I Still Can’t be Rational about COVID
I Still Can’t be Rational about COVID
Welcome to my own, self-conducted therapy session
A few weeks ago, I went to a poetry reading at my favorite bookstore. I enjoyed the poetry. I was even more interested in the discussion between the author and the audience that followed each poem.
The author had written most of the poems during COVID. She and the audience reflected on the dark days of 2020. They talked about this period as a remarkable and unique time in their lives. People talked about their fears, the aspects of “lockdown” that they found difficult and those that they remembered fondly – more time with teenage children, board games, conversations, movies, “zocktails.” Nobody discussed their current relationship with the virus, but these people seemed to have comfortably moved on. There was nary a mask in sight despite us sitting in close quarters in a book shop, in Chicago, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, with the occasional sniffle and cough interrupting the conversation. This crowd seemed to have gotten through the pandemic. Some people had experienced illness and loss; they recognized the threat COVID had posed, were able to consider “COVID-times” as an era that would be an important part of their lives – something about which they might one day reminisce; at present, nobody seemed to be thinking much about COVID.
I contrast this with my relationship to the disease, past and present; a relationship that is not a healthy one.
Maybe, as a doctor, I was particularly scarred by the experience, but I cannot think about COVID in a rational way.[i] My inability to reflect with poise or equanimity surprises and embarrasses me. My recollections are still raw, colored by fear, uncertainly, and powerlessness. I am still angry about decisions that were made to protect people and “flatten the curve” – closing the Chicago Lakefront, keeping my children’s school closed for an entire year – even though I know these were made with the best intentions. I remain embarrassed, rather than amused, by the silly things I did early on. I remember a hike in the mountains of northern New Mexico, summer 2020, on which everyone pulled on a mask when passing each other on the trail. I remember thinking COVID would disappear once most of us were vaccinated.[ii]
I hope I will eventually see “COVID-times” as one more interesting, complicated, period of my life – like summer camp or internship. Presently, I try to avoid thinking about those times, and when forced to, I cringe.
My inability to achieve equanimity with COVID affects me. Rather than assuming the person wearing a mask is getting over a cold or suffers with a serious medical condition, I reflexively think they belong to the group who cling to an irrational fear of the virus. If I reside too far to one side of my well-adjusted, poetry reading acquaintances, I imagine the masked live too far on the other side. Given my work, I interact with this group weekly. Those who remain paralyzed by fear of the virus. I struggle to deal productively with their panic, worry, dread and inability to return to a life in a world that will exist from here on out. As someone who strives to live by the mantra “live and let live,” my difficulty to attain this ethos with the COVID-worried is a failing. I also see it as a failing of medicine, how we failed to educate these people, how we fomented anxiety.
Not wanting to leave this auto-therapy session without a plan, I’ll propose a next step. My wife kept a “COVID Journal” after reading a New York Times article in April 2020. She is an amazing writer and logged the goings on, intermittently, for a little over a year. I’m going to try to read this. I am hoping that this exercise will let me leave the pandemic behind, make it a harmless memory that I can interact with, and allow me a little more patience and empathy with those on the other tail of the normal distribution.
(Photo Credit Engin Akyurt)
[i] I think my attempt at a “Friday Reflection” might have whitewashed my relationship with the disease.
[ii] This might cause me the most angst. What in the world was I, and people who should have known even better than me, thinking saying that a our immunity to a coronavirus would be similar to that of measles.
Dr. Cifu!
This post is a little confusing. You've placed yourself on the opposite side of the mask wearers? Does that mean you have done a 180 flip on all of the Narrative positions? If that is so, could you please comment on what made you see the light? Your special insight on the transition could be helpful. We on the resistance side have had trouble coming up with an approach or argument that will convince Narrative supporters to discuss anything.
Thanks for your honesty. I am an Anaesthetist/Anaesthesiologist in Australia and have wrestled and continue to wrestle with the same thing. I still get triggered when I see a mask in public being reminded of the many lies we were told, how my colleagues and the public swallowed the propaganda (because most was not evidence based), causing my inner rage at the injustices to fire up again. The worst is that so many have not learned from the mistakes made and would rather just move on instead - which I worry destines us to repeat the same ineffective totalitarian wargames we experienced over covid, and continue to experience in some places. For instance, our health network still won't allow unvaccinated employees to return to work, stating covid is a 'vaccine preventable disease'! This policy was modified as recently as late 2023! Another irrational policy (amongst the sea of them)- our state mandated masks for 4 months when we did not have a single case in the entire state! Someone tried to explain to me that was why there were no cases!
I am also furious at the need to censor this post for fear of the regulators.
As I write I wonder if it is me that is irrational or the perpetuating of insane policies like the above only make me feel irrational as I oppose the truly irrational!