Andrea Barrett

Artist-Activist 🌈🛡 NHSE Patient Safety Partner & NHSBT Patient Rep🫀♻💙 Campaigner @cv_cev @CleanAirHants @HeartOfThe_Arts #Transplant #Cancer #EBV #LC #ND

[Andrea Barrett @andreabarrett__]

Update about my legal challenge in relation to right to wear a mask indoors when voting, a thread. #MyMaskMyVote 🧵⤵️ 1/12

[Andrea Barrett @andreabarrett__]

Please support my taking a stand and refusing to remove my mask when government representatives made my accessing public services contingent on de-masking. 😷😷😷

My legal action is about health autonomy & upholding at-risk rights. 👇

https://t.co/EgLRvoQQ2k

[Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA @michael_hoerger]

The CDC says to wear an "N95 respirator or higher" against Andes virus.

It's #airborne.

[Canary @TheCanaryUK]

The DWP is an absolute clusterfuck.

This time they've been miscalculating payments, issuing overpayments, and demanding “repayment” from claimants who they blame. Sound familiar?

@RachelCDailey_ writes.
https://t.co/p3kLaCy7Hj

[CIDRAP @CIDRAP]

A study suggests that many older adults who died of COVID-19 weren’t close to death before infection.

In fact, 28% would likely have lived at least another 5 years if they hadn't contracted the virus.

Read more: https://t.co/F9w0VgwciJ

[Good Law Project @GoodLawProject]

A leaked document reveals Palantir staff are being granted “unlimited access” to identifiable patient data.

Join us demanding this spy-tech firm gets out of our NHS 👇
https://t.co/JGcobrFyzb

[Clinically Vulnerable Families 💙💜💗 @cv_cev]

🔊 Calling all UK CO₂ monitor owners
AND any helpful UK voters

PLEASE REPOST ♻️ ❤️ and tag others!

🙏 Can you *please* help us at the local elections next Thursday?
- Even if you don't own one, we still need your help!

1/🧵
<Read our new article - next post>

[Cat Herding Science Nerd 🔬 @catladyactivist]

If a government or corporation admits a virus is aerosolized (airborne), they become responsible for the air. Every office, school, and factory would legally need hospital-grade ventilation (high-air-exchange HVAC). That is a multi-billion dollar price tag.

[Rachel Millward @rachelmillward]

Legalising and regulating drugs is about reducing the harm and deaths caused by drug use, and treating addicts rather than criminalsing them. It is appalling that Labour and Reform are playing politics with people's lives.

[Lara - Covid is Airborne @fillthewhole]

I wear a respirator when I’m cleaning. They’re not just for infectious disease.

[Smart Air @SmartAirFilters]

Proud moment: our air purifiers are being rolled out to more than 200 schools across London, UK. Schools should be among the first places to have cleaner air.

[The Green Party @TheGreenParty]

Introducing Hannah Spencer MP 💚

[✨🎶Kristennnn🍉✨ @singingsox]

They lied about what was in the air at Ground Zero. They lied about asbestos for decades. They lied about the toxicity of radium exposure. Why do you think they’d tell the truth about the severity of Covid?

The government & the corporations they protect do not care about you.

[jewess in distress @rachelcohen7]

Gorgeous speech. I don’t know I’ve heard an MP say that people who can’t work ALSO DESERVE A NICE LIFE. Disabled people really needed to hear that. I love this.

[Iqbal Mohamed MP @iqbalmohamedMP]

Palantir is using AI to generate patient discharge letters from NHS medical records.

The NHS’ data ethics watchdog is raising the alarm about the project – & the @DHSCgovuk responds by announcing that it will be rolled out nationwide! Roll back now!

https://t.co/MkQqvIF3Gg

[Stevie Daglish @steviedagsi]

He’s actually just the best communicator in UK politics right now. You know how likeable someone has to be to make me watch a party broadcast?! Vote Green.

[WHO/Europe @WHO_Europe]

Long COVID hasn’t disappeared.

People continue to develop it after new infections—yet the myth that it’s “over” still persists.

Bára’s story shows the reality: after her 3rd COVID‑19 infection in 2025, she became house‑bound with severe fatigue and heart issues.

[Dr. Priyam Bordoloi @DocPriyamMD]

Last week, I lost a 35-year-old patient to AIDS.

The worst part? He had no idea he was even sick. From history we got to know, he was having recurrent fevers for many years, lost a few kilos, he used to just pop a paracetamol, and go back to work. He thought he was just tired from life.
By the time he reached our hospital, it was already too late

He didn’t look like the dying patients you see in movies. He looked like any other guy.

But internally, he was fighting a war for maybe a decade? without any weapons.

When his labs came back, his CD4 count (the soldiers of the immune system)was less than 50.

A healthy person has 500–1,500. He had almost nothing left.

HIV is a very manageable condition today. ART (Antiretroviral Therapy) works wonders, it can make the virus undetectable and let you live a full, normal life..

But the medicine only works if you recognize the signs early. If you wait until the house is already burned down, there is very little we can do..

Let me quickly brief you the stages of HIV

First: The "Flu"
2–4 weeks after exposure, you get a fever, sore throat, or a rash. It feels like a standard viral bug. You "recover" in a week and think you are fine.

Stage 1: The Silence (Clinical Latency)
This is where my patient lived for years.
The virus reproduces slowly. You have zero symptoms. You feel healthy. Maybe a random fever once a year that you blame on the weather.
Because you feel fine, you never get tested. This is the most dangerous stage because you are still infectious and don't even know it.

You might have Persistent Generalized Lymphadenopathy-swollen, painless lymph nodes in the neck or armpits for >3 months.
Most ignore these!

Stage 2: Mild Symptoms
The immune system is starting to slip.

Look for:
>Moderate unexplained weight loss (<10% of body weight).
>Recurrent URIs (sinusitis, tonsillitis, otitis media).
>Herpes Zoster (Shingles)
>Minor skin issues (Seborrheic dermatitis, fungal nail infections).

Stage 3: Advanced Symptoms
The breaking point is near. This is where symptoms become hard to ignore:

>Unexplained severe weight loss (>10% of body weight).
>Chronic diarrhea or persistent fever
>Oral Candidiasis (Thrush).
>Pulmonary TB.

Stage 4: AIDS (Severe Symptoms)
This is the stage my patient was in.
CD4 count <200 plus "AIDS-defining" conditions like HIV wasting syndrome, Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP), or extrapulmonary TB.

By the time he reached us, he had opportunistic pneumonia. Without an immune system, even the strongest antibiotics can't save you.

He succumbed last week because he spent years managing symptoms with paracetamol instead of finding the cause.

In 2026, no one should be dying of AIDS. Don't trust the mirror. Trust a blood test. It's the only way to know before it's too late

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

Phillips "This is not a country where people get thrown in jail for things they say"

@ZackPolanski: 2,700 people have been arrested for holding up signs

And well done to Zack for challenging Phillips smear that 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' is antisemitic

[Vanessa Sica Kasabach @VSicaKasabach]

Survival of 8 common viruses in the air:

RSV: up to 45 mins

Influenza: at least 1 hour

Rhinovirus: 1-2 hours

Measles: up to 2 hours

Norovirus: up to 2 hours

COVID-19: up to 3 hours

Chickenpox: several hours

Mumps: several hours

TB: 6-12 hours

😷+🪟+ HEPA

#CleanAir

[The Green Party @TheGreenParty]

“I’m really worried for my friends and neighbours who are immigrants, or the children of immigrants, who’ve kept our city region moving for decades.”

Green Party candidate for Gorton and Denton, Hannah Spencer, says the threat of adopting ICE-style tactics would put settled, hardworking communities in the firing line.

[Envidreamz @envidreamz]

-The Invisible Mindshift of Long Covid-

“Long Covid doesn’t just change the body. It quietly rewires the mind, bending how we perceive even the simplest truths.”

August 2025. I was teaching a fitness class when she walked in the exercise studio.
I hadn’t seen her in months. She moved slower, stopping often for breath.

“Issues with exercise lately,” she said, brushing it off. Then it spilled out:

“Every time I try to exercise, my heart races. I can’t breathe. I get dizzy. It just started happening… for no reason.”

For no reason. 😒

She tried to rationalize it: “Maybe it’s because I gained weight… you lost a lot awhile back…do you feel better since then?”

I just looked at her and told her I still had Long Covid and unfortunately good health does not hide inside smaller bodies.

She blinked. “Long Covid? But isn’t that from the…?” Her finger lifted,pointed and jabbed into her upper arm. A silent accusation. A story she had been handed. 💉

“No,” I said steady and clearly. “I was not vaccinated when I got Covid. I developed Long Covid from the virus. I have permanent health issues because of it.”

Silence swallowed the music in the studio room for a second.

“Maybe you should make sure you don’t have this too,” I told her. “Because what you are describing sounds familiar.”

The color drained from her face like someone pulled a plug. 🔌
I have never seen a person leave so fast. Mat rolled up, sweat towel crammed into her purse, Water bottle abandoned. Gone with the wind. 🏃‍♀️ 💨

This is how Long Covid rewires the human mind.
Everyone wants simpler explanations: stress, weight, aging, deconditioning, the shot… just anything but admitting Covid can rearrange a life in a single breath and never stop.

Long Covid quietly rewrites the rules of logical thinking. It steals trust between the mind and the body’s own pulse, eroding certainty symptom by symptom.
And the cruelest part?
Watching people sense the truth about Long Covid, yet reach for any explanation safer than admitting the air itself can change bodies permanently.