Cursing people when you get COVID is poor form

You can't blame the world for a respiratory virus; Its especially bad when doctors do it

Avoiding Covid is like avoiding jury duty. Live long enough and it'll find you. How you deal with it speaks volumes about your reasoning and character. Cursing the world when you get COVID is poor form.

When you go online and read stories about people who “ did everything right” , i.e. never went out, always wore a mask, tested constantly-- half of the time the story ends with how they avoided COVID, and half of the time it ends with how they got it. This speaks to the randomness of it.

Recently, I saw a physician and faculty member turn to twitter to tell the tale about how —despite doing everything right— she got COVID19. Like several threads I have seen recently, the thread quickly devolved into rage. From the thread, we can learn a lot.

Warning: expletives to follow.

That was just the beginning….

And…

It kept going, leading to… Paxlovid for a healthy 41 year old?

Allow me to summarize some themes

1. I did everything right, I got the virus because of what other (bad) people did; Ergo my anger is justified. The problem with this line of thinking is human beings are social creatures and we have always been interconnected. Proof is that the doctor felt the need to go on a trip abroad. She could have chosen to stay home.

2. Communicable diseases happen because we have to be close to each other. We have to breathe each others air. It’s no ones fault that this highly contagious virus is going to engulf all people in 2022. That became certain the moment the variants became so contagious and the moment we learned vaccines were impotent to halt its transmission.

3. Other people wearing a mask is not the problem. The doctor reports personal n95 mask compliance, but chose to eat indoors in the company of others, though she “sat by door”. There is no way to mask and eat, as far as I can tell. Mandating others wear a flimsy cloth mask or surgical mask (between bites?) would not have done anything.

4. The doctor is “pissed” at vaccine refusal. But, this is bizarre logic. Vaccines cannot halt transmission. The doctor probably got COVID19 from a fellow VACCINATED person, statistically speaking, given the countries she traveled to and prevailing vaccination rates. Unvaccinated, un-immune, older people just put themselves at risk. No reason to take out your anger on them.

5. Driving oneself to mental and physical burnout might be a sign to take a break, slow down, and seek mental health-care. Someone in such a state of mind might not be thinking clearly about the evidence base of masking, and other COVID19 policy questions. Perhaps they should not be taking care of patients, especially if they think unvaccinated people have brought COVID upon themselves and others. I would not feel safe being an unvaccinated person under this doctors care.

6. Why would a healthy 41 year old vaccinated person take paxlovid? If anything that choice may actually breed resistance and hurt other people in the future. Moreover, there are no data to support that choice. EPIC HR excluded such people.

I think it is always poor form to curse the world for getting a respiratory virus. We never did so in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and even early 2020. It would be a shame to start in 2022.

Policy choices must be considered dispassionately with a carefully weighing of the evidence. Just wear a goddamn mask, fucker — is a bad public health slogan, driven by rage and not data. Ironically, vaccine refusal is not to blame for COVID19 breakthrough post vaccine. The vaccines can’t halt transmission. That is the core problem of escape variants.

I fear the attitudes in the thread are prevalent in a fraction of elite, academic university professors and part of why these issues became so polarized, so emotional, and so political. It’s hard to craft good policy when you are in a broken and dark place. Moreover the fact a health care professional wrote the thread is deeply concerning and unhelpful.