When it comes to being sick, many of us have been raised not to listen to our body. If you don’t acknowledge your sore throat or stuffy nose, it will go away, right? Better to just push through and go to work or school
It’s a bad philosophy, but it stems from an ingrained belief that if you’re not being productive, you’re not valuable as a person. As usual, capitalism is to blame.
Obviously, a positive COVID-19 test changes the “tough it out” mentality. After several years of taking the diagnosis seriously, the infrastructure to take the rest we need is here – if pared back since the height of the pandemic.
If you contract COVID-19, focus less on contact-tracing where you got it from, and more on what to do next.
At Albion, this means alerting Assistant Director of Campus Wellness Melissa Sommers, and not attending classes or on-campus events until you’ve been symptom-free for 24 hours. Let the people you spent time with know you’ve tested positive, and do whatever you can to minimize the spread.
The world isn’t what it was six years ago. Everyone has their own memory of when the pandemic started – and how everyday life crawled back into view. Now, it’s hard to imagine a time before the infamous COVID-19 – and most people have had at least one experience with the virus itself.
The exponential spread and danger of COVID-19 is an issue of racism and ableism. The virus is more dangerous to people with preexisting conditions – many of which have connections to environmental justice and unequal access to healthcare.
Our disabled, elderly and BIPOC peers should not be condemned to a life of fear and risk just because we are tired of taking precautions.
How we choose to conduct ourselves affects the people around us – and it could be life or death. This thing is here to stay, and it’s not just people who are at risk that are responsible for keeping numbers down, it’s everyone.
Numbers are still high, and the risk of long COVID-19, a chronic condition that persists for at least three months after infection, is real. According to the CDC, today one in five Americans lives with long COVID.
Yes, this virus is not the constant and terrifying it was four years ago. But it is far from gone, and far from harmless.
Get vaccinated. Wear a mask when you’re sick, and better yet, stay home if you can. Perhaps most importantly, use what we learned from the worst of the pandemic. Our world is different now, but it doesn’t have to be worse. It can and should be more accessible, more careful and more empathetic than before.
Leave a Reply