Items

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  2020-05-27

  Is My Medication Safe? Securing & Disposing of Old Medicine

  A blog post from Banner Health on how to safely dispose of and store medications.
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  2020-03-23

  Banner Health experts warn against self-medicating to prevent or treat COVID-19

  Medical toxicologists and emergency physicians are warning the public against the use of inappropriate medications and household products to prevent or treat COVID-19. In particular, Banner Health experts emphasize that chloroquine, a malaria medication, should not be ingested to treat or prevent this virus.
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  2020-11-10

  Banner Health COVID-19 update in Arizona from November 10, 2020

  A press release from Banner health on November 10, 2020, giving an update on Covid-19 in Arizona.
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  2021-07-13

  Indonesia’s Daily Cases Surpass India, Marking New Epicenter

  Indonesia surpassed India’s daily Covid-19 case numbers, marking a new Asian virus epicenter as the spread of the highly-contagious delta variant drives up infections in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. The country has seen its daily case count cross 40,000 for three straight days -- including a record high of 54,517 on Wednesday -- up from less than 10,000 a month ago. Officials are concerned that the more transmissible new variant is now spreading outside of the country’s main island, Java, and could exhaust hospital workers and supplies of oxygen and medication. Indonesia’s current numbers are still far from India’s peak of 400,000 daily cases in May, and its total outbreak of 2.7 million is barely a tenth of the Asian giant’s 30.9 million. India, with a population roughly five times the size of Indonesia’s 270 million people, saw daily infections drop below 39,000 on Wednesday as its devastating outbreak wanes. The Southeast Asian country reported about 900 deaths daily on average in the past seven days -- compared to just 181 a month ago -- while India reported an average of 1,027 daily fatalities.
• 
  2019

  Men In The Mirror

  These are all doodles I made during the pandemic when I felt myself crashing, self-sabotaging, or just critical condition emotionally. The drawing on the left is the most recent drawing I made. It shows that I have a heart that is depressed and a mind that is rotting away with a confused face. In the background, you also see the word help radiate from me. This symbolizes how I feel about my education. I feel like, during the pandemic, I'm not able to bounce ideas back and forth on my own, so being alone, I get lost and overcrowded. The one on the top right also expresses my view of myself. It shows that I have a bright flame that either gets drowned with depression or fueled with anger. This relates to the pandemic because when everything got shut down, I Felt very divided with what I was doing and who I was. Lastly, the bottom right picture shows me at a table looking at my hands with a bowl of fruit and pills. This was drawn about halfway through my fall 2020 semester because I have focused on medication. Still, they made me also feel emotionless and more confused about my own personal identity and where my heart was with my art if I can't express it. After this drawing, I became numb and ended up not doing most of my finals and leaving me empty for a while during winter break. The only thing that got me out was seeing my family again after seven months of not really seeing anyone close to me. I also stopped taking meds and had a withdrawal effect at the begging of my spring semester. Now I'm just trying to keep my head up to return to normalcy and see my friends that closely monitored me before knowing how I get affected by certain things.
• 2020-11-10

  Roommate Inresponsibble

  My roommate keep going out and seeing other people even tho the US is in its worst right now, so I and my other roommate came together and said he had to change the way he was dealing with the pandemic, he didn't, so I had to move out in the middle of the semester, because I am in a risk group, due to the medicine a take (it lowers my immune system).
• 
  2020-09-18

  Sex Work in Africa During Covid-19

  As subsaharan Africa already had a pandemic of HIV/AIDS prior to Covid, it has made sex work even more dangerous in Africa. For many, it has also lead to a reduced income and increased harassment.
• 0202-10-15

  Fears of COVID from within the archive

  Yesterday was my first official day as a curator at A Journal of the Plague Year. The only feelings I had were of complete joy and gratitude to be able to have a job, one where I get to do something that interests me, at that. But as the day went on, I began to feel something that many have tweeted about. I started to feel achy and I was coughing. Some have tweeted something like, "is it allergies or COVID?", and while I should have reflected on the fact that I had not taken my crucial allergy medicine in two days (I am severely allergic to dogs, yet I have two of them in my small apartment), I spent a good hour bundled up and lying in bed. By the afternoon, I felt completely fine. It was one thing when I would have these fleeting moments of panic, or see people online posting about their own, in the past. But it seemed to be a particularly interesting moment that right when I start a job at an archive documenting the COVID-19 pandemic, I experience one of the specific anxieties of actually living in that pandemic. I think this short instant shows how the the pandemic is both all-encompassing of everyday life and shows up in particular moments. It is at the same time impersonal and extremely personal. Despite the fact that even the illusion of being an observer is inherently participation, in one moment I went from being an outside observer of the pandemic to being subject to the worries it causes.
• 
  March 24, 2020

  My medicine barely works anymore and I keep forgetting to take it

  Because of my situation and the new amount of stress and separation from people my medicine isn’t necessarily working now so stuff like memory loss and loss of focus has increased for me. My new hobby is staring off into space.
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  2020-06-15

  Changing FDA Drug guidelines

  The FDA, the President, and the American public has had a tense relationship with hydroxychloroquine since it was first hailed as a potential cure for the coronavirus. The president has said that he takes it himself, that it can produce very good results, and other claims in a similar vein. The FDA has taken a step that pushes back on this narrative, pulling emergency usage of the drug and stating that it does not have serious applicability as a potential cure.
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  2020-03-17

  Accessing Healthcare and Preparing for the Worst

  The attached image is a screenshot from an Instagram story I posted on March 17, making light at the end of a few days of attempting to access medicine and joke about my growing confidence in my ability to handle the pandemic situation, even if I did end up ill. Directly following the declaration of a state of emergency in Ontario, in March, I realized I was running low on a maintenance prescription I take and had no refills left on it. To have my family doctor back home, in Ottawa, fax it to a pharmacy in the London, where I was attending the University of Western Ontario at the time, it usually costs $30 out of pocket, so I wanted to see if I could get an appointment before I tried that. I checked the student health website to see if they were restricting appointments and all seemed normal so I called. Plus, with my asthma and history of respiratory infections, I thought it would be a good idea to have a Flovent (steroid) puffer (inhaler) on hand in case I do get sick. I was on hold for 40 mins only to have the receptionist get exceptionally snarky with me and eventually tell me they were not taking regular appointments at that time. So, I called my family physician's office and they/she not only faxed the prescription I was low on but also the puffer and waved the renewal fee. The receptionist said many doctors are doing this to avoid people requesting in person appointments to have prescriptions done, as those are covered in socialized health care. Having the puffer available to me if I began having difficulty breathing is greatly reassuring both in that I would be less likely to require other medical intervention with it at my disposal, but also that I would not be taking up resources from someone who might have the disease worse or be at a higher risk than me, an otherwise health young woman.
• 
  04/18/2020

  Masks Reveal the Struggle Ahead

  I added this because, as frustrated as I am about the continued practice of physical distancing and because I am concerned about the economy, the science surrounding the virus is clear: too easily transmitted, not enough tests, and widespread ignorance. This photo and post spoke to me. From the post that goes with it: "Here’s what I can tell you after 5 days of taking care of COVID19 patients sick enough to need the hospital but not sick enough to need the ICU: this is the weirdest fucking virus I have ever seen (except maybe HIV). The constellation of symptoms that we see is honestly mind boggling. The people who seem fine and the crash. The people who I think will crash but are fine. The people who have absolutely none of the most common symptoms. The people who check every box on the symptom list. At this point everyone has it until proven otherwise (twice). The surge is on, and we are holding steady. It is *just* manageable. We are doing it but with stress to the teams and the system. If you think the country is ready for business as usual, I disagree. We aren’t there yet. We need tests (yes. We stillllllll can’t test everyone). We need a vaccine. And we need effective medication. We are working our asses of. We need more time. Thank you so much for staying home!!!"