. *This* is what alt-healthers and Qamoms call “socialist”, or “communist”. /4

Centre-right governments and wellness influencers share a goal: get back to the optimism of making productivity heroic and consumption virtuous, without any reflection on structural issues of injustice, or what universal health care funding and standards would look like. /5

THIS IS A CATCHY & ATTENTION-GRABBING TITLE

Today, the Province will likely announce what zone of the reopening framework we'll shift into as of Tuesday. Whatever is announced, though, doesn't change what we need to do. Why?

Kindly read these 14 tweets & we'll tell you. (1/14)

Fun fact: COVID-19 does not follow us on Twitter. COVID doesn't know, or particularly care, if we're in the Red or Orange zone.

The behaviours of the virus do not depend on the current ‘zone’ of public health restrictions. And, to be perfectly candid, neither should ours. (2/14)

Once upon a time we used to say #WeAreInThisTogether in our messaging. Here's the thing: we are, but we aren't. Not everyone is experiencing this pandemic the same.

Nurses, doctors, paramedics & healthcare workers have experienced things much differently than most of us. (3/14)

Some people have been home & isolated for months, while others haven't been able to stop working.

Business owners & hospitality workers have been on a rollercoaster of openings & closures.

Students, parents, teachers & school staff have had to adapt to going from online (4/14)

to in-person learning (and back again) numerous times.
And this virus has disproportionately affected some groups more than others.

But there's the thing: while our experiences of this pandemic haven't been shared, we do have a shared goal.

And we can reach it together. (5/14)

Autistic behaviours that are generally discriminated against, despite being harmless and just how we are.

A thread🧵

1. Stimming - repetitive physical movement to help regulate our stress levels. They feel nice and are really helpful but people seem to hate to see it. #autism

2. No eye contact. We generally find this too intimate and intense, and will avoid. It can even cause pain if forced. But people don't trust us even though we inform them we're autistic. #autism

3. Sitting in 'odd' positions. We're often very bendable - remember Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a common comorbidity - and loads of feel more comfortable in slightly contorted positions. People always comment 'you can't be comfy like that'.

Yes. Yes I can. #autism

4. Stammering when excited. We can get so passionate about some subjects that we struggle to get the words out as they all get caught in the annoying bottleneck of actually having to leave our mouths. But it irritates people, makes them assume we're somehow lesser. #autism