On COVID Surges & Denial
"Back to normal" is a myth.
If you haven't heard, COVID is surging again all across the United States, along with RSV, influenza, and norovirus. I'm getting tired of posting about a bad winter surge of COVID every year. Not because I find caring about public health an inconvenience, not because I'm tired of caring about disabled people (& non-disabled people as well). I'm getting tired of it because as a society, we don't learn from the previous years, the research constantly being done on the health risks of COVID, or the Long COVID patients who feel as if they're screaming into a void, the research telling us masks and clean air will help reduce the spread more than our “vaccine-only” approach. We just keep making the same mistakes over and over. This isn't to say none of us have learned anything, but the ones who have and are vocal about it are often silenced by those who would prefer to live in denial and forget it ever happened.
These past six months have been some of the most concerning yet. The summer surge, the pneumonia cases in children and adults, the bird flu cases, the norovirus surging more than previous years. Currently, I live in one of the states where COVID rates are highest, which is not typical for us. I emailed my local hospital to encourage them to require masks, something I have done many times since they dropped their requirements back in 2023. I got a response that they did not plan to bring back mask requirements because of “low community transmission, high vaccination rates, and increased immunity” (all lies). The local infectious disease physician was quoted in the paper saying that we didn't need to worry as much about the surge because the virus was milder now (again, a lie). I very rarely see my local hospital publicly acknowledge the existence of Long COVID, despite the fact that according to a recent study 4,000 people have left my state’s workforce in the last year due to Long COVID.
If you go on any social media site you will see post after post of people complaining about being sick. Many of them describe being “sicker than they've ever been.” This has happened during other waves of respiratory illnesses in the last few years as well. They ask for advice on no longer getting sick, and sometimes receive useless advice about ways to “boost their immune system” through supplements. Sometimes people rightfully tell them to wear masks to prevent illness. Once the sickness is over, almost as if they have amnesia, they go into crowded spaces without masks. I understand that masks have been politicized, that public health institutions and the medical community have failed to properly educate people and have spread misinformation themselves, that there are social pressures to stop masking as well as other barriers. I blame the government and public health more than I blame individuals. But I have trouble fully wrapping my head around not wearing masks when/if you can to get out of this cycle of sickness. It really, really doesn't have to be this way. We all deserve better. If you weren't already aware that repeated COVID infections negatively impact our immune system, please start educating yourself about this (I've linked a few sources below). Taking COVID precautions doesn't mean “not living your life” - but getting repeated infections can significantly impact your ability to live it.
Disabled people have been tirelessly advocating for mask usage and cleaning the air since the beginning of the pandemic. Some have gotten involved with mask blocs and Long COVID organizations in person, but unfortunately, a lot of us have barriers to “real life” activism due things like chronic illnesses that limit our energy and make us more vulnerable to COVID. A lot of our advocacy work tends to be online because that's the most accessible to us, but this comes with limitations such as harassment from those on the right and left alike. A lot of the worst outcomes of the rampant spread of COVID so far were things the disabled community warned people about years ago - sometimes due to our own intuition and other times due to following the science. Weakened immune systems, the mass disablement, removal of accessibility in the name of “back to normal,” just to make a few of these things. We didn't want to be right about any of this. It has been heartbreaking to witness, and maybe could have been prevented if people just listened to us and learned about disability justice in this ongoing era of COVID and other pandemic threats.
While working on this, I heard that David Lynch died. I instantly remembered reading articles about him this past August in which he was quoted saying he doesn't leave his house because he had emphysema and COVID could kill him. It is so infuriating to me that he had to die in a world that didn't care to protect him. He had to spend the last years of his life isolated because too many people had no desire to minimize the spread of COVID in order to save people like him. It's unfair that those of us who are vulnerable are forced to shoulder the burden of isolation and precautions instead of others shouldering some of those precautions for us, which would make everyone safer (because nobody is immune to the negative impacts of COVID). David Lynch’s story is also a reminder that you can be privileged, idolized, wealthy, successful - and still end up isolated by an ableist world that doesn't care to protect you from a virus that could kill you. If you stopped masking and you're a David Lynch fan - I hope his story makes you reflect on how valuable these precautions are.
In addition to thinking about how the pandemic impacts disabled people, I also think a lot about how it impacts children. One of the biggest lies parents were told is that COVID cases don't harm children. But the cases of children impacted by Long COVID is growing. COVID can also cause autoimmune diseases, and children are not immune to getting those as the result of COVID. But even beyond that, what does it do to a child to grow up in a world where getting sick with the same virus many times a year is seen as normal, even inevitable? Especially in a world full of academic pressure and limits on how often you can miss school (growing up, I often exceeded this number because I was very prone to viruses). I have even heard stories of children being forced to stay in school despite feeling unwell (sometimes due to lack of childcare, but not always). Why are we doing this to them and thinking it won't have any impact on their physical and mental health? This current era of pandemics has got to be a lot for a child to handle.
The last thing I'll discuss is the LA mask bloc. Everyone knows about the LA fires by now. If you're not in LA and not following mask blocs, you might not have heard about how many masks they've supplied to citizens of LA to protect their lungs from the wildfires and from viruses like COVID. I can't help but think about how many people who may have ostracized those in their lives who still wear masks, who have ended up being saved by these mask blocs in LA and other places. If you haven't already, find a mask bloc near you and donate (or request masks from them if you have trouble affording them).
Because it's inauguration day, I have to say this: I blame Biden and Trump for where we are in this country in regards to masking, COVID eugenics, and misinformation about COVID and other viruses. They both played a very large role in this, as did the CDC during Biden's administration when they decided to start downplaying the threat of COVID and encouraging people to drop precautions. This has left us in a very dangerous spot as the anti-vaxx movement is feeling more emboldened by Trump's incoming administration of anti-vaxxers like RFK Jr. If you believed a politician’s lies about COVID, or anyone else’s, now is the time to start unlearning those lies. Follow disabled people whose lives have changed because of COVID, follow accounts that still talk about COVID, follow organizations like People's CDC, World Health Network, and Long COVID organizations. We need everyone to start waking up to the reality that we are living in: there is no “post-COVID” (yet), there is no “back to normal,” all of us are vulnerable, and disabled lives are not expendable.
Sources
Park, A. (2023, March 27). Getting covid-19 could weaken your immune system. Time. https://time.com/6265510/covid-19-weaken-immune-system/
Van Beusekom, M. (July 2024). Study: Covid can trigger changes to the immune system that may underlie persistent symptoms. CIDRAP. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/study-covid-can-trigger-changes-immune-system-may-underlie-persistent-symptoms