Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz denounced people skirting COVID-19 safety measures in a Monday tweet thread.
Lorenz, who previously expressed her support for mask and vaccine mandates surrounding COVID-19, posted the thread shortly after sharing an article by the Boston Globe titled, "Long COVID affects millions. What is being done about it?" The article cites roughly 18 million American adults reportedly experience at least one COVID-19 symptom that has lasted 12 weeks or longer after infection, 14 million of which claim their symptoms effect their daily life.
"I am so sick of people organizing indoor, unmasked events w/ zero covid safety precautions using disabled/sick family members or friends as a cudgel to abdicate responsibility for keeping attendees & workers safe," said Lorenz in a Monday afternoon tweet. "If my family member did this I'd be livid"
"They're always like, I have a sick [insert relative or friend] too, what am I supposed to do? You're supposed to institute basic safety precautions so ur not asking press, workers, etc to risk their lives to attend ur stupid event!" Lorenz said in criticism of people not following COVID-19 safety measures during public events.
"There are ways to host safe indoor events, but none of these event organizers care to put in the effort to do that, because fundamentally they do not care about spreading a deadly and disabling virus. It's not a priority because they think bc they're healthy it won't affect them."
"I'm pretty open on here about being severely immunocompromised, if ur inviting me to an indoor, crowded event with ZERO precautions, I'm going to call u on it," Lorenz continued. "Not all medically vulnerable ppl have the platform I do, or the ability to say no to stupid press events and conventions."
"& asking for proof of vaxx alone is meaningless when it comes to covid safety," Lorenz said in response to one user pointing out Online News Association's (ONA) conference ONA22's COVID-19 policies. "Vaccinated ppl can and do spread covid. It's pure theater to act like checking vaxx status alone keeps us safe. Masks, ventilation, on-site testing, etc are all effective layers"
"If ur hosting an event, outline covid safety precautions early, clearly, and stick to them," Lorenz continued in response to another user. "We are still in a pandemic, long covid continues to disable millions, and thousands are still dying (many old and vulnerable) You should care about protecting them."
