It is year 5, friends, and I will be honest: I am not doing great! My wife and I have been hit once again this evening with the startling shift in decorum when we asked the organizers of an event we would have liked to attend about their Covid policies (spoiler: there aren’t any, there won’t be any, and fuck you for asking, thanks).
Navigating a shrinking world that used to be so full is jarring. I am genuinely not sure how I am supposed to continue existing in society as a person with an autoimmune condition, the highest risk category beside the elderly as it stands- at least, until they change that, too. If by some miracle Covid were eradicated in an instant, if the world “went back to normal” tomorrow, I don’t know how I could after seeing the last four years of this. Four years of my world getting smaller and smaller and smaller until it is only me left to wither and blow away, a tickle of an afterthought to tease the damaged brains of all my peers, drifting; huh, wonder whatever happened to her. Who needs enemies when all and sundry are happy to abandon you- no, endanger you- for the mild inconvenience of wearing a piece of cloth? I talk to my old friends and they speak as if I already died; you did this! I want to scream, this is your fault!
but instead I nod and say how I’m doing well, thanks, hope you’re hanging in there too (no I don’t, not really. I hope you get exactly what you deserve). Everyone has gone mad and by the time they feel the effects of it all it will be too late- and a small wonder if I live to see it through, thanks to them.
I try to stay optimistic. It’s a big world, I guess. Perpetual house arrest at the hands of an effectively zombified populace is not exactly fuel for hope, though. I am not happy, but I don’t have sadness in my heart anymore. I barely have love left in me. All I have is anger, and hate. So, so much hate. A brand of hate which will never go away- and I hate that. Hate. HATE.
You’re admitting to letting anti-masker CHUDs effect your decisions more than your immunocompromised comrades who could die from exposure to this virus. Your framing it as individual effort vs the bourgeois machine, without seeing that it’s mutual aid and building class solidarity. You could easily take your point of individual action vs “the machine” all the way to giving up and calling all leftist politics useless.
Just because you had an asymptomatic infection once, doesn’t mean you’ll always be a “silent carrier” with no ill effects and only be able to tell you’re infected through tests. As @buttbidet mentioned, viral load effects severity of infection. Also, every COVID infection, regardless if it’s symptomatic, carries a 10%+ chance of developing long COVID.
edit: 3. every immuncompromised person has gone through what you’ve experienced seeing the capitalist machine embrace COVID, but about 100x worse because the consequences are life and death for us and we’ve been almost completely abandoned. we’ve lost friends and family that are “over” dealing with us, we’re forced to live as hermits, we can’t even get medical professionals to don a mask to keep us safe. Every person I see wearing a mask is a little boost to my morale to keep going, keep fighting through until we can build a world that cares about disabled people. Every “leftist” friend who gives up because they can’t handle the societal pressure to comply and be “normal” does the opposite.
This part is absolutely thought-provoking. This resonates with me. Thank you