Covid rant
Ugh.
I normally just reblog cool stuff and post my art here, but by god, this is as good a place as any to unload I guess. It’s my own blog after all.
Anyone else just completely and utterly dismayed by the lack of seriousness people are treating our rampant pandemic with? Like, one of my colleagues is a close contact to her partner, so legally she’s required to wear a mask and not enter healthcare settings here in South Australia, but she can still go to work. She’s in the desk over from me in our poorly ventilated office. I don’t have sick leave (casualisation of the work force is a massive issue here), and I’ve been doing great so far in saving up my money for a hopeful mortgage deposit, but I could fall ill to covid at any point and that could take me out my stride.
People aren’t getting the reality of long covid into their heads. Another of my coworkers today complained of pain and numbness in her arm leaving her unable to drive (for now) after her covid infection. She’s doing her best, getting doctors to analyse her blood tests and such, and I explained about blood clots and organ/ nerve issues being a potential thing after covid infection.
Despite this, she’s not wearing a mask to prevent a second infection, because guess what, covid doesn't stop at one infection and bestow immunity upon you! This isn’t chicken pox! When I worked at the covid information line not all that long ago, I had to explain to surprised people that yes, multiple infections are possible even if you’re vaccinated, because our response globally has been so poor and allowed to to get so bad, that the virus has free reign to evolve and evade our vaccinations. I’m thankful I haven’t been cursed with an infection yet, primarily thanks to my booster shot (which would already be past efficacy) and my constant use of n95 masks at work and public indoor places. My main vulnerabilities are at home, and when I hang out at my friends’ places.
I have a sinking feeling that my first-mentioned colleague wouldn’t be wearing her sad, floppy fabric mask if it were not required for going out as a close contact. At least her RAT tests are all negative, I guess. Meanwhile, most of my colleagues are maskless and I’m just sitting there in my n95 every day, praying it’ll be enough.
Twitter is particularly strong with disabled people pointing out the realities of covid and the outright selfishness of... well, literally everyone who is able to mask properly and get vaccinated and doesn’t. Of everyone who brushes off symptoms as JuSt a CoLd whilst meeting with people unmasked. Of those refusing to get tested despite it being free here (I had talked with such people on the information line, and it was most frustrating). This country is pummeling away at our covid protections steadily and surely. South Australia spent much of the pandemic quite happily, free to go about not wearing masks and more or less being able to ignore the pandemic because the rest of the country was doing its job as well, and travel restrictions were in place that protected us. Just over a year ago, even, I attended the funeral of a dear coworker that held 600 people perfectly safely. When the pandemic began to really hit the country, we maintained strict border control that more or less helped us maintain our plague security; whenever that was breached, our state had short but extremely effective lockdowns that kept us safe. Then last November, our then-premier decided to completely undo everything by releasing our border for Christmas.
I was still at the covid info line then, and braced for the oncoming disaster with a twisted gut. By new years’ we’d gone from callers whining about travel restrictions and asking for help booking in vaccines, to us helping people get through covid infections and quarantine as a result of spending christmas parties and new years with family travelling in from interstate. I had people worried for their kids (the whole ‘kids don’t have it as bad’ thing was a complete lie), people spending their birthdays and other precious events sick and/or quarantining, people desperately trying to access pandemic disaster payments from our stingy-ass Centrelink system. Our covid cases literally went from 0 to in the thousands every god damn day, just within a couple of short weeks. We went from the odd freak death early in the pandemic- less than a handful- to our current almost daily death toll. The death toll primarily impacts the elderly here, but one of the first tragic victims of the christmas reopening was a baby less than two years old. Recently, another young child died, as did a woman in her twenties- someone my own age. On my very last shift at the covid line, I had to help a poor man get an exemption to see his mother dying of covid at the hospital. He and his father were in their last day of infection quarantine themselves. The next day, i saw an eighty-year-old lady on the covid death list; I’m certain it was his mother, and I have no way of knowing if the caller and his father got to see her one last time. His mother who could have lived a decade or more longer, who could have had a kinder passing.
As someone who has a condition that should statistically have killed me in the womb and resulted in many health conditions, it’s sickening to see the flippancy with which so many people view health: their own, and others’. I know what it is to be in poor health and a painful body; why anyone would want the slightest risk of long covid is beyond me. I have two autoimmune conditions: Hashimoto’s disease and coeliac disease. I don’t know how my immune system will respond to covid. We know that covid causes blood clots that leave you weak and numb and feeling awful, and leading to organ damage. I have a heart that has two valves instead of three, and requires an MRI scan every five years because of the high likelihood of the muscle deteriorating at some point. How would blood clots impact that? God forbid, would I end up needing a transplant, when our hospitals are in such awful shape right now? With mandatory masking over, most people I see at the shops are unmasked; unmasked parents with their vulnerable, unmasked babies and kids in tow, without a care in the world for reality. Completely oblivious to covid now being known as an airborne disease, not just one based on touch and close contact.
I’ve applied for a test study of a promising anti-Omicron vaccine my city is developing. Unfortunately I haven’t been contacted to take part in the trial, but I’m praying it will work, and be available quickly.
Until a properly effective and infection-preventing vaccine is reliable globally, we can’t put an end to free testing, easily accessible masking, supported quarantining, etc. We desperately need paid sick leave to be a mandatory offering from every single employer so that sick people can safely quarantine without fearing loss of future work and money, and so that entire industries won’t be pulled under by mass infection. We need Universal Basic Income and safe, reliable housing for all. We need a strong education campaign on covid and long covid, we need proper treatments for those suffering and disabled from long covid, and we need highly effective vaccines against as many variants as possible if we’re to ever get out of pandemic hell.
This is a frustrated PSA from an ex covid call centre agent and holder of a science degree. This disease takes out even the most active and healthy, and disabled and vulnerable people are being thrown under the bus without a second thought by those indulging in the delusion of ‘it’s just cold’.
FFS. It’s not. It’s SARS-COV-19, with goddamned monkeypox following hot on its bloody trail. If you’ve read this far, thank you dearly, and please consider helping me out by commissioning me if you are so inclined, because making a living off staying at home making art sounds bloody fantastic right now.
Arkadi out.
