Who else is going!?

“In December 2025, comedian Jon Stewart joked about people wearing masks in workplaces.

The social media backlash around the exchange generated the hashtag #oneofthetwo and calls for Stewart to interview a public health expert and correct the record.” 😷💕

In Nov 2025, after Tom Hanks was photographed wearing a mask on the subway, in his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Stephen Colbert promoted it as a ‘disguise.’ Even though Hanks said he wears it for ‘health reasons’ + he had been infected with COVID multiple times.

On 18 April, Inspire presents Ron Placone’s Anti-Fascist Pasta Night, a 1-hour stand-up special with ASL interpretation.

An invitation from comedian Ron Placone to YOU!

Come see his new 1-hour standup special this Saturday, April 18, FREE, over Zoom!

This event is part of the Inspire Performing Arts Festival by & for the Airborne Aware

Inspire’s Friday Night Open Mic will take place on 17 April, inviting COVID-conscious artists to share 5-minute sets + will be hosted by comedian @laurenflans.bsky.social

“In comedy, the ongoing pandemic continues to disrupt live performance + the health of comics. In September 2025, Steve Martin canceled two tour dates after testing positive for COVID-19. This followed earlier cancellations on the same tour when Martin Short tested positive.” 😷

Wake Up and Smell the C*VID by the anonymous collective HEPA (Holy Erotic Propaganda Arson) was a hybrid monologue performance about the impact of COVID/Long COVID on the arts.

The play returns at Inspire in an encore presentation on 18 April

Registration guinesspig.ghost.io/inspirefesti...

“Among the featured acts is phytocene (IG), @holo_cene (twt), a Paris-based ambient pop and ethereal artist whose work as moves through pop, trip-hop and electronica.

She has become widely known in the airborne-aware community for organizing mask-required concerts in France.” 😷🎶💕

Nina Wildflower @ninawildflower.bsky.social, another performer in the COVID-conscious music ecology, is both a musician and a science teacher who advocates for clean air.

He also hosts a weekly online open mic for COVID conscious performers. 😷🎶

Inspire’s theater program will also include scenes from The Left by Obie award-winning playwright Caridad Svich @csvich.bsky.social. The Left is a choral play about those left behind ‘when all systems + people have failed one another.’

Selections from the play will be broadcast on April 19.

Inspire: A Performing Arts Festival by and for the Airborne Aware, a free Zoom festival running 15–19 April 2026, will bring together music, theater + comedy made by COVID-conscious artists for COVID-conscious audiences.
Registration at @guinesspig.bsky.social's site

“At Inspire, COVID-conscious comedian @guinesspig.bsky.social returns with the reader’s theater piece How the Three Little Pigs Almost Learned to Live with the Big Bad Wolf, which reimagines the fairy tale through the normalization of mass infections. The play will be performed April 17.”😷

“In theater, the early years of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic opened a wide field of digital performances. However, with the removal of clean-air measures and the taboo of acknowledging the pandemic, it has fallen to COVID-conscious theater-makers to create their own spaces.”😷🎭

Inspire: A Performing Arts Festival by and for the Airborne Aware.

A free Zoom festival running 15–19 April 2026, will bring together music, theater and comedy made by COVID-conscious artists for COVID-conscious audiences. 😷🎭💕

Inspire Festival for the Airborne Aware marks a new chapter in COVID-conscious arts The free Zoom festival will bring together music, theater and comedy made by COVID-conscious artists for COVID-conscious audiences

A free Zoom festival will bring together music, theater and comedy made by COVID-conscious artists for COVID-conscious audiences

by Protect the Heart of the Arts

Population studies have disaggregated excess deaths by causes and age groups. A Lancet paper examining post-2020 excess mortality reported that, in adults ages 50-64 deaths involving cardiovascular diseases were 33% higher than expected.

Nicholas Brendon falls into this cohort.

Buffy’s Nicholas Brendon’s death is the sixth of The WB stars since 2024 Nicholas Brendon tragically joins a growing list of The WB stars dying young. But why is this happening post-pandemic?

Nicholas Brendon’s is the sixth death of a major The WB cast member since 2024. These deaths come when there is also a measurable increase in mortality in the age cohort that made up much of Buffy’s original audience, and the WB era generally... But why?
www.thecanary.co/global/world...

“Epidemiological data do not become less true or less relevant because someone finds the conversation unpleasant.”

“Accepting that COVID has killed tens of millions more people than reported implies a magnitude of institutional failure that is psychologically costly to internalize.

Even in a crisis of government legitimacy the belief that the system will alert people to health risks remains”

“The number of people experiencing Long COVID which meets diagnostic criteria is estimated to be between 5%-20% of all people.

The WHO estimates that 1 in 20 people worldwide had Long COVID as of 2023.

The CDC estimates that 1 in 5 people develop post-acute COVID sequelae.”

“The narrative of a high-profile death is often shaped by what representatives choose to release.

If the only acceptable language is whatever passes through a PR filter, premature deaths that align with COVID excess death probabilities will continue to be described as normal.”

“The narrative of a high-profile death is often shaped by what representatives choose to release.

If the only acceptable language is whatever passes through a PR filter, premature deaths that align with COVID excess death probabilities will continue to be described as normal.”

“Mis-coding according to apparent cause of death led to undercounting in previous pandemics.

A CDC study found that between 1983-1986, HIV/AIDS was listed as the cause in only 46% of deaths among people with AIDS. Many others were recorded as pneumonia or other infections.”

“If the weight of evidence points to an exponential increase in excess deaths from COVID since 2020, and the recent deaths of 6 WB stars are consistent with this shifted baseline, how are people not noticing?

Or, if they are noticing, why are they shifting to the next topic?”

“COVID can lead to aggressive cancers.

James Van Der Beek, Shannen Doherty + Julian McMahon died from cancers between the ages of 48-56.

SARS-CoV-2 creates immune dysregulation, reducing tumor surveillance + creating inflammation. This is why cancers behave more aggressively.”

“Nicholas Brendon’s is the sixth death of a major WB cast member since 2024.

James Van Der Beek died in February 2026, age 48.

Shannen Doherty died from breast cancer in July 2024, at 53.

Julian McMahon died at age 56 in July 2025.

Eric Dane died in February 2026 at age 53.”

“What’s counted as a COVID death is a narrow range of cases with a documented recent infection. This skews toward respiratory deaths in the acute stage, rather than the deaths that occur later as heart attacks, organ failure, strokes, or pneumonias secondary to COVID infections.”

“The conservative estimate of 20 million excess COVID deaths means many more people are experiencing bereavement. Dunbar’s model estimates an inner circle of 15 people. This means 300 million people losing someone in their close circle, approximately the populations of the U.S.”

Instead of concluding that Nicholas Brendon’s death was sad but unavoidable—

as were the deaths of Michelle Trachtenberg, Shannen Doherty, James Van Der Beek, Julian McMahon and Eric Dane

—we can recognize that it happened in the context of tens of millions of premature deaths.