Like the unnamed woman Drake sings about in his 2015 hit Hotline Bling, I have been wearing less and going out more. Since Drake left the city, she started to act that way. She used to stay at home and be a good girl. Since Covid-19 left the city, I started to behave that way as well.
It is cold and flu season, and the Pandemic is with us. Most New Yorkers are vaccine and masked, and restrictions on our work and social lives have been greatly reduced. I need to go to work. I want to go to shows, eat in restaurants, and meet friends. I should enjoy this moment, but I can not.
I can't relax because of the pathogens still out and about.
I can't relax because of the pathogens that are still out and about. I am doing my best to act normal, but I have become aware of other people's wheeze and sighing. It feels like I have microphones in my ears. When someone clears their throat before a story is told, are they trying to seem more important or are they sick? I worry about my health as well. Is that a harmless frog in my throat or a deadly virus that has killed five million people since last year?
The big picture is that it is more complicated this year as we are mixing with each other more than we were last year. It is something that we have to get used to, and it is not going to get simpler over time. Dr Denis Nash is a professor of epidemiology at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. It could be one of many different pathogens that are circulating, so we have to figure out what is going on.
The flu, Covid-19, and a cold share many symptoms, so how to figure them out? There is a guide to differentiating between illnesses. The better off we will all be, the more people get vaccine against the flu and Covid-19.
He recommends isolating and testing if you develop symptoms. The hope is that a culture of trying to protect one another from the things that we might be carrying, especially when we have symptoms, is something that is growing in the US. Nash wants people to stay home when they are sick, but not all of them have that choice. Many people have to go to work if they don't get paid, or they won't be able to keep their job. There are many incentives that are not aligned with public health. That is sad and profound truth, but back to my subterranean jitters when someone coughs on the subway: justified, or over the top?
I asked Dr Timothy Scarella if his profession had the same question, and he said it did. We have been learning about it with everyone else. We don't have research studies that show how to adjust our thinking in the context of a Pandemic.
According to Scarella, he hasn't seen more cases of illness anxiety disorder during the Pandemic. He has seen general anxiety shoot through the roof, about unsafe practices in the workplace, about losing more than we have lost in the past two years. He said that I should be on high alert because there are still risks, which makes me feel a little better.
We rely on each other for protection as best we can during a strange and scary time. After my call with Nash, I was seized with hatred of colds, flu and Covid-19. Nash was unperturbed when I asked what their purpose was. They just want to have fun and live a long life like we do. The demons! It is up to us to ruin their party this winter and into the future.
The author of Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them is a columnist for the Guardian US.
