Disability Visibility is a column on being disabled in a nondisabled world.
BY ALICE WONGJANUARY 17, 2024
The answers lie in poop. Based on the latest national sample of wastewater taken on January 13, 2024, the concentration of the SARS-Cov-2 virus is 1,132 copies/mL of sewage, an alarming increase compared to 280 copies/mL six months ago. This is one sign that cases of COVID infections have been rising, resulting in more hospitalizations, deaths, and people developing long COVID.
Like millions of other high-risk people who are service workers, older, chronically ill, disabled, or immunocompromised, I have done everything I can to remain as safe as possible. Due to neuromuscular disability and respiratory failure, my chances of surviving an infection are slim to none. With the latest JN.1 variant likely even more contagious – or better practiced at evading immune system defenses – than previous ones, I wonder if this is the surge when I will become infected, which is terrifying.
In 2022 a series of medical crises left me even more vulnerable: I now have a tracheostomy, a hole in my throat where a tube enters that is connected to a ventilator full-time. Since I can no longer breathe through my nose and mouth, masks are less effective, and the filter attached to my ventilator does not provide the same protection as a K95 mask. When I am in public spaces and see most people unmasked either because they think the virus is a hoax, that masking is virtue signaling and a sign of weakness, aren’t thinking about it, or that they simply don’t care, I feel like an expendable burden not worth saving.
I was filled with fear when San Francisco announced an order to shelter in place on March 16, 2020. Just a few months shy of four years to the day, I am more scared than ever and full of rage at how the state discarded high-risk people. President Biden betrayed his voters. He made campaign promises to end the pandemic and take an aggressive approach compared to the previous administration. Two years later he said the pandemic was over in an interview on 60 Minutes. His administration ended the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency last May, resulting in changes in vaccine and testing coverage which has contributed to potentially the second-largest surge to date. And at least 15 million people were disenrolled from Medicaid as of early January.
