My vacation experience was probably like many others: standing in line at the airport, listening to people cough all around me, most of them unmasked. It’s hard to overstate cognitive dissonance. We are still officially in a pandemic, even now, 4 years after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. We know that Covid-19 is airborne and that wearing a mask is the most effective way to prevent the transmission of airborne particles. We know that another 1,600 people are dying from Covid-19 lately (and more than 2,000 last week), and that this is not the flu, and that tens of millions of Americans suffer from debilitating long-term symptoms.
Despite all this, we may have been briefed on how a damaged formula left us vulnerable to this virus, despite clear answers that can save us from long-term calamities, and despite the sense of solidarity to help others stay healthy. accompanied the beginning of the pandemic, it turns out that although we were not informed anything about this experience.
The dissonance perhaps hits harder for me, because I’ve struggled with long Covid symptoms for over three and a half years, as I first recounted in The New Republic in June 2020, in an article naïvely titled, “Will My Long Covid Symptoms Ever End?” Today, symptoms like exercise intolerance, tingling, circulation problems, overactive allergic responses, and shortness of breath have persisted. Though I’m able to manage most of my symptoms through a combination of about 15 daily medications and supplements, physical therapy, and avoiding strenuous activities, my quality of life and ability to work have diminished greatly. (And I’m far better off than some long Covid patients, who are bedbound.) I don’t have the luxury of ignoring Covid, as much of society has, following the lead of the Biden administration, which pledged to take a different approach than his predecessor did.
It didn’t have to be an all-or-nothing choice. By framing Covid precautions as a “lockdown” or “freedom for all,” the Biden administration has missed an opportunity to better its citizens and send clearer messages about Covid and the threat. of long Covid, and announce the kind of common-sense mitigation that doesn’t create any significant disruption to “normal” life. As the 2024 election approaches, he wants to do more.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped counting Covid-19 cases, based on wastewater data, which emerged early on as a tool to track the ebb and flow of the virus, we are ultimately in one of the biggest waves of the pandemic, amid the spread of a new variant, JN-1, as the virus continues to mutate. More than three-quarters of U. S. hospital beds are filled withUU. se are using lately due to Covid-related hospitalizations. The use of the recent booster, which is expected to help protect against the new variant and reduce the risk of severe cases and the risk of contracting long Covid, is around 19%.
Meanwhile, the White House’s most recent reaction to a question about whether it had rules for hospitals, some of which have reinstated mitigation protocols in reaction to the latest Covid spike, came from Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s press release: “Hospitals, communities, states, will have to make their own decisions. It’s not something we’re worried about,” she replied, sounding exasperated.
“We are in possibly the second-biggest surge of the pandemic if you look at wastewater levels,” said Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, who runs a long-Covid clinic at the University of Texas, San Antonio, and has had ongoing Covid symptoms since August 2022. “There is no urgency to this. No news. No discussion in Congress. There is no education.”
In the early years of the pandemic, concerns about Covid transmission and mitigation were largely centered along partisan lines. When Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he promised to “follow the science,” in contrast to the disastrous, delayed, and damaging pandemic response strategy was led by his predecessor, Donald Trump. For a while, things were improving, with effective vaccines freely available to the public and interventions like Paxlovid worth getting. Biden has promoted new projects and supported investment for Covid studies. and lengthy Covid studies. Unfortunately, investment is drying up today. Republicans are determined to block anything resembling new Covid spending; The Democrats seem content to let this anti-social stance pass.
“[Biden’s] leadership has the potential to lead a physically powerful and inclusive reaction to the pandemic,” said Cynthia Adinig, who has suffered from a long Covid illness since March 2020 and has since been a prominent trained advocate and patient for BIPOC Equity. Agency. ” However, in the final year of his term, there is still a lot of room for improvement. “
Since Biden’s leadership declared an end to the national emergency in May, Americans of all political persuasions have largely followed the government’s lead and completely waived any point of Covid-related precautions. Liberal and left-wing media outlets have also been involved in the normalization of Covid, firing or even ostracizing other people who are still taking precautions as if they were tin hat-shaped conspiracy theorists. ” We can’t stay locked up forever” has a not unusual refrain, as if they were dressed in a mask on the subway constitutes a “blockade”.
In September, Biden himself contributed to the spread of this kind of destructive and incorrect information when he declared that the pandemic was “over” on 60 Minutes. “If you notice, no one is wearing a mask,” he said. Be in pretty smart shape. “Basically, it’s about controlling the “vibrations”, i. e. “following the science”.
And while management strongly encouraged vaccination in the spring of 2021, booster rates are embarrassingly low due to sparse, confusing and unclear messaging about how vaccination can reduce the threat of long Covid and severe cases. In addition, leaving vaccination to the whims of personal insurance corporations has made new vaccines more confusing and expensive.
The leadership may have adopted permanent measures for Americans against Covid-19 and other zoonotic diseases, such as normalizing staying home and wearing a mask in case of poor health or in congested areas, ensuring regular vaccination and investing in HEPA. air filtration in public spaces, make Covid testing more available, conduct contact tracing and proceed to track Covid rates so that the public can be well informed about periodic spikes. This may have put pressure on airlines, which are tacitly inspiring others to fly due to illness, to waive cancellation and replacement fees in cases where the option is to spread Covid in friendly skies, or to give consumers the option to simply rearrange your trip.
By ignoring Covid, Democrats are abandoning the more than 16 million Americans who have long suffered from Covid, as well as many other people who are mysteriously getting sick, especially those who paint in settings like schools and hospitals, as well as about 25% of Americans. our disabled population, a number that has increased especially since the start of the pandemic. It’s also an ever-evolving population. As Tom Scocca recently wrote in a New York article describing his own recent fitness problems: “Other healthy people and other disabled people are not two different kinds of people, but the same people at other times. »
As Adinig stated, “I don’t think incumbent Democrats fully perceive the long-standing ripple effects of the pandemic. These challenges are pushed aside in the hope that they will go away on their own or because of someone else’s challenge later on.
The consequences of abandoning all Covid precautions are becoming clearer, as more people suffer from repeated infections and long-term symptoms, amid an alarming rise in internal disorders among healthy young people. People are in poor health more often, not because of the “immune debt” myth, which says that lack of exposure to other people’s lockdown made people less able to fight off infections (three years later), but because Covid weakens the immune system. Every time a user contracts Covid, the chances of long-term headaches increase.
School absenteeism is on the rise, and one in three public school students is chronically absent. A recent study found that the risk of long Covid for children is 16% after a single infection. Adinig, whose son has long Covid, is passionate about the need. to teach parents more about the risk of long Covid in children and measures such as air filtration that could improve them at school.
Gwendolyn Hill, a fit former UCLA student, contracted long Covid after her third infection in June 2023. Now, she can easily walk the 15 minutes from her apartment to campus. She didn’t expect this to happen to her, she said. she told me in September. “If you don’t suffer from chronic physical disorders and you have access to physical care, then a lot of invincibility complexes come into play. “
The impulse to ignore or downplay Covid is understandable. It’s unpleasant, scary, and inconvenient to think about. “As a society, people are intentionally putting themselves as far away from any Covid-speak as possible so they can live in their delusional wall that everything’s OK,” Adinig told me last fall.
“People in general have forgotten what it means to stay home from work or wear high-quality masks when they’re sick (with anything),” Verduzco-Gutierrez added. But this has consequences: “We’re going to have continued spread of the virus and sequela related to long Covid. This is going to be a large cost burden to society in the long run, and this is something that Congress has to realize,” she said.
The normalization of Covid reinfections has made talking about the pandemic or, God forbid, taking precautions, feel like a social taboo, making it increasingly difficult to wait or ask for some point of mitigation in professional and social settings. As Julia Doubleday wrote in her perfect article on Substack in December: “The political task of normalizing COVID transmission and labeling fundamental clinical mitigation measures as bad, weird, nasty, stupid and is a fantastic blow to the right. “
In 2024, more pressure will need to be put on Democrats to implement public health measures to save Covid and the future wave of zoonotic diseases that could be triggered by climate change. If the left wants to win, this election year and beyond, it wants to distance itself from Republicans in its stance on Covid, adapting to the style of science and public fitness advocates. This is not only a matter of public fitness, but also a matter of elegance, with consequences for fitness care in general and for the overall well-being of society. It is disheartening to see that even the most progressive members of Congress do not speak on behalf of those suffering from the prolonged Covid crisis, especially when its effects are so intertwined with economic, social, and racial issues. justice.
Democrats can simply take a cue from common, sensible Covid precautions and protect some of the positive (and popular) policies that accompanied the onset of the pandemic, such as those imposed by low health care wages, which would not force employees to place themselves in the plight of running in poor health and transmitting Covid or wasting their wages or even their jobs. These disorders are exacerbated for uninsured, underinsured, low-income workers, and other people of color, especially as the cost of living and medical costs rise. elevate.
Thanks in part, no doubt to Republicans who so politicized mask-wearing at the start of the pandemic, Democrats in government have been hesitant to mention the dreaded m-word. But they can easily make the case for a risk-reduction technique for facing masks, modeling mask-wearing in crowded indoor spaces and on public transportation, demonstrating that mask-wearing in many high-risk settings is imaginable without disrupting social life.
Of course, with their close primaries and limitations due to filibuster rules, Democrats are somewhat paralyzed on the legislative point of approving critical investments for Covid and long Covid research, prevention and trials, Adinig noted. because these policy changes, which are essential to combat the pandemic well, are a main obstacle. But Democrats can just (and) fight harder instead of being bullied by Republicans. In fact, recent local pressures in many states have resulted in mask mandates being reinstated in hospitals across the country.
A big missed opportunity also lies in air filtration efforts, which could simply protect children in schools and others in fitness centers and other crowded places without being “intrusive,” as Adinig put it. The focus on this topic wants to be expanded as a long-term sustainable intervention to protect ourselves and others, not only from Covid but also from other viruses and from poor air quality. However, students and parents have to make their own air filters, in the absence of a law or greater investments to remain young. safe at school.
The shadow of the pandemic, whether we like it or not, still looms over us. By fooling ourselves into believing that everything is fine, we play roulette with our own lives and the lives of others, and allow new variants to spread more frequently. Our reaction to Covid mitigation does not have to be all or nothing, yet even fundamental interventions are now being rejected on both sides of the aisle. Joe Biden said it wouldn’t be like that. And yet what we are witnessing today turns out to be little different from the denial and belittlement of far-right Trump supporters who once mocked our masks. Are we happy to be among their ranks?
Laura Weiss (she/her) is a freelance editor from Berkeley, California, who focuses on social justice issues. In the past, she worked on the virtual team of The New Republic and as editor-in-chief of the U. S. Congress on Latin America. America, or NACLA, in New York City.