With COVID-19 and HIV, Apathy is Dangerous — November 24, 2021
As we’ve been living under new protocols, the coverage of the COVID-19 brings up 35 years of old warnings that still haunt me, day and night.
Living in the heart of the AIDS/HIV civil war, I was well aware of what was unfolding with that pandemic and was certainly sympathetic to the efforts to reverse the impact. I didn’t feel it was “my” concern because I was not going to get infected.
My heart ached for my friends and acquaintances and neighbors and my city, but I didn’t heed the warnings myself. But I didn’t take the public health messages plastered around town to heart.
In 1987, at 27 years of age, I, too, contracted HIV. When I was told I was HIV+, everything changed. In fact, I remember my life in two halves, before and after contracting HIV. What did my future hold ? I convinced myself I had nothing to lose since viable treatment wasn’t available.
Dark humor crept in to help me keep some vague sense of normalcy, When my roommate and I heard of another death, we would look at each other and say something like, “Yard sale on Saturday!” The word ”GAY ” stood for Got AIDS Yet. This was off-color humor, to be sure, but it was a way of coping with the reality—people were dying from an invisible virus.
Today, at 62, I have been living with HIV for over half of my life. I didn’t die in five years as my HIV diagnosis doctor warned might happen. I’ve responded well to treatment and live a normal life – whatever that even means.
Most days, aside from having to take my medications, I don’t even think about living with this incurable virus
Yet in the past months, with all the media coverage of COVID cases and deaths. I am unnerved by my memories of the friends and other individuals who died in those years — my circle of friends who left for the hospital and never returned, the relentless number of funerals, the palpable grief, and yes, even the yard sales.
Would my life have turned out differently if I’d paid closer attention to the warnings? Probably. But I was young and invincible and didn’t think those messages were for me. And now, with COVID-19, I see history repeating itself and far too many people who are not heeding the current warnings.
The greatest difference, of course, is that HIV is not so easily transmitted as COVID-19. HIV has dealt an irreversible blow to humankind, but it started slowly and spread and continues to spread – over decades. This coronavirus, in contrast, is a supersonic bullet train compared to HIV.
Please, dear reader, heed the warnings. COVID-19 is not somebody else’s disease. A virus knows no borders and does not discriminate.
This is real and people are dying. Young people, old people, seemingly healthy people, chronically ill people, first responders, health care professionals, and more, dying. Each of us must do our part to protect one another. Social distancing and washing your hands and getting vaccinated are simple tasks that will change the outcome if everyone adheres to the rules. Don’t wait until you know someone with COVID-19 to take this seriously. It is here and you’re just as much in the crosshairs as anyone else.
Through science, support, and good luck, I have lived half of my 62 years with HIV. I do not intend to be taken down by COVID-19. Wash your hands, wear a mask, get vaccinated. Stay Safe. Please.
Grateful for today,
Scott Doyle