Two years ago today was the last day that I did anything the way I used to do it. I consider it my last way living a "before times" lifestyle. It was a day of transitioning into the way I live now. And it's also my birthday. I remember how I spent it. I drove downtown instead of taking public transportation like I usually would. I went to my studio and picked up the few masks I had been keeping there to protect myself from inhaling pigment dust while mixing paints. I went to my storage unit and gathered up some craft supplies so I'd have something to do while staying home.
When I got home, I watched Contagion for the first time. My day job had sent us home to work remotely the day before and I thought it was just going to be for a few weeks. I was so wrong.
I feel like I, personally, have learned a lot during this time. But I also feel like we, as a collective of humanity, have learned nothing. Cold medicine commercials are especially jarring. Cheerful actors portray busy people powering through their workdays with their coughs, sniffles, congestion, and sneezes minimized by Mucinex, DayQuil, Halls lozenges, Vicks VapoRub and Alka-Seltzer Cold. All I can think when I see these ads is that what they think is a cold might actually be COVID, and besides, haven't we learned that it's better to let sick people stay home from school and work until they feel better, especially if the illness they have is contagious? I think of one of the few in-person gatherings I attended where a couple guests had the audacity to attend with coughs and without masks. They said they were sick with something else, that their COVID tests were negative. I wanted to tell them, "So what? I don't want whatever's making you cough, either!"
"Common sense" is not common.
Then there are the countless foolish excuses for not following the protocols that could keep all of us safe, like complaining that staying home hinders creativity, or that we all "just have to learn to live" with the virus. Even worse: that we're all going to get COVID anyway, so what's the use in trying not to get infected? It makes me feel downright hostile when I hear people say these things.
If I, personally, have learned a lot in the past few years while so many others have learned absolutely nothing, then it makes me feel like I am surrounded by fools. How can I possibly trust them to do the right thing? What are they to me but a liability? What are they to me but careless vectors of disease? And in the past two years, I have often felt like I am much safer when I'm alone. There are people I now hold in much lower esteem than I once did because of all the ridiculous misinformation they've spread on social media about what they call the "plandemic."
Then again, I can't blame people for being confused and uninformed since the public health messaging about COVID has been so confusing and inconsistent the whole time. First they said we didn't need masks, then they said we did, then they said we didn't if we were vaccinated, then they said we did, then they said we needed something stronger than a simple cloth mask, then they ended the mandates in a lot of places but still not others. Then the CDC changed the way it defined high numbers of cases. And the doctors who are on board with the Great Barrington Declaration appear on the news as the most cavalier talking heads, willing to let the virus spread through the population in a misguided effort at achieving herd immunity, as if COVID can't mutate. I can't stand these people. I've also had it with the journalists who keep asking why people are still wearing masks in places where they aren't mandated. All they do is add to the confusion in their effort to manufacture our consent to get infected for the sake of the economy. I feel like trying to keep up with all the research on COVID and the data on case rates is like taking a college course. I've read so many articles and listened to so many podcasts in an effort to stay informed. A lot of people don't have time to do all that.
Then there's the cost of all the things you need to stay safe. N95, KN95 and KF94 masks are not cheap! Neither are the gadgets for measuring indoor air quality, or pulse oximeters. And not everyone can afford to pay for tests out of pocket and then wait for their insurance company to reimburse them. Going outside got more expensive in more ways than just inflation.
Also, the focus on death as the only negative outcome is a huge problem. I have read so many people's accounts of how they're suffering with long COVID and there is still not enough media attention given to what they're going through. The reckless attempt to achieve herd immunity has caused so many people to get COVID multiple times, with worse outcomes every time. The more I learn about it, the more determined I am to minimize my exposure, no matter what the cost to my social life or art career. So no, I won't be having an open studio anytime soon. I don't trust other people to do the right thing and I don't feel like trying to be the mask police. I don't want people coming in there breathing on me. I had open studios just about every month for almost 10 years. Everyone who was interested should have come when they had the chance.
I despise the initiatives to "get back to normal" and "reopen" things that weren't closed in the first place, and the way that the discourse so often ignores the immunocompromised and the kids under 5 who are still to young to be vaccinated.
And what ever happened to the idea that we needed to use multiple strategies to protect people from COVID?
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| Both personal and shared responsibilities... imagine that! |
Vaccines and masks and social distancing combined. These precautions are only effective if everyone takes them. But I don't live in a country that is very good at getting its citizens to work together, unfortunately.
The depraved indifference of the previous president has spread through the rest of the population like a virus. I see it all the time on social media. People who think like me get trolls accusing us of being "addicted to the pandemic" or "ruled by fear," but I'm just trying to stay safe. When it comes to COVID, I'd rather be too careful than do something I might regret forever. One thing I have realized about myself over the past 2 years is that I am only a risk-taker when it comes to my art. In most other aspects of my life, especially when it comes to things like COVID, I prefer to play it safe. And it this situation, I feel like I have to protect myself since no one else is going to. Why should I try to appease random internet strangers who accuse me of being overly cautious when I know they wouldn't lift a finger to help me if I got sick?
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| This didn't age well. |
People who think like me get accused of wanting to make everyone mask and social distance forever. No, I don't believe that the pandemic is going to last forever, but I do think that all the poor decisions so many people keep making are going to prolong it. One doctor on a podcast I listened to said it's like not finishing your course of antibiotics because you started feeling better. I think about that a lot.
Witnessing the way the United States of America has handled the pandemic has been the source of my greatest disappointment over the past two years. First we had a president who didn't care if people got sick and now we have a president who has been good at comforting the families of the deceased but currently seems more interested in the pursuit of "normal" than anything else. Many of the things Biden has done regarding the pandemic seem like too little too late. We should have always had an abundance of free masks and tests. I've always felt somewhat skeptical (if not downright cynical) about authority figures and now I feel even more contempt for and irreverence toward them since they have done so little to keep us safe from a disease that seems to keep getting more contagious all the time. We the people are not as important to them as the stock market and the midterm elections. Perhaps they need to be reminded that dead people can't purchase anything, invest in anything, work for anyone, or vote for them since they don't care about anything else.
For the past 2 years, I've had to live erratically, in a rhythm dictated by the case numbers in my area. I have worked from home, then gone back to working in the office, then
worked from home again, then gone back to the office again, then worked
from home again, and now am back in the office and masks are optional! I have a bad feeling that there will be another spike in cases soon, because that seems to happen every time they tell us we can put our masks away.
I think I'll end this rant on my third birthday in a row that's been ruined by a pandemic by making some wishes.
I wish we would have clearer guidance for everyone from our public health officials.
I wish the media would stop acting like children under 5 and immunocompromised people don't exist.
I wish we had better vaccines.
I wish the vaccines we currently have were widely available to every single human being on earth, no exceptions.
I wish long COVID was factored into the discussion about negative outcomes.
I wish there was a cure for long COVID.
I wish that our culture as a whole would do more to acknowledge the fact that almost a million people have died of COVID now.
I wish that American society wasn't so willing to throw people away for the sake of the economy.
I wish America would learn from this tragedy and do better by its citizens.
I wish everybody would wear masks when they're around me.
And most importantly, I wish the pandemic was over.
But it's not.
City of Chicago:
— Tiffany Gholar (@tiffanygholar) March 2, 2022
Masks no longer required indoors.
Day job:
Masks are optional.
Me: pic.twitter.com/NzQJE6pmJS
a few relevant links:
How to Beat Pandemics: a route map to ending COVID-19, ending AIDS, and keeping safe
How Did This Many Deaths Become Normal?
The World We Want to Live in After COVID
Why Wishful Thinking on COVID Remains As Dangerous as Ever
The Millions of People Stuck in Pandemic Limbo
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