Lindsay Briggs

Big changes are coming, but nothing to panic about! These shifts will happen gradually and Health Services Administration will come out stronger in the end!

Hi 👋🏽 it’s me! Your friendly public health educator! Here with a regular public health message!

Respiratory season is upon us! Flu! Pneumonia! RSV! All the icky things that get in your lungs!

You know what’s also still here? COVID. Yeah, bummer town. More and more research coming out about how similar COVID is to HIV. As in, it wrecks your body. And some of those outcomes stay quiet for a few years until they rear their ugly head. Boo.

And guess what? H5N1/Avian Influenza/Bird Flu is getting bigger and scarier. Several cases of people who have had no known exposure to livestock have gotten sick. A teenager in Canada is in critical condition with a suspected case. Wastewater readings of H5N1 in LA have quadrupled in the last two weeks. Over 1/4 of the dairy cattle herds in California have tested positive. We’re on the precipice of another pandemic. Scary times.

BUT GUESS WHAT?

All of the above can be mitigated by masks! Wahoo! So simple! So effective! We’ve done it before! We can do it again!

I keep seeing everyone talk about how we have to stick together post-election. Look out for each other! Particularly our most vulnerable! I am SO glad to hear that! Because masking is an act of love and solidarity! Masking shows everyone that you care about them and their health. Democrats/Liberals/Progressives are definitely different from Republicans/Conservatives because we care about each other even when it’s harder/uncomfortable/inconvenient! We value everyone and not just ourselves!

Ok, y’all, I’ll see you next time. Mask up! Show your community you live your values!

The vibes are not good on campus. Morose. Just a reminder that there are resources available. Support each other, give love generously, be a source of compassion, and be kind.

Hey Friends!

I know the world is really tough right now for a lot of us. It’s even tougher for Palestinian Americans as you can imagine. Focusing on the day-to-day grind of life while watching a nonstop livestream of the awfulness of what’s happening in Gaza is more than most people can handle.

I have a Palestinian American friend who has found themselves in need. They’re in-between jobs and have been trying desperately to stay afloat. They’ve reached the end of their current resources and need help staying housed and fed. What they really need is money. As you can imagine, asking for money is hard. They worked up the courage to ask for help and I offered to do some small short-term fundraising for them. I offered to keep them anonymous and vouch for them so that’s what I’m doing.

If you have any funds to spare, please consider donating to my friend. I assure you that the funds are being used wisely and very much needed. Literally anything helps at this point. If you have any specific questions, please reach out to me via private message.

We are not using a fundraising platform, both to save fundraising fees as well as to keep this anonymous. I am collecting donations via my personal accounts. I hope my word is good enough to trust, but if there is something more I can do to ensure trust that it’s going to a legitimate source, let me know.

My Venmo is
My CashApp is $lindsaybriggs13

Thanks for your consideration & support 🇵🇸
Please share with your networks ❤️

A friend asked me many months ago: Why do you care so much about Palestine? It wasn’t asked in a dismissive way, but in a generally curious way as this person knows me well and prior to the current genocide, had probably never heard me speak about Palestine.

I was a teenager when the Rwandan & Bosnian genocides happened. I remember hearing about them, but as a young teen didn’t have the ability to fully understand what was happening; just that it was not good.

When I was 18 I went off to a hippie liberal arts college (my beloved Juniata College) where I quickly found my way to International Politics. Juniata is famed for their Peace & Conflict Studies program and the Baker Institute for Peace. While I didn’t major in PACS, my coursework had a lot of overlap with PACS students. I got involved with Model UN and spent a lot of my college years studying international issues. One of my fellow students was from Bosnia (❤️ Emila) and I got to hear directly from someone who had left their home country due to heinous ethnic violence. Genocide became very real to me. It was no longer a thing that happened “over there.” It was something that happened to humans just like me. Young women just like me. People who had dreams for the future just like me. People who had no control over their government just like me.

Shortly after I graduated Hotel Rwanda came out. Though a fictional telling of a very real event, it struck me deep inside my body. I remember sitting in the dark theater sobbing long after the movie ended. That was the culminating event of a decade of learning. I couldn't believe humans could be so awful. And worse, I couldn't believe so many people could sit idly by and do nothing. I promised I would never do nothing. I do a LOT of activism on a lot of issues. I can't always do everything for every cause I care about; but I do my best to do something.

I've carried Palestine in my heart for a long time. And right now, it is the most pressing issue beyond keeping my family safe. My family is relatively safe. We certainly aren't being bombed or genocided. So I'm doing everything I can to support Palestine. Even if that means losing friends or even some of my rights. I cannot and will not waiver on this.

Chico State Students!

I’m THRILLED to announce that I will be teaching a BRAND NEW COURSE this spring dedicated to advocacy & activism! This hands on course will give you the knowledge and skills to get started on your activism journey!

Sign up for PHHA-498: Public Health Advocacy & Activism (currently offered as a “Special Topics” course for Spring 2025) and learn all about the history of activism, why advocacy is vitally important in our lives, and how to actually DO different types of activism!

While I’m a public health professor and focus on public health issues, this class is open to ALL students! Come find what you’re passionate about and find out how you can become an advocate for change!

Friends, Chico State is hiring for Director of Prevention and Education. This person would oversee a lot of prevention programs related to s*xual violence, substance use, and other public health programs. It is critical to have someone with a positive, harm reduction approach. I would love for someone in my network or a friend of a friend to get this job. Please share and consider applying!

Online Employment System Search and apply for jobs at Chico State

I’m sure this will go over like most of my COVID posts, but just a reminder that COVID isn’t just deadly in the acute phase (although we’ve had 1,000 deaths from acute COVID every week for the last 7 weeks in the US, and over 4 million deaths since the start of the pandemic).

COVID has been repeatedly compared to HIV/AIDS by infections disease specialists. While lots of people died from HIV/AIDS in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, many, many more died in the decade to follow. Because HIV, like COVID, lives in your system and worms its way through your organs and veins and bones and brain.

New, very big, very important study out today showing that elevated risk of stroke and heart attacks persist 3 years post COVID infection. We knew this already, but the data from this study make an even stronger case that COVID is dangerous far beyond the acute phase. Now multiply this by MANY infections. You get what I’m saying?

Heart attacks have increased dramatically since 2021, particularly in the 35-54 year old age group.

We’re going to see more and more “younger” “healthier” people having heart attacks and strokes at younger ages. Brace yourself, folx. Things are going to get even harder.

And of course, I couldn’t post this without reminding you to mask up. Vaccines reduce acuity, but don’t protect you from getting COVID. Masks do, though!

Study links COVID infection to heart attacks, strokes New research shows COVID-19 infections increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death, in some cases doubling the likelihood of major cardiac events in the 3 years following infection. 

Wahoo! Power restored!

Free COVID tests are back! Get your 4 free tests and demonstrate to our bone-headed government that demand is still high!

covidtests.gov COVID-19 testing can help you know if you have COVID-19 so you can decide what to do next, like getting treatment to reduce your risk of severe illness and taking steps to lower your chances of spreading the virus to others.