clean air
You should wear a mask! N-95 respirators or better will prevent you from getting sick. COVID, the cold, the flu, etc. You don't need to keep getting sick. You certainly don't need to be permanently disabled and bedridden by getting sick.
(hazel newlevant) covid zine, 2026 ed.
covid zine, 2026 ed. local mirror (pdf)
During the height of the COVID lockdowns - when people still cared - there were people building up memorials in my city to everyone they had lost to COVID. They haven't moved. Along some bike paths, inside some planters along the boardwalk, there are hundreds of rocks painted with acrylics, each with a name and year of death. If you aren't paying attention, they look like time capsules. 2020. 2021. 2022. Look closer, and you'll see 2024, 2025, 2026.
People walk right by these memorials, right by as they walk into a resturant or some other building unmasked. There was a moment in time where everyone was devoted to the common effort to protecting eachother and keeping ourselves safe. Now, they have chosen to avert their gaze entirely, and forget those that have been failed. I wonder what it's like to return to one of these places, dusty and abandoned, to mourn the loss of someone to something that everyone has now collectively decided does not exist.
COVID never ended.
