SARS-COV-2 and PACS: What is Covid-19?

The virus is scientifically known as SARS-COV-2. SARS stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome. SARS-COV-2 is considered a BSL-3 virus.Since the start of the pandemic, from the naming of the virus to the lack of transparency and accurate public health guidance, there was a concentrated effort by public health institutions and political leaders to downplay and mislead the public about the virus' severity and everyone's need for high standard airborne precautions.BSL means Bio Safety Level. At this level, a pathogen causes serious or potentially lethal disease through inhalation. Airborne transmission, aerosols, can spread quickly, far, and linger in a space for hours.While it spreads through respiratory transmission it is a vascular disease. Even the "mildest" infection can have long term, dangerous impacts you may not be able to recognize immediately! The risk of these dangers increases with each infection - your vascular system and blood vessels go to every single major organ in your body.Remember, where the blood flows, the infection goes!

What does SARS-Cov-2 do?

Below are explainer guides and art breaking down the dangers of covid, it's impacts, and how to protect yourself!

• BIRCH POSTERS
• Covid 101 Explainer Guide
• T-Cells and Covid Explainer Guide

SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) and PACS (Long Covid)
dangers and impact

Below are links to various databases or collections of articles, scientific studies, and reports demonstrating the dangers of SARS-Cov-2 and Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome. We recommend checking the People's CDC website for less academic and more accessible public health messaging. A link to their website can be found in the education section.If you have a collection of studies or just more accessible reading on health impacts of Covid that can be added, please contact us!

• Covid Lists
• CovidStudies
• Links for Studies and Sites
• LitCovid
• LongCovid Links

• Pediatric Long Covid Research
• Peer Review Study Links
• Resources Long Covid
• Studies and Articles Database

• The COVID-Conscious Toolkit
• What Covid Does to the Body (1st Ed)
• What SARS-CoV-2 Does to the Body (2nd Ed)

• Covid Meetups

Covid Meetups is an initiative by the World Health Network, a global coalition devoted to protecting health and minimizing harm to individuals and society formed as a people's task force in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A service for COVID careful folks to connect in their local area!

• Still Coviding

This is a community calendar of virtual events hosted by a variety of people and small orgs/groups. The calendar & these events are intended for all those who are “still coviding” (covid cautious, covid safe, covid informed). Learn more about what the community term "still coviding" means!

• Long Covid

This list was prepared by the Body Politic COVID-19 Support Group and is featured on the Long Covid Justice site. Every group listed is patient-led, which means that patients lead and help moderate the groups.

• Can I get COVID outdoors?

Yes! There's still a chance of catching COVID even at an outdoor event — especially as the virus continues evolving to become more transmissible and to break through prior immunity from vaccination or earlier cases. This COVID FAQ resource also includes a printable poster on how to cut risks.

• How to Collect a Sample for Rapid Antigen Tests

This is an instructional pdf from Ontario Health for collecting samples with rapid test, for both a nose swab and a throat swab. The People's CDC shared that a recent study showed that a throat swab will have higher clinical sensitivity than the usual instructed nasal swab.

• John Snow Project

An educational website with various resources on airborne transmission and protections. "We know how to solve the problem and we already have the tools to do it, but the world has chosen to do nothing. Future historians will be perplexed by our willingness to knowingly breathe contaminated air, but one day we will take clean air for granted - just like clean water. Our aim is to accelerate that change."

• People's CDC

The People’s CDC provides guidance and policy recommendations to governments and the public on COVID-19, disseminating evidence-based updates that are grounded in equity, public health principles, and the latest scientific literature. Their weekly COVID-19 Weather Reports give information as well as weekly guidance on combatting COVID-19.Read the weather reports here!

• What to Do if You Have COVID

A guide created by The People's CDC for preparing for illness, preventing spread to others, managing symptoms, and recovery. Clean Air Club also has a helpful document that you can use to create a plan for yourself and your loved ones should you test positive for covid.

• Ableism Pocket Pop Ed

"Pocket Pop Eds are tools that you can use to support conversations with your friends, families, and wider communities about issues that impact us as mad, neurodivergent and disable people."

• advanced covid faq

Jewish Covid Resilience Network created a page of Frequently Asked Questions about the (advanced!) whys and hows of living both responsibly and joyously in the era of covid. The page includes special attention to how our emotional needs influence how we are able to respond to covid.

• How to talk to your loved ones about covid

A living document resource created by a multiracial, multiethnic and international group of queer, disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent writers, workers, artists, and organizers from various socioeconomic backgrounds and different sets of lived experiences.

• Long COVID is a Trans Issue

A 1hr and 41 minute long webinar hosted by Trans Equity with Long COVID Justice. Long Covid Justice also has a resource list available from the webinar and the slides are also available.

• Ableism Enables All Forms of ...

Ableism Enables All Forms of Inequity and Hampers All Liberation Efforts. Ableism has been used for generations to degrade, oppress, control and disappear disabled and nondisabled people alike. Article by George Yancy.

• Death Panel Podcast

Politics, culture, and public policy from the left. Medicare for All now. Solidarity forever. Stay alive another week. Hosted by Beatrice Adler-Bolton, Artie Vierkant, Phil Rocco, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Abby Cartus.

• Eugenics and Public Health

Hiding in Plain Sight: Public Health, Eugenics, and COVID-19 published by Laura I Appleman.

• Let them Eat Plague

"Here’s the truth: the pandemic is not over. It’s much worse than you have been led to believe. And unless you’ve spent the past several years reading scientific studies on the subject, it can be hard to convey just how wrong the public perception of COVID really is. Everything from how it’s spread, to how it’s prevented, to what it does once it’s in your body, is being tragically misunderstood."

• What is Ableism?

A working definition last updated in January 2022 blog post from Talila A. Lewis.

• What is Disability Justice?

From Sins Invalid: "What follows is a working draft definition of disability justice. This is a living document that grows and changes along with our emerging movement. It marks a point of departure rather than a destination. It is an invitation to those of us working on disability issues, to continue to support one another to find a language as powerful and expansive as our movement’s vision. "

• You Are Not Entitled To Our Deaths

You are not entitled to our deaths: COVID, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence, published blog post on January 16, 2022 by Mia Mingus.

• Armbrust

Medical-grade surgical masks made in Austin, Texas. Carries elastomeric, KN95, and surgical masks for adult and children. They also have a sampler pack available!

• Bona Fide Masks

As 4th generation family owned and operated business, their mission is to bring authentic masks to everyone! They are now the EXCLUSIVE distributor of Powecom ® KN95 products and Harley KN95 products in the U.S. and Canada. Bona Fide Masks offers low wholesale and bulk pricing available for commercial, education, healthcare, non-profit, and government organizations.

• Planet Halo

Planet Halo Health is a major distribution center in the United States for PPE. Their distribution network extends to B2B, government agencies, healthcare facilities, and the consumer market. Planet Halo Health also verifies the efficacy and breathability of their masks by doing independent tests, to ensure the BFE, PFE, and Pascals meet best protection methods per CDC guidelines, and comfort for their clients.

• Stauffer Safety

As a 5th generation, family-owned PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) manufacturer and importer, Stauffer has formed close partnerships with suppliers such as 3M, Ansell, Dupont, Protective Industrial Products, Honeywell and more, over several decades of service in the safety industry, with distribution centers strategically positioned near key customers to tailor customized services and local inventory to customers’ specific needs.

Advocacy Toolkits

• ADA+ Rights Workshop

On May 8th, 2023, the People’s CDC along with some colleagues hosted a training webinar on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and how to invoke it to garner COVID mitigation from medical care professionals.

• Covid Precautions Proposal

This downloadable template could be helpful for asking any group, organization, event, or employer to strengthen their covid precautions and offer suggestions with citations. Within this proposal document template, there's also a link to a spreadsheet template to present cost options, and a link to a canva template for signs about mask requirements.

• Know Your Rights

This is a “Know Your Rights” toolkit that covers rights and strategies for people facing potential triage discrimination based on disability or weight, alone or in combination with other characteristics, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

• a long winter crip survival guide for pandemic year 4/forever

Created by by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Tina “constant tt” Zavitsanos. Various "hacks we have figured out to make being together in the long winter more possible. not all of this will work for everyone. all of us are swimming with different seas of risk and choices we make and conditions that change every day. this is also not an exhaustive list, just a beginning place of gathering tools together. take what works for you and leave the rest, experiment, play with it, add your own."

• COVID Protection Guidelines for Groups

"The guidelines in this template are based on the People’s CDC’s Safer Gatherings Guide and the principle of layers of protection/the “Swiss Cheese Model.” "While I’ve tried to universalize as best I can for a general template, you may have to change a lot or a little to fit your circumstances. The information you provide and the guidelines you suggest are going to differ based on the existing awareness and opinions of your group, the availability of resources like PPE, testing, and filtration to group members, and the mission of your group."

• Notes on policies & strategies from the Brooklyn Art Book Fair

"We're the organizing team of the 2023 Brooklyn Art Book Fair, which was a fully-masked event spanning three days with over 3,000 visitors. Since we experienced a high compliance rate with our mask policy, some individuals and organizations reached out with questions on how we made it happen. We thought we'd compile a bit about our goals, policies, and strategies to make a Covid-safer event! We hope this doc might help other organizations who’d like to implement similar requirements."

• Paths to Healthy Learning

This guide was put together by WHN’s School Safety Team. It uses recommendations from the CDC [1], White House [2], EPA [3], and ASHRAE [4], all of whom acknowledge that COVID-19 travels in aerosols that can linger and build up indoors, making the risk of infection in indoor buildings such as schools extremely high unless actions are taken to reduce risks.

Tips and Tools

• BIObot Analytics

This chart shows the SARS-CoV-2 virus concentration present in samples of wastewater taken from across the United States. The level of virus in wastewater is a leading indicator, meaning it precedes the change in clinical case counts or hospitalizations.

• Clean Air Crew

Clean Air Crew provides collection of tips & tools for an airborne pandemic. This is a growing collection of information, curated from the growing pool of COVID prevention resources created by various experts. It is a living document, and a work in progress.

• Covid Safety Resource List

A resource list for day to day prevention and covid safety basics compiled by Violet Blue, who also shares weekly roundups of Covid-19 pandemic information.

• micro COVID Project

This calculator lets you estimate COVID risk and find effective safety measures for customizable situations. Examples: how risky is a trip to my grocery store? What's the safest way to see a friend? How much would it help to wear a better mask at my workplace?

• So Ya Wanna Buy a Portable HEPA Filter

A slide deck from Indoor Air Care Advocates offering a summary of current scientific knowledge and best practices as documented by authoritative experts.