HIV Survivorship in the Time of Novel Coronavirus
If it weren’t for the prescriptions that arrive in the mail every few months, I’d forget that my partner of going on 11 years has been HIV positive since 1986.
The powerful antiretrovirals he takes to keep his viral load in check work so well that he now counts himself among a rare and special group known as long-term survivors.
Through some combination of genetic luck and medical science, he’s managed to beat back and live with what so many of his generation have succumbed to.
For better or worse, my partner’s experience affects how I perceive the news about public health threats like the novel coronavirus (now formally named COVID-19).
While probably not intentional on the part of journalists covering COVID-19, cavalier phrases like “the disease only causes death or severe symptoms in the elderly or immunocompromised” or “those with underlying health conditions” strike me as cold and calculating, as if describing the virus as only a threat to people like my partner is a fair trade in exchange for comforting their wider audience of readers.
These casual assurances that assign emerging threats to “the other” also carry with them the weight of centuries of prejudice that have marked the sick or unwell as less than human.
