Do you still worry about COVID?

The LA Times has a reader survey with this title. I started to fill it out, then realized I should share my responses. If you want to fill it out, too, note that they request your name, email, and city.

How concerned are you about COVID right now? How often is it on your mind in daily life?

Very concerned. It is a daily consideration in order to protect myself and my community. I feel like it takes more mental and emotional effort now because so few are taking precautions; everyone is a potential risk vector. In the first couple years it was taxing, especially with the unknowns, but the majority of people around were masking at least. It felt like there was some level of solidarity and shared understanding, which feels almost entirely gone now.

How have the precautions you take changed over time? Or have they not?

I wore cloth masks for the first year or so. I briefly stopped masking as regularly in the summer of 2021 after the initial vaccines, but quickly started again when we learned that breakthrough infections could happen. In winter 2021-2022 I switched to using high quality respirators like KN95 or N95 and have continued since.

What have you noticed about how COVID is now viewed in your community or social groups? Do you think the average person is taking it more or less seriously than you are?

Most people have loosened up their precautions or stopped entirely. I blame this largely on the minimizing language that our leaders and public health institutions have promoted. They’ve basically ended their response to the pandemic and are not communicating the risk of repeated COVID infections, despite more and more research confirming it. This leaves individuals to fend for themselves in an incredibly unjust and expensive healthcare system. I think most people want to believe that if things were really bad, these institutions would be doing something. It is difficult to face, but these systems favor capital and profit more than our lives. A prominent example of this was the CDC reducing the infection quarantine from 10 days to 5 at the request of the Delta CEO, with no scientific backing.

The average person is definitely taking it less seriously than me.