“We Need To Live With Covid!” … and other DMs I’ve gotten this week.

“We need to live with Covid.” “We can’t let it rule our life!” “We have to move on!”

These are along the lines of messages I got after I shared that we’d postponed Margaret’s mid-January birthday party. And on the surface, I agree with them. I also had lots of wonderful discussions with fellow moms who are deep in the pit of promises we thought we could make to our children but have since broken. Who have felt like maybe we had some breathing room and could loosen up only to have whiplash once more. 

I’ve felt for a long time that Covid would be a long-term reality, something I reflected on in this post that I put together when we first started traveling again back in August 2020. We have made decisions over the past two years from the lens of “living with Covid” by embracing as many mitigation strategies as reasonably possible. For most of us, the risks haven’t gone away, they’ve just become more tolerable. But I think sometimes in the dialogue about this pandemic people have gotten “living with Covid” confused with not ‘giving a rip’, to quote Mama Dee from The Real Housewives of Dallas. Medically fragile and other exceptional health conditions aside, you can “get on with life” while also getting vaccinated, boosted, masking, and making reasonable risk assessments. Additionally, we’ve kept the line of communication open amongst our people, the ones we see most regularly. We’re not hiding runny noses, or potential exposures, and we do our best to be understanding and accommodating to concerns. I’ve really appreciated my friends’ patience and openness. Ultimately we’re upfront so that people can make decisions they feel comfortable with.

Another part of “living with it” has been monitoring the real time Covid developments and responding based on the ebb and flow of spread. We felt good enough about going to see Trevor Noah at an indoor theater in a casino back in October. And remember we live in Florida so mask mandates are few and far between, let alone vaccination requirements. Then fast forward to December, we thought we’d be going to the Peach Bowl but, as we watched the spread we felt like it wasn’t the safest choice to get on a plane and spend hours in an indoor arena surrounded by a crowd of unmasked people who have traveled from all over after having been at family gatherings over Christmas just days before. When I shared that we’d cancelled the trip I got a DM that succinctly exclaimed, “That was stupid.” I mean, whatever. We felt as good as we could about making a decision we didn’t want to making in the first place. And I’ve known throughout this whole thing that for some, our choices aren’t cautious enough and for others, we seem too uptight. Queue the messages from this past week about “living in fear”. The worst version of that DM being the one that brought my kids into it by cautioning me about what I’m “teaching them”.

And I know I could just not share at all, and I understand completely why bloggers, influencers and content creators take that route – even though I know others don’t agree with that approach – I’m just consciously choosing a different path.

Long story short, the very first time I ever shared on Instagram about Covid was at the end of February 2020 and it certainly wasn’t a popular move to do so. But I did it in my stories in the context of hey, I’m at Target and here are some cute beachy things I found for the girls for our Spring Break, but also we might not be going … TBD on the Covid situation so also here’s a look at the things I am buying a little extra of of just in case like toilet paper and Clorox. And in a sense, this sums up how we’re still living. I’m buying party goods for a belated birthday celebration at the end of February and planning for our time on the Disney Cruise at the end of March. I don’t think we’ll have to pivot, I think we’ll be back in a better place, but if we aren’t then we’ll deal with it. Though I am tired of walking this tightrope of should we, shouldn’t we and all the Plan As, Bs and Cs.

“What does it matter if I get my booster anymore, if they don’t work?”

When I first posted about the Omicron surge over Winter Break, I received some messages about how vaccines aren’t even working. There’s been much ado about whether or not it is still a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” and I really wish news outlets would start bottom lining things instead of stooping to clickbait. This strain is more mild, even for the unvaccinated. But unvaccinated individuals who test positive are still making up the vast majority of severe and fatal Covid cases. I’ve shared that I am vaccinated and that I got my booster at the beginning of December. I can’t speak for everyone who advocates for immunizations, but I know personally I do it because I don’t want to see people die from something that is very much preventable at this point. These days we’re seeing vaccine breakthroughs more often, but thankfully it is still looking like the average breakthrough case is mild. And a breakthrough case does not mean vaccine failure and I am having a hard time understanding how to convey that to people who still don’t get it.

“It’s a cold. Move on.”

The messages about how “mild” this strain is as some sort of rebuttal to why I shouldn’t have delayed Margaret’s birthday party, got to me. From a selfish standpoint, a lot of how we’re operating is simply trying to control our stress since we can’t control much else. We knew that the potential for a party planning hiccup during a surge would be greater and we didn’t want to deal with the disappointment and logistical struggle involved. Sure enough, Catherine’s preschool class was quarantined so we would have had to reschedule anyways. And then look at me now, just call me Typhoid Mary! But besides the logistical struggles, from a community standpoint the constant dribble of “it’s mild, its mild” bothers me because even though that thankfully that seems to be true with the percentage of hospitalizations being lower, the rate of infection means that our overall hospitalizations are trending up, thus the unprecedented widespread strain on healthcare. We’ve felt it intimately in our family. My father-in-law has been in the ICU over the past few weeks unrelated to Covid and yet his care was impacted by the current surge. My Dad’s office and experience at his hospital has been rough to say the least. So yes, this may be more mild, but we don’t need that to become the permission we give ourselves to lose our grip.

Testing positive is not a moral failure.

There’s been so much moral posturing during this pandemic that for so many, testing positive has felt like a moral failure. And it wasn’t fun to have to start people’s weekend off with my bad news. But, getting Covid is not indicative of a character flaw. This column does a great job touching on why we can’t think of it like that. With a virus that is evolving to be more airborne and more contagious it is simply easier to catch. Viruses are going to do, what viruses are going to do. There are certainly people who have handled themselves in ways I’d describe as morally questionable, or even deeply flawed. I’m sure you’ve seen it too. Much like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said, we know it when we see it. But for the most part what I’ve seen is people trying their best, taking reasonable precautions, and still getting it. Especially now. So part of me talking openly about my experience is in an effort to contribute to moving away from the shame involved in getting Covid. What we don’t want to have is people feeling so wrapped up in the perceived moral failings of testing positive that they avoid testing, or withhold exposure information. They might not reach out for the treatment or support they need. And as so many have pointed out, yet it must be said again, there are so many who do not have the privilege of staying at home. Where even following quarantine guidelines comes at a cost unimaginable to most of us.

But, while I’m at it with more time on my hands than usual, I’d like to say that in my opinion, there have indeed been moral failings brought to light during the past two years, like a country plagued by student debt so crippling, millions would have been ruined if not for the emergency relief extended by both the Trump and Biden administrations. High healthcare costs and inequitable access has only been made worse. And then there’s the unimaginable strain on our healthcare workers. We’ve been told to “stay home” which is almost laughable for a country that is one of eleven in the entire world that doesn’t have paid sick leave on a national level. Female participation in the workforce is on par with levels last seen in the 1980s. While 178 countries around the world have national laws that guarantee paid leave – 50 of which also make provisions for both partners – we’re not one of them. That, coupled with our minimal access to subsidized or affordable childcare, leaves so many women feeling like they have no choice. It just baffles me. And I know we’re in the thick of things right now but my prayer is that on the other side of this we can make forward strides towards policies that are in the best interest of the American family, and that take care of the most vulnerable among us.

Wrapping it up.

I think as a whole we find ourselves in the difficult position of reconciling the fact that even with a more mild strain like Omicron, we’re not off the hook from making tough calls. I know personally it has been demoralizing to feel like I was getting the swing of the risk/reward equation and then suddenly I’m not sure of anything anymore. So if you’re tired, you’re not alone. If you’re currently isolating and feeling crummy, you’re definitely not alone. And I don’t know much, but I know the best way to get through it is by doing so together.