Associate Professor of Mathematics, Colorado State University MaskTogetherAmerica, board member MaskTogetherColorado, founder #CovidIsAirborne #MaskUp
Joined January 2015
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I was recently told that I need to be "liberated" from thinking that covid is still dangerous to my high risk family and worth masking for. I reflected on this, and realized it's the other way around.
Masking brings me many kinds of liberty I never had pre-pandemic... 1/6
ALT A woman sitting indoors wearing a black cap, glasses, and a beige Rackmask on a Zimi 9541 frame.
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Thank you in advance to anyone who takes a couple minutes for this outreach.
In the meantime, it looks more like "Flu Season" , with flu and covid rising.
Please take appropriate steps to protect yourself and the people you love!
😷💉
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Lastly, It's a good time to connect with your public health department & encourage them to promote public health in your community this winter by sharing local data and encouraging masking in healthcare.
@WeMaskColorado has made it easy for you!
Go to: tinyurl.com/public-health-CO
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Colorado Wastewater continues to show that most utilities have "moderate" levels of SARS-cov-2 being detected in wastewater, with about half of utilities rising, and half declining.
Colorado Springs and Metro-CC are High.
EV-68 continues to be present at record high levels.
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
COVID, Flu & RSV in Colorado update, 10/21/26
Flu continues to rise ahead of schedule, but fortunately the rise remains slow and steady.
COVID indicators all change direction and climb.
RSV remains rare.
And an easy public health action for interested Coloradans.
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Be calm. I learned many years ago that I can't satisfy everyone. We need to set aside those unfriendly and unconstructive opinions and ignore them. Let me share with you a saying from 1,379 years ago.
Since twitter can auto translate, I will leave it in Chinese.
一场滋润万物的春雨，农夫因庄稼受益而喜爱它，行路人却因道路泥泞而厌恶它；一轮明朗的秋月，佳人乐于欣赏，盗贼却恨它照出了自己的行迹。
连“天地”这样滋养万物、普照万物的存在，都无法让所有人满意，总会有人因为自身的处境和立场而心生怨恨，更何况一个普通的人呢？
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Call to Action: We are looking for volunteers across the state of Colorado to join us in the efforts to email local public health departments, to ask for communication about rising flu and covid levels and recommendations for masks in healthcare! 1/2
ALT A woman in an N95 mask sitting at a laptop outside, with the words "Call to Action: Email your local public health department!" and "tinyurl.com/public-health-CO".
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
"I wear a mask to keep myself and others safe from illnesses such as COVID and the flu. I'm immune compromised.” Behind the 💜KN95 is Claudia, who super-modeled for #MaskTogetherAmerica.
📸 @MsJulieSLam (It’s a great idea to dress up with a mask on to stay healthy 💜😷)
ALT Claudia, wearing a purple wig, matching purple KN95 respirator, glasses, yellow floral necktie, powder blue shirt, white vest, black leather gloves with holes for thumbs and pinkie, dressed up in Purple girl-failure anime style, posed for MaskTogetherAmerica to support prevention awareness at New York Comic Con.
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
For anyone getting into biology, please consider taking airborne disease resistance more seriously.
It's a super important area of medicine that is a huge cause of death and sickness but easily gets forgotten. We're likely to get many more airborne plagues in the future due to the combination of not just extremely dense and interconnected society (including city and farm animals), but also accidents from bio research and offensive biotech (both from random people and from secret government programs that can easily get themselves exempted from safety restrictions), all enhanced by powerful AI.
Right now, this area is getting way less love than longevity research (which continues to be super important!), but it's an area where there are lots of unclaimed wins that we know exactly how to do (but are not yet doing) with present-day tech:
* early detection
* passive universal testing
* filtration/ventilation/UVC
* better vaccines (including making them open source and open science)
* cryptography to make all of the above privacy-preserving
We can have China-level pandemic resistance with Sweden-level limited intrusion into people's lives, and then go even further. We just have to actually do the work for it.
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Air pollution 🌫️ can harm your health. Take steps to reduce your exposure!
🏠 Stay indoors as much as possible
🏃 Avoid outdoor events, walking or jogging on high pollution days
😷 Wear N95 or N99 masks when outdoors
🚌 Use public transport to travel
🧹 Use a wet mop to clean
🔥 Do not burn leaves, garbage, incense sticks, etc.
Stay informed about local air quality and follow health advisories.
#AirPollution #CleanAir #HealthForAll
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Hey hey - look at this!! A WHO org advocating for community members to wear N95s - or N99s!!
Way to go!!
Air pollution 🌫️ can harm your health. Take steps to reduce your exposure!
🏠 Stay indoors as much as possible
🏃 Avoid outdoor events, walking or jogging on high pollution days
😷 Wear N95 or N99 masks when outdoors
🚌 Use public transport to travel
🧹 Use a wet mop to clean
🔥 Do not burn leaves, garbage, incense sticks, etc.
Stay informed about local air quality and follow health advisories.
#AirPollution #CleanAir #HealthForAll
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Body weight = 140lbs/63kg
Squatting = 175lbs/80kg (1.25x my body weight) for 5 reps
Wearing a valved zimi air kn95 by @zhouliang_mask
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
I really, really dislike the “still masking” framing. It annoys me to no end.
I’m not “still wearing a seatbelt”, so why would I be “still masking”?
Maskers are generally way *ahead* of the curve, because we discovered what should be viewed as a lifelong mitigation fairly early in the paradigm shift from droplet theory -> airborne.
Which is the complete antithesis of “still”, a qualifier that implies masking is a mitigation with a potential end in sight. There isn’t a potential end, at least as far as it being the more scientific and moral choice to use respirators in shared public spaces. It’s the correct science, and it will always be the correct science until the day that we die, and it will continue being the correct science well beyond that point.
Unfortunately, I know that there are a lot of people in the COVID conscious community who are still waiting on a miracle prophylactic drug to be able to remove their masks. I don’t think it’s the majority, but I do know there’s a significant amount. To be clear, if their wish ever does come true, those people, many of whom I fear are the ones using the “still masking” framing, will be indistinguishable from everyone else using past-tense “during COVID” in 2026.
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Grateful to @NPR for the chance to talk about how stress and infections like COVID can stir dormant viruses in our bodies, and what that may mean for our immune system. Still much to learn, and I’m thankful to my team and colleagues for their work 🎧 npr.org/2026/10/23/nx-s1-598…
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
I wonder why Prof. Iwasaki doesn't model respirator mask use in public any more. It's a huge disappointment for many of us in the CC community. If she knows how dangerous it is, why is a bare face acceptable?
Grateful to @NPR for the chance to talk about how stress and infections like COVID can stir dormant viruses in our bodies, and what that may mean for our immune system. Still much to learn, and I’m thankful to my team and colleagues for their work 🎧 npr.org/2026/10/23/nx-s1-598…
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
The warnings were there. This is a case in point. A tiny piece tucked away in The Times which should have been front page news and have provoked a statement from the Prime Minister in parliament.
#stockpiling
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
‘A blow for environmentalists’.
No, a blow for young people and anyone who wishes to see their children grow old.
@andyburnham @JohnHealey_MP
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
This is something I think about whenever I'm presenting information. I've also taken on the mindset that if someone doesn't understand something I said, then it's my fault, even if it's not.
I find it helpful because it reminds me there are always better ways to communicate.
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Masks in the hospital: when a patient has to justify wearing one, and a healthcare worker is so wary of a masked person that she asks for reassurance that they aren’t contagious.
A personal anecdote: Yesterday, I had a long, five-hour appointment at the hospital for imaging prescribed by Dr. Piché, a physician and long-COVID researcher, to investigate a potential diagnosis of gastroparesis.
They took images every hour after I ate a radioactive meal.
I was wearing an N95 mask. The technician asked me why I was wearing one.
Feeling a bit uncomfortable having to justify myself, I replied, "I’m susceptible to infections."
She said, "Oh, okay I just wanted to make sure you weren't sick."
I answered, "I’m not sick precisely because I’m wearing a mask."
It was a way to end the conversation and perhaps prompt her to reflect on the fact that she might want to be more concerned about the patients who aren'twearing masks at all…
Because that’s exactly what’s happening, it’s completely backwards. In a hospital, a place where infectious agents circulate, it’s the person taking steps to protect themselves who has to explain why.
And yet, my N95 protects her, too. If I wear a mask, I’m less likely to transmit anything to her, and she’s less likely to transmit anything to me. It works both ways.
Her response: "Look, I just want to make sure you aren't sick, you know?" As if I hadn't understood. I had understood perfectly well.
It’s this reflex that bothers me: the assumption that a mask equals being sick. One should be able to protect oneself in a hospital without having to reassure anyone else.
Well, that’s just one example, one specific person.
But I know many of you go through this.
Take my partner, for instance: at an event months ago, she ran into an old acquaintance by chance who, pointing a finger at her, rudely asked, "Why are you wearing a mask?" She replied that she wanted to protect me because of long covid, as well as herself so she doesn’t have to cancel her groups in her business. It was an unpleasant experience for her.
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
Sorry, but this is absolute nonsense. The reason people haven’t acted on climate change is because the massive amount of disinformation being pumped out from most of the media that for decades has said it’s probably not true.
The opposite is true. This woolly false hope forced positivity mentality is exactly why people don’t understand it’s the existential life-and-death-billions-of-us-at-risk crisis that it is.
theguardian.com/environment/…
Maria M Gillespie retweeted
When they ask
why you are masked
explain that the Pope
has lung cancer
so you’re doing your part
to help protect him,
and when they say
but he isn’t here,
ask them if they think
the Pope is the only person
whose lungs need protecting.
*
The 345th week:
librarianshipwreck.wordpress…
