....but I'm not the only one
Aug. 25th, 2024 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistI saw a conversation between two other people on fedi about covid denial.
We used to talk about "covid denial" as an antivaxxer thing, but almost everyone does it now. People "just have a cold." They're sick a lot this summer. They pretend it's not abnormal to be sick this much. And to never really get better --people shrug off long-covid symptoms like brain fog and fatigue with excuses like "I'm feeling my age lately."
Reading someone saying
what i really notice is the method of denial is that it is ILLEGAL NOT ALLOWED FORBIDDEN to talk about covid at all in any way at any gathering. among liberal types, not a single person will acknowledge how one of us (me) is conspicuously wearing a 3m fully sealing N95 mask just to attend the event
we DO NOT talk about long covid, the wave of new conditions, the community members falling ill and off the radar. i am honestly amazed even after all this time
reminded me of something that happened at work the other day which I wanted to blog about and never got around to.
I was talking to my manager about a particular report about travel habits in the UK which might be useful for my work but since the data was collected either during or just after the last lockdown, it's not a useful baseline of public transport activity.
When I mentioned this, my manager agreed with me and said something like "You're the only one who remembers covid." Not in an accusing way or anything, just making an ob. Clearly based on the fact that I'm still masking and I've never seen any of my colleagues wear a mask at in-person gatherings. Almost a year ago already, I had a terrible time trying to find out what ventilation etc. would be like for a mandatory gathering of 150+ people in one room.
You're the only one who remembers covid.
I made a joke (about how it was like that movie where only one guy remembered the Beatles) but it was to cover my discomfort at this sentence. It didn't feel funny to me at all. It felt eerie. Still does.
Anyway I know I'm not the only one who remembers covid. If you remember too, you're not alone either. It's hard but we're not wrong.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-01 08:17 pm (UTC)if you don't treat everybody who has a cold as deliberately undermining reality.
I don't. I mean, I sure hope no one feels I'm treating them as deliberately undermining reality because I don't think that. But I also don't say anything (beyond "that's too bad" / "feel better soon" etc.) to them.
What unsettles me isn't "deliberate denial of reality" (though there is some of that, in my own parents for one), but the way that "I am getting over a heavy cold" or whatever in work meetings is met with nothing at all, whereas even last year the cold-haver would say "It's not covid!!!" but now people don't test (which yes is for complex reasons including logistical and financial availability of tests, I continue to place most blame at systems and not individuals for the mishandling of the pandemic), no one bothers to refute that it's covid, no one asks about it, no one even seems surprised that people are sick this summer, no one connects to it the frequent juxtaposition of getting this cold after they've been to a festival or been on holiday or whatever.
Last summer people talked about this (in my experience) and this summer (in my experience) they don't.
And it's that collective change that contributes to the denial of reality, not that I t think everyone is lying about their colds because it's always covid (indeed, people are getting more colds because our immune systems have been compromised by covid infections).