This 👆 is a topic that I think about a lot.
We’ve seen many COVID-aware people lay out their plans about how they’re going to travel and eat in restaurants safely, to minimize THEIR risk (which, yes, might also minimize risk to the communities they visit/return to).
They do it in such a way/with a tone so as to sound like they’re justifying why they’re making the decision to travel during a pandemic; to defend in advance a choice that they know risks harm.
Often, they mention respirators and testing, and how they can isolate if they do unfortunately end up positive/sick.
(Which, aside: massive privilege! To travel AND to access these tools!)
But let’s pause to consider the potential ripples for a moment, if they DO happen to get sick:
They’ve done their own PERSONAL risk assessment – but before they tested positive, did they expose people at restaurants while unmasked/asymptomatic?
While travelling, was their mask always perfectly sealed? If not, did they expose anyone while asymptomatic – or worse travelling while ill? (Say, to get home, instead of paying to isolate where they find themselves in that moment of travel.)
Perhaps a wild, but still valid, question: If staying at hotels, did they remain masked in their rooms? If not, how did they ensure that their viral particles weren’t shared with other hotel guests/travellers via, for example, a ‘chimney effect’, etc?
And it’s not only fellow travellers to consider – what about the people who work in the service and travel industries, who are exposed constantly by privileged travellers in order to make ends meet? And what of the families to whom many of them return at day’s end?
Perhaps most importantly: some of these people making their personal risk assessments WILL end up sick, and some with a more severe than expected case.
Many say they’re comfortable that they’ve done their due diligence and are willing to deal with the consequences of that.
It reads like a lot of them are saying that they’re making said risk assessment based on some kind of low-key perceived immunosupremacy, or the idea that they won’t really be the ‘other’ who ends up with a severe case.
But what if they are? And they need to seek medical care? Let’s go there:
Then they are ALSO risking exposing other patients -many who have to seek medical care for non-COVID health issues- and healthcare workers.
And those patients and HCWs? They have families – who are then in turn put at risk.
It’s all fine and good to say that you’re making a personal risk assessment, and that you’ve done your best, and that you’re comfortable with your OWN risk, and any potential bad outcome – because you think it’s only going to affect you.
But NONE of us lives in a bubble – we ARE all connected, and your personal risk taking, based on your privilege and perceived health status, can still foist risk onto your wider bubble/community.
It would be COMPLETELY different if we’d worked collectively, globally, to mitigate the spread of SARS2, and if ALL travellers took the same precautions – but we don’t live in that world; we live in a world where the COVID aware are in a minority, and we CAN’T ignore that fact.
Perhaps the chances of a COVID-aware person becoming infected under these circumstances, and ending up with a severe case, are small; but they aren’t zero. Especially when worldwide we still see so much COVID spreading.
So, these aren’t personal risks they’re taking, they are collective.
And perhaps that’s how we should be reframing these things?
“This is a communal risk I’m taking, and I’m willing to take this risk on behalf of my community because: XYZ“
At least it would be more open and honest.
Often, in rebuttal to points like the above, we are told “well COVID is everywhere, and most people aren’t taking precautions, so it doesn’t really matter if we take these “small” risks”.
That is tantamount to saying “we can’t stop all chains of transmission, so we shouldn’t stop any”.
It’s also a form of apologism. Another layer of justification for actions that we know are potentially harmful.
Lastly:
Every time anyone travels for pleasure (NOT for necessity);
Every time anyone eats in a restaurant (especially indoors) for pleasure;
They help move the Overton window a little bit more – they help justify the removal of protections, and where we are right now.
Because the lobbyists in the travel and tourism, and service industries — and those industries themselves — are one of the main reasons we have continued spread of COVID variants globally.
And when we give them our money for a little bit of “beforetimes normal”, we tell them that their lobbying for less safety DURING A GLOBAL EMERGENCY was ok – we are voting with our dollars – we are voting to continue the cycle of harm.
And no.
This is not an ask for perfection.
Perfection is impossible.
Nor is it a purity test.
Nor is it an ask/demand that people stop travelling or eating in/at restaurants.
What it IS, is an ask for some introspection and reflection.
And at the very least, an ask for acknowledgement that anyone doing personal risk assessments to justify travelling and eating out for pleasure during a pandemic, is ok taking part in helping to move the Overton window, and that THAT means that people (especially vulnerable and marginalized) will continue to become (more) disabled and die.
ETA: After writing this blog, I came across the following tweet and wanted to share it here, because as the Overton window has moved, this is the path we’ve diverged from “no one gets left behind”; COVID aware allies in the more immunosupreme category used to show more solidarity, but slowly that’s waning.
FIN
babybytes 