Imagine me, in business casual (barely), sitting in a dirty Brooklyn dive bar to see one of the DIY punk bands I’ve been following for all of three months. I can barely stay still from the excitement. Yet, I notice, like I always have, that I stick out like a sore thumb. I’m not referring to the business casual attire; we all do what we can to survive in the city.
Regardless, I’ve started to challenge myself and ask, “Do I really stick out at these shows?” Partly because I always end up leaving with a new friend when I attend a show alone.
And mostly because whenever I go to a show, the band’s lead singer stops their set to discuss a political issue that belongs to the ideologies of the left. As a black woman, this makes me feel safe. As an avid music fan and someone who is hyper-fixated on the history of anything and everything, I’m intrigued.
Uncovering Punk’s Anti-Establishment Roots
For the next few days after the concert, I did a deep dive into punk music and its anti-establishment roots. In the mid-70s, the punk subculture emerged in the United Kingdom and New York.
The punk movement began among teens and young adults looking for a more combative approach to rebelling against societal norms compared to the tamer peace and love movements of the 60s and early 70s. Punk music is and has always been grounded in counterculture — from fighting for working-class inequality to fashion to non-conformity in the realm of self-expression.
I discovered that you can’t separate punk music from politics, even in the slightest.
@mycelium_queen Replying to @mycelium_queen ♬ original sound - Mycelium Queen 🦋
Death Versus Bad Brain
As soon as I was old enough to go to shows alone, I submerged myself in the DIY scene. I had no idea what I was doing, I scoured the internet to find “small concerts,” as I called them, in Boston, where I went to high school.
I identified with punk for myself. But when I made the connection between punk and politics, I opened myself up to a whole new world of music.
Lyrics like: “Politicians in my eyes / They could care less about you / they could care less about me as long as they are to end the place they want to be,” from the band Death — considered to be the pioneers of punk music as a genre — spoke to me.
I was even more pleased that the actual founders of the genre — originally a jazz fusion turned hardcore punk band called Bad Brain — were Black Musicians.
I once declared that I’m only an amalgamation of those who came before me, so hearing this quite literally brought tears to my eyes (I’m so far from joking, it’s almost funny again). At my favorite DIY punk, emo, and rock concerts I belong just as much as anyone else.
I’ve always loved that punk music and its subculture take a stand for its listeners.
Feminist Punk: The Riot Grrrl Movement
Shortly after fully immersing myself in the scene, I was introduced to Bikini Kill and the Riot Grrrl movement. Emerging in the early 90’s, the Riot Grrl movement came about out of necessity for a space for women in the punk scene. Riot Grrrl directly combats sexism and works to normalize female anger and sexuality.
In 2023, I began filming a documentary about Boone, North Carolina — a small town rich in music, culture, and activism, especially for the LGBTQ+ community. My production team and I soon noticed that the conversations solely about the music scene quickly became political, especially for Babe Haven, a Riot Grrrl band hailing from Boone.
I now have the pleasure of calling the band members my friends. They’re an integral part of the history of punk and the Riot Grrrl movement, from their songs about objectification of women, like “Uppercut” and “Daddy’s Little Girl” to firsthand accounts of the band from those who believe that punk music has always been all about men — particularly white men.
“Riot grrrl is the way we dress, the way we talk, and the way we stand up for ourselves and other feminine folk. It’s aggressively inclusive, and that’s why we’re so drawn to it. We have on one hand, this outlet for our collective anger and grief, and on the other, we have this platform for queer and feminine celebration.” – Babe Haven
Jonathan Courchesne
Through the Looking Glass
Now, my eyes are peeled for signs and signals of the punk scene and its connection to politics. From the moment of silence for Gaza at a November concert to the New Jersey-based punk band Funeral Doors’ moment of silence for Gaza, and Brooklyn-based band Talon in February.
I remember standing in the crowds at that concert in February as the business casual people entered the bar, expecting a relaxing after-work drink with some light chatter in the background. I watched their faces as they slowly backed out of the door. While they heard howling, the fans listented to Juni, the lead singer of Funeral Doors, screaming, “F*ck trans genocide!”
Everyone was immersed in the safe space the band had provided us. Somewhere in the crowd, there was someone — or 3 or 4 individuals — struggling to truly be who they are. And — if only for a brief moment — they felt like they belonged.
Lead singer of Funeral DoorsERYNN WAKEFIELD
Inevitable Misunderstanding
Although there are essential conversations happening within the punk and DIY communities about what it means to be a part of the subculture, we still have work to do. Recently, I had an extremely jarring experience as I was peacefully scrolling through TikTok.
I came across a string of videos about right-wing punks trying to claim the subculture for themselves. Soon after my feed was flooded with stitches and clapbacks from left-wing people explaining the subculture of punk music and the inability to remove it from left-leaning political discourse.
@c4b1n_1n_th3_wxxds_ Sorry i look kinda bad 💀 ive bad a rough few weeks . . . . . . #punk #punkstyle #punkclothing #punkrock #punkfashion #crustpunk #folkpunk #queer #gay #lgbtq #pride #leftist #leftistpolitics #anarchism #Anarchy #Socialism #anarchocommunism ♬ original sound - C4b1n 🔻
Punk's Proclamation: A Movement Rooted in People’s Power
I’ve said it time and time again: artists must reflect the times. It’s both comforting and empowering that this genre I love so much does not deny me. And it wouldn’t be what it is without me. As silly as it sounds, I often return to a meme, one that declares that people — if they choose to create — need to carry the burden of the world they’re living in. This has only proven to be true.
Punk music and the subculture behind it aren’t merely screaming and studded belts from your local Hot Topic (if they’re a thing anymore). The punk scene highlights the struggles of the working class, sheds light on political issues relating to marginalized groups, fosters community, and fights for what’s right.
Punk music has always held a space for me; all I had to do was claim it.
@wormtriip via Instagram
Is the COVID-19 Vaccine Safe?
This is an extraordinary scientific achievement, but is it safe?
The average vaccine takes approximately 10 years to develop. There are currently two COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna) that will likely be authorized and released to the public within a year of the discovery of the virus. How can a safe vaccine possibly be developed so fast?
These will be the fastest vaccines ever developed, by a margin of years. The next fastest vaccine ever approved for public use was the mumps vaccine, and that took 4 years.
Unfortunately, that speed has made a lot of people nervous. Will the vaccine be safe? Are they skipping steps? How is this process moving so fast?
According to Pew Research, 77% of Americans think it's very or somewhat likely a COVID-19 vaccine will be approved in the United States before its safety and effectiveness are fully understood.
But regardless of the fear and doubt, we need a vaccine. We are now losing over 2,000 American lives per day to COVID-19. Numerous health experts have warned that this pandemic will not truly be over until we have a vaccinated population.
Part of the fear is related to the mystery surrounding the process of vaccine creation. Almost no one who isn't integrally involved in vaccine development understands how long it takes to create a vaccine or why it takes so long. So to most Americans speed doesn't seem like a feat of modern science, it seems like cutting corners. Here are all the (genuinely not scary) reasons why this vaccine is being developed so much faster than any in history.
Operation Warp Speed
Operation Warp Speed (OWS) is a coordinated government effort to defeat this virus as quickly as possible. It is a partnership between the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human services to make resources available to the private companies involved in creating vaccines, testing, and therapeutics for COVID-19. In practice, OWS has focused primarily on the creation of vaccines and has already spent billions ensuring that the vaccine development, manufacturing, and distribution process can move as efficiently as possible.
The US program is bankrolling the development and production of six promising coronavirus vaccine candidates. This has already sped up the process significantly and will likely play an even larger role in the manufacturing process. Medical research of any kind often moves slowly because it's expensive and risky.
Funding is hard to secure, because in order to prove a vaccine is successful (and therefore profitable) you have to have tests, and to do tests, you need money. It's sort of a catch-22 that is only ended when someone decides to make a risky bet.
Betting on vaccines is risky, because if it ends up being unsuccessful (the majority of vaccines never make it to market), that money is just gone. The US government chose to take the gamble.
The US has spent $10 billion through OWS on the most promising vaccine candidates, ensuring they don't have to wait for private funding to move through each phase of the process.
Combining Steps
Many people are concerned that these drug companies are skipping steps in the race to create a vaccine, but what's actually happening is that multiple steps in the process are being done simultaneously.
Steps that are usually done sequentially are being done at the same time. For example, some labs are running combined Phase 1 and Phase 2 human trials or having vaccine development manufacturing facilities ready even before a vaccine is finalized. This increases the financial risk, but not the product risk.
Typically, clinical trials set up their own independent panels of scientists, known as a data safety monitoring board or DSMB, to watch out for safety concerns or early signs of success. But all of the vaccine trials in Operation Warp Speed are sharing a common DSMB. This allows the DSMB to review the data from all the trials from the various vaccines concurrently. That shared data expedites the process and quickly identifies which vaccines are effective and which aren't without wasting time and resources.
Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute of Global Health, explains that this is not a huge difference. "There's really just a subtle difference in how the trials are run. If the trials were separate, you would publish the full data, and then recruit a new set of participants. For a combined trial, the data and safety monitoring board would look at the interim data and determine whether it's still worth continuing the trial." This continuous monitoring cuts the inefficiencies out of the process without changing the safety standards.
Years of Prior Research
The research stage of vaccine development is often one of the longest. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia states that this exploratory phase "often lasts 2-4 years." Thankfully, much of the research needed for the COVID-19 vaccine had already been done before the novel coronavirus even appeared.
The term "coronavirus" includes a family of several known viruses that cause respiratory tract illnesses that range from the common cold to such potentially deadly illnesses as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which killed almost 800 people during an epidemic that occurred in 2002 and 2003. After the SARS outbreak, research on coronaviruses increased significantly. So when SARS-Cov-2 or COVID-19 appeared, vaccine work on some of its relatives had already been underway. This gave scientists a significant head start.
Another way in which scientists weren't exactly starting from scratch on this vaccine is thanks to the messenger RNA or mRNA technology. mRNA technology is a completely new vaccine technology that is being used in both the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine. Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccine use mRNA to trigger the immune system to produce protective antibodies without using actual samples of the virus.
While this mRNA science hasn't created a successful vaccine before now, the ideas behind an mRNA vaccine have been studied and tested extensively for over 30 years.
In the natural world, the body relies on millions of tiny proteins to keep itself alive and healthy, and it uses mRNA to tell cells which proteins to make. The concept behind an mRNA vaccine is simple: If you can design your own synthetic mRNA, you could tell the body to create whatever proteins you want, including antibodies to vaccinate against infection.
Messenger RNA vaccines are a game-changer in terms of speed. The mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are faster to develop as they don't require companies to produce protein or weakened pathogens for the vaccine.
Traditional vaccines typically use a weakened version of the disease or a protein piece of it, but because these are grown in eggs or cells, developing and manufacturing vaccines takes a long time. In contrast, the genetic material mRNA is efficient to make, and highly customizable.
Short but Large Phase 3
When a new vaccine is tested on humans, it is tested in three phases. Each phase increases in size and scope. The length of study for phase 3 clinical trials is usually 1 to 4 years and normally involves 300 to 3,000 patients.
COVID-19 is killing over 2,000 Americans a day, so we don't have time to wait for a lengthy trial. To resolve this issue, they have increased the trial size significantly. Pfizer's phase 3 trial had 43,000 volunteers, and Moderna's had 30,000.
These are what are called "event-driven trials." Basically an event in this case is when one of the volunteers gets sick with COVID-19. Once a trial reaches a previously decided on number of events, they check how many of the people that got sick were given the real vaccine and how many were given the placebo. This shows how effective the vaccine actually was.
The incredibly large trial size and the prevalence of the disease has allowed the "events" to occur quickly, making it easy to test the efficacy of the vaccine. Normally clinical trials can be held back by low volunteer numbers and low disease prevalence. However, COVID-19 spreads rapidly and pretty much all adults seem to be susceptible, which makes these problems irrelevant.
The only downside of a shorter but larger trial is that you don't get to see what long-term effects the vaccine will have. But scientists agree that the chances of long-term complications are extremely unlikely because of how vaccines work. Deborah Fuller, Ph.D, who is a vaccine scientist with UW Medicine, explains, "Most of their job is done in the first few days, then the vaccine is gone from your body. So what's left is that immune response to the vaccine."
Emergency Use Authorization
At the end of the vaccine making process, when the trials are finished and the research is done, companies submit a Biologics License Application (BLA) to the FDA. The BLA usually takes about a year to gain approval. To speed up the process, COVID-19 vaccines are seeking an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) before they are even done collecting data.
Under an EUA, a company can produce and distribute a vaccine that hasn't officially been approved. This is a process meant for one purpose: to save lives. The FDA will only grant an EUA if they believe that the expected benefits outweigh the possible risks of the vaccine.
Early in the pandemic, the FDA issued a list of requirements they would need from a company before they would consider issuing an EUA for a vaccine. Those guidelines included information about how many people had to be involved in trials, how long the follow up with them had to be, and what information had to be included in their reports.
To ensure that this EUA isn't about cutting corners, the FDA has appointed an independent advisory board to aid them in their decision about the vaccine. On Thursday this week the FDA is scheduled to convene a meeting of that advisory board, known as VRBPAC, to review Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use authorization.
This vaccine is coming, and it's coming quickly. At first that might seem scary, but in reality it's just a perfect confluence of events that have allowed scientific minds to do the impossible. Operation Warp Speed, years of usable research, combining steps, a differently designed phase 3, and emergency use authorizations have all come together to create the perfect situation to make a safe and effective vaccine—in record time.
For more well-researched, unbiased information on today's biggest issues, follow Alexandra's Instagram account The Factivists.
How To Interpret COVID-19 Statistics
How are the powers that be twisting the facts?
Mark Twain once observed, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Those in the legal profession might say: "There are three kinds of liars: simple liars, damned liars, and experts."
Data can be manipulated and presented to support a specific narrative or a particular conclusion. Because of this, you'd be well advised to seek out and analyze data for yourself, as opposed to allowing others to summarize and present that data for you.
A number of data sources are particularly helpful regarding the COVID pandemic. Instead of relying on others to draw conclusions from raw data, you're better off analyzing for yourself.
Three things really matter in the discussion of COVID-19:
The Infection Rate
The infection rate not only tells us about the spread of the virus; ultimately it informs about the lethality of the coronavirus. Of course, lethality is difficult to measure during an outbreak, especially when so many infections are asymptomatic.
Indeed, a Penn State University study estimates that the number of people infected in March 2020 was 80 times the officially reported number (in other words, there were 8.7 million more infected people in March than reported).
Estimates of lethality vary, but the early projection of 3.4% from the WHO appears to be wildly overstated. Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford makes the case for a lethality of 0.25%. You can monitor the confirmed infection rate for yourself on a daily basis, including by state, at a helpful site from USA Today that posts data from Johns Hopkins University.
By watching this number – a minimum (as stated by USA Today), due to the great number of asymptomatic and unreported cases – you can correlate the rate of infection with other key metrics.
As of today, the new cases curve looks like this:
The Death Rate
Bearing in mind that any death in which the deceased has tested positive for Covid has been classified as a "Covid death" regardless of other contributing factors, you can monitor daily deaths at the same USA Today site.
Safeguarding human life should be our main concern, so please look at the data critically. On June 25th, for example, a spike appears in the data which, after digging through data state-by-state, incorporates results from a retroactive reclassification of ~1,800 deaths in New Jersey as COVID-related.
It's helpful to cross reference with the Worldometer site to identify any large daily discrepancies that could result from retroactive changes. By watching this number, including data concerning state levels, you can begin to correlate the tragic human toll of this disease with infection rate and public policy.
You can also start to draw conclusions as to both lethality and improvements in treatment over time. As of today, the death rate curve looks like this:
June 25th reclassification of ~1800 deaths by NJ.
The need to "bend the curve" and avoid overwhelming our hospitals initially drove the lockdown strategy. So, understanding the actual rate of hospitalization nationally remains very important. The CDC publishes that rate on a weekly basis, helpfully sorted by age group.
As of July 4th the hospitalization curve looks like this:
In addition, the CDC publishes state by state data with regard to hospitalizations so you can see the situation on the ground. As of July 10th, Arizona has an in-patient COVID occupancy of 28.4%, followed by Texas and Florida at 16% each.
The national picture looks like this:
Realize that these important metrics only take into account the COVID variable itself; they don't deal with the economic and collateral public health consequences of public policy. As public health officials - such as Dr. Fauci - clearly state, they don't advise on economics or on the broader impact of health policy recommendations.
I suspect that most people are quite able to judge the impact of policy on themselves, their families, and their communities.
The point of this article is to encourage everyone to take advantage of the information that is readily available - and the above is only a start. You should think critically and form your own opinions.
Obviously, any data set will be a snapshot of a given moment, but it allows you to access that data and monitor it over time.
Margaret Caliente is a professional athlete turned internet entrepreneur and Manhattan-based journalist.Coronavirus Updates: Can Asymptomatic Carriers SpreadCOVID-19?
New evidence suggests asymptomatic transmission is less likely than previously thought.
On Monday, a representative from the World Health Organization called asymptomatic transmissions of the coronavirus "very rare." This was quickly bolstered by conservative lawmakers to call for the end of social distancing guidelines and the mandatory wearing of face masks. Many health experts and scientists questioned WHO's statement, citing a lack of evidence.
Today, WHO has walked back their original statement, clarifying that the observation "was based on a relatively small set of studies," and, "Evidence suggests people with symptoms are most infectious, but the disease can be passed on before they develop."
So What Happened?
Essentially, the original statement was referring to a small set of data from various countries in instances where an asymptomatic case had been followed up and secondary infections among the asymptomatic person's contact had been sought out. This data suggested that infections among the people the asymptomatic person had come in contact with were "very rare."
The WHO emphasized today that there is no way of knowing if this trend is true on a global scale.
According to the BBC, the Director of the WHO's health emergencies program, Dr Michael Ryan, said he was "absolutely convinced" asymptomatic transmission was occurring, but "the question is how much."
What Exactly Does Asymptomatic Mean, Anyway?
According Dr Van Kerkhove, the WHO's head of emerging diseases, there are three categories within the designation of "asymptomatic."
- People who never develop symptoms (asymptomatic)
- People who test positive when they don't yet have symptoms - but go on to develop them (pre-symptomatic)
- People with very mild or atypical symptoms who do not realise they have coronavirus
Should I Continue to Social Distance and Wear a Mask?
Yes. There is still so much that experts don't know about the spread of COVID-19, so while some evidence may suggest the virus isn't as easily passed on by as many people as previously thought, that doesn't mean you won't contract the virus if you aren't careful.
Could Vitamin D Help Treat COVID-19?
New studies show a correlation between COVID-19 deaths and low levels of the "sunshine vitamin."
Vitamin D has long been a useful warrior in the fight against disease, but now some studies are hinting that it might help fight COVID-19.
In this day and age, everyone is desperately looking for a cure, the Internet is rife with misinformation, and nothing is certain about vitamin D yet. But several promising studies have found that lower levels of vitamin D can put patients at increased risk of death from COVID-19, while higher levels might increase patients' chances of survival.
An April 9 study from the Philippines measured vitamin D levels in 212 coronavirus patients and found that patients with lower Vitamin D levels had relatively mild symptoms, while patients with deficiencies tended to grow much sicker. Prior to that, an Indonesian study from May said that "majority of the COVID-19 cases with insufficient and deficient vitamin D status died."
A similar study from Northwestern University explored 10 countries and also "found a correlation between low vitamin D levels and hyperactive immune systems." Most recently, a new study from Trinity in Ireland came to the same conclusions, also finding that lower levels of vitamin D are linked to a higher mortality rate for COVID patients.
Vitamin D plays an important role in the body's immune response. It may also be able to help heal compromised respiratory functions, according to Newsweek. COVID-19 is still a relatively unknown disease, but it is believed that the virus creates what's called a cytokine storm in patients. That means that the body produces a superabundance of messenger proteins called cytokines, which can lead to inflammation in the lungs. Vitamin D can help prevent the release of cytokines.
These studies are inconclusive, and clinical trials are just beginning. "If vitamin D levels are really a marker for better diet, or more access to healthcare, or any of a variety of other variables that are not statistically assessed, then it is not the vitamin D that is the cause of the better or worse outcomes but rather the other factors," said Daniel Culver, Director of the Interstitial Lung Disease Program in the Department of Pulmonary, Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.
To be clear, vitamin D is not a miracle cure. "We found no clinical evidence on vitamin D in COVID-19," scientists from Oxford University wrote after their study. "There was no evidence related to vitamin D deficiency predisposing to COVID-19, nor were there studies of supplementation for preventing or treating COVID-19."
Still, because it's relatively harmless, some countries are now calling for widespread dissemination of vitamin D supplements and advising people to pay attention to their own levels. It's important to note that it is possible to ingest too much vitamin D, but a few supplements, some eggs, or some extra (safe) sunshine is probably as good a prescription as any during these isolated times.