Long COVID patients are constantly harangued about our requests for COVID safety. Yet what we're asking for is far less than what we're called on to do to survive.
I really enjoy Mr. Bouie’s work as well, which is why it was so disappointing to hear his take on that. Another great piece Julia, you’ve been cranking them out lately but I know that doesn’t come without a cost. We’re always happy to wait for whenever that is, and thank you for your work and efforts.
A few days ago, I asked my 86 yo vax & relax (& regular NYTimes reader), mom, if she would list the Long Covid symptoms I’ve been sharing with her for almost 6 years now. She was outraged, & immediately said, “I KNEW you were going to bring up COVID”! I said, no, this is strictly about LC, & specifically how I experience it. She refused. Her instinctive response clearly shows why our loved ones habitually deny our Long Covid; it’s only viewed as a whole package of “everything COVID”, & that package must be denied, because to acknowledge its presence, its past & continuing harms, means that their practices demonstrate that they aren’t the “good & reasonable” people, their fragile self-image requires.
A previously dear relative, a therapist well-versed in boundary making, took the opposite tack; she firmly instructed that my own, & ONLY my own, experience of Long Covid, was welcomed, but she demanded that I cease sharing anything else Covid related; those are the new rules for access to her inclusion & consideration of me in her exclusive world. And she’d had the gall to enquire about my “fragile” health! I’d always assumed that treating a person, or group of persons, as pariahs, was known to contribute to poor physical & mental health, but what do I know?
These are both displays of the absurd dance that our culture has adopted as a way for them to navigate their dissonance & their strange proclamations of “reasonable” & “unreasonable”, in a culture that has normalized harm.
I haven't tried this with anyone yet, but it seems to me like a good way to communicate a general goal to people on how much to mask is to get your personal R0 to be less than 1 (this may technically be a misuse of a term that's supposed to be applied at the population level, but I still think it's a useful concept to borrow). I.e. mask enough that if you were contagious, on average you'd infect less than one other person. If everyone did that, we'd get the population-level R0 under 1 for a while, we might actually beat covid for good.
Obviously there's no way to exactly measure that, but I think as the goal-in-principle it's still a useful way to think about it. For people who are like "you can't ever make the risk zero" we can say "that's not what we have to do — we just have to get R0 to be less than one".
Unfortunately, Mr. Bouie is parroting what a large portion of our society and healthcare system have endorsed. While I deeply appreciate people like Julia making the case that this is a shortsighted point of view, I so wish this was coming from people like RFK. (I recognize the absurdity of how that reads, but it doesn't change the fact that is who should be carrying the message.
I really enjoy Mr. Bouie’s work as well, which is why it was so disappointing to hear his take on that. Another great piece Julia, you’ve been cranking them out lately but I know that doesn’t come without a cost. We’re always happy to wait for whenever that is, and thank you for your work and efforts.
A few days ago, I asked my 86 yo vax & relax (& regular NYTimes reader), mom, if she would list the Long Covid symptoms I’ve been sharing with her for almost 6 years now. She was outraged, & immediately said, “I KNEW you were going to bring up COVID”! I said, no, this is strictly about LC, & specifically how I experience it. She refused. Her instinctive response clearly shows why our loved ones habitually deny our Long Covid; it’s only viewed as a whole package of “everything COVID”, & that package must be denied, because to acknowledge its presence, its past & continuing harms, means that their practices demonstrate that they aren’t the “good & reasonable” people, their fragile self-image requires.
A previously dear relative, a therapist well-versed in boundary making, took the opposite tack; she firmly instructed that my own, & ONLY my own, experience of Long Covid, was welcomed, but she demanded that I cease sharing anything else Covid related; those are the new rules for access to her inclusion & consideration of me in her exclusive world. And she’d had the gall to enquire about my “fragile” health! I’d always assumed that treating a person, or group of persons, as pariahs, was known to contribute to poor physical & mental health, but what do I know?
These are both displays of the absurd dance that our culture has adopted as a way for them to navigate their dissonance & their strange proclamations of “reasonable” & “unreasonable”, in a culture that has normalized harm.
Thank you for another excellent piece.
It's so painful when "Progressives" inflict ableist harm. :(
I haven't tried this with anyone yet, but it seems to me like a good way to communicate a general goal to people on how much to mask is to get your personal R0 to be less than 1 (this may technically be a misuse of a term that's supposed to be applied at the population level, but I still think it's a useful concept to borrow). I.e. mask enough that if you were contagious, on average you'd infect less than one other person. If everyone did that, we'd get the population-level R0 under 1 for a while, we might actually beat covid for good.
Obviously there's no way to exactly measure that, but I think as the goal-in-principle it's still a useful way to think about it. For people who are like "you can't ever make the risk zero" we can say "that's not what we have to do — we just have to get R0 to be less than one".
Unfortunately, Mr. Bouie is parroting what a large portion of our society and healthcare system have endorsed. While I deeply appreciate people like Julia making the case that this is a shortsighted point of view, I so wish this was coming from people like RFK. (I recognize the absurdity of how that reads, but it doesn't change the fact that is who should be carrying the message.