A Dementia-Like Illness Has Sickened Over 40 People in Canada

Doctors in Canada are puzzled over a cluster of people coming down with a dementia-like brain disorder with no known diagnosis. Over the past half-decade, dozens of residents in New Brunswick are thought to have developed the condition, which includes symptoms such as memory loss, behavioral changes, and hallucinations. It is still unknown whether these cases are indeed linked or what the cause could be.

CBC News reported this month that health officials in New Brunswick sent out a memo in early March to doctors in the area alerting them to the cluster. According to the memo, the likely first case of this mystery condition was reported in 2015. As of now, there have been 43 suspected cases identified, including six in 2021, across all age groups. Five people so far have died.

40 people in Canada were elected President of the United States??!

 

And then there are these asshoes…

Y’all Going to Keep Wearing the Masks After This?

Last week, a couple of my fully vaccinated friends got into a lengthy debate over the future of their post-pandemic faces. They both agreed that covid notwithstanding, 2020 was a banner year for not getting sick with the kind of cruddy little nothing illnesses that generally torment one in a normal year of interacting with people. However, while one friend maintained that he’s going to keep wearing his mask in public spaces even after it’s not legally and morally required to do so, the other couldn’t wait to rip his off. It poses an interesting question: what the fuck are we supposed to do when all this is over?

NPR presents some pretty strong evidence that masking up, staying socially distant, and avoiding public places when we are sick has had predictable results—people are not as sick with the normal colds and flus as they normally are. Pediatric patients with respiratory illnesses are down 62 percent, likely because they haven’t been in their little germ boxes all day five days a week sneezing into one another’s mouths, and flu deaths among adults are also way down this year. And even as the masses get vaccinated and begin to move about the country a little more freely, many hospitals are contemplating keeping their mask mandates in place permanently, which seems wise as, by their very nature, most of the people in them are sick and some are contagious.

And these asshoes!

America’s Obsession With Wipes Is Tearing Up Sewer Systems

Even before the pandemic, Americans were already flushing far too many wipes into the sewer system. After a year of staying at home, the pipe-clogging problem has gotten worse.

Just ask Larry Hare, who says he immediately observed the change from his vantage point as the manager at a wastewater reclamation facility in Des Moines, Iowa.

Sewer backups are up 50%, and he attributes this to the flushing of wipes, which don’t break down in water like toilet paper. “We’ve always had the problem, but it just hasn’t been as big a problem as it is currently,” Hare said.

With consumers cleaning everything from counters to doorknobs in hopes of thwarting the coronavirus, sanitary wipes are more popular than ever. In the 12 months through late January, their sales surged 75%, according to data from Nielsen. But the blockages they create when flushed — dubbed fatbergs — have become a costly headache. The Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority has spent more than $100,000 over the past year and deployed specialized block-clearing trucks about 30 times, according to Hare. Similar problems are plaguing cities and towns across the U.S., and they’re being forced to spend more and more on fixing the problem.

 

On a personal note, I call to you, the good people of Glibertaria, to back me in my quest to be the Youth Inaugural Poet in 2024. Petition your congresspeople, protest your local poetry bureaucracies, riot at your state poetry warehouses, descend like locusts on the campaigns of my foes.

SUGARFREE FOR INAUGURAL POET 2024!

I swear I will do us all proud.