This winter brought another spike in COVID-19 cases, among many other respiratory illnesses. While it now seems that COVID-19 has largely faded into the backdrop of our collective conscience, many people are still getting infected, some are still being hospitalized with the illness and others are still dying.
To me, COVID-19 represents one of our most prominent public health failures, at least in recent history. There are many reasons to which this failure can be attributed, but I believe that one of the biggest reasons is that we do not care about each other. It is no secret that the United States has an individualist culture; care for others is not necessarily built into our values and practices, and so it is unsurprising that we, as a community, decided to move on from COVID-19 even though it was actively infecting many people. We have a serious blindness when it comes to issues that affect other people. When it comes to issues that do not affect us personally, it is easy to fall into complacency. We have seen this trend with many illnesses and public health issues over the years; AIDS was not considered an important issue until many gay activists pushed for national recognition, did their own research and increased their presence in the public sphere. Now, while HIV/AIDS still affects many people worldwide, there are effective treatments and therapies which greatly improve the quality of life for those affected by the disease.
COVID-19 is not analogous to HIV/AIDS for a number of reasons, but one of the main reasons is that COVID-19 affects many people differently. In fact, for healthy, immunocompetent people, it usually passes as just a severe cold, nothing to be considered seriously. This is the primary issue with COVID-19 and people’s awareness of the effects it has; people think that because it does not seriously affect them personally, it does not seriously affect anyone. However, this is far from the case. People who are immunocompromised in any way—who may have immune system defects that prevent them from fighting off simple infections—are infected more severely with COVID-19 and can develop symptoms that put them at greater risk of hospitalization and death. Thus it stands that there is a significant part of the population that cannot afford to be infected with COVID-19. However, in a lot of mainstream chatter surrounding the disease and its effects, these people are not mentioned and their health and safety not seriously considered.
Another issue that is often overlooked is the fact that repeat infection with COVID-19 actually puts healthy, immunocompetent people at a higher risk of developing serious health issues, such as kidney disease, organ failure, diabetes and others, according to the American Medical Association. For those of us who have had COVID-19, which at this point, is a majority, we could possibly be increasing our likelihood of developing serious, life-threatening health issues. If we cannot find it in ourselves to care about COVID-19 for the sake of other people, we should at least think, somewhat selfishly, about how it will affect our own health.
So the question remains, what can we do to show more care toward each other, in times of high COVID-19 prevalence? The easiest answer is an unpopular one: wear a mask, especially if you are sick in any way. It has been shown, over and over again, to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. I understand that we are in a cultural moment where mask wearing is not popular. I understand that it is not the most comfortable thing in the world. I understand that it is a matter of personal choice. My intention is not to shame people for the decisions that they make about their own body, but simply to reflect a moment longer on what the consequences could be if the worst happens. I do not even ask that we wear masks all the time. If you are healthy and feel that there is little chance that you are infected with COVID-19, you are much less likely to be spreading the illness, although asymptomatic transmission is still a possibility. However, if you are feeling sick in any way, if you are experiencing symptoms of any illness, I ask that you at least consider wearing a mask in public spaces. When you are coughing and sneezing, you are much more likely to be actively shedding viral particles which will pass the infection onto people who may not be so fortunate as to recover well from the disease. In fact, masks are the most effective when those with COVID-19 are the ones wearing them. So if there is any chance, even small, that what you have could be COVID-19, or even that it could be infectious, I ask that you consider masking up in public spaces.
I do not mean to suggest that I am a perfect mask-wearer. If you see me around campus, there are many situations in which I find that the risk of being infected with COVID-19 is pretty low, and I forgo the mask, especially in small social situations where I know everyone is personally comfortable if I do not wear a mask. However, in some situations where that kind of a guarantee is impossible, I have found myself masking more and more often, such as classes or big crowds. It is impossible for me to know if the people in these settings have health issues that put them at a higher risk of COVID-19 infection and complication, or if people in larger settings themselves might be infected and choose to not mask. In these cases, I find that the personal risk is not worth the slight discomfort I feel when wearing a mask. This strategy has been termed “strategic masking” by Yale Medicine, and I ask that we all consider it this winter.
A personal anecdote is less effective than data-driven scientific research, but strategic masking has helped me before. When I got COVID-19 in April 2023, I had attended a large scientific conference, possibly the largest gathering I had attended since the beginning of the pandemic. Because I knew that this was a risky situation COVID-19-wise, I decided to mask for the entirety of the conference. Of course there were situations in which I did not mask, such as when I was eating. However, I still ended up getting COVID-19. I have no way of knowing whether this is true, but I suspect that I got it from someone who was not masking and who was infected, given that most people at the conference did not mask. In this situation, wearing a mask did not help me much. However, I continued to wear a mask throughout the conference, even after I developed symptoms, throughout my journey home, and after I came back to campus, despite the fact that I was testing negative. I decided that because I had symptoms I was going to keep the mask on, even though it did not seem that I had COVID-19. Lo and behold, five days after I returned, I finally tested positive. But because I had decided to keep my mask on throughout that time period, I did not infect anyone (that I know of); none of my housemates or my close friends ended up getting sick. Although it was unfortunate that someone’s decision to forgo a mask resulted in my own illness, I was at least able to prevent spreading that illness beyond myself. It came at a low personal cost to myself. All I had to do was wear a mask for a few days, which was a little annoying. But I would have never stopped feeling guilty had I spread the sickness to others, and for that I am glad that I made the choices that I made.