Now that people are saying CoVid is better than unemployment:

I had a very, very mild case of coronavirus and it knocked me on my ass for four weeks, unable to do much more than go to the bathroom or spend five minutes heating soup.

If you care that much about unemployment, what you should be agitating for is robust sick leave protection, of at least 4-6 weeks, for everyone, ESPECIALLY including gig workers.

This is not a “well do I want coronavirus but employment or no coronavirus and unemployment” situation.

For a substantial number of workers, getting coronavirus—even the “mild” version will leave them unable to do work.

It’s very clear that even my very mild version has reduced my lung capacity. It probably had some mild effect on my heart, as well, given some of the heart weirdness in the last week at the end.

I hope none of this is permanent.

But it’s equally clear that for some people, it will mean a permanent—and avoidable—reduction in capacity.

If we care about people being able to feed their families, we will also strengthen our painfully cruel disability policies for everyone.

I don’t think we will get to an acceptable outcome without committing to treating each other as if we deserve the best possible outcome, not the best out of two bad choices.

If we start with the premise that people to have their basic needs met, instead of believing that people must show their worthiness to exist, I think we’re going to end up in a better spot.

There are a lot of people going around and spreading some really ugly messages, implying that ”we” (and by “we” they invariably mean someone other than themselves) must make difficult choices (and by “difficult choices” they mean marginalized people will die) about the future.

I think that instead, now is the time to make the easy choice to love one another fiercely. To lay claim to the right to live, and to assert that this right is innate, and does not need to be earned.

I have blocked the guy telling me my case wasn’t actually “very, very mild” because lemme be clear:

My case of CoVid was, medically, classifiable as “mild” because I never needed hospitalization or supplemental oxygen.

It was “very, very” mild because I never had deep, wracking coughs or intense fever. I was able to get up and move around and meet my own needs.

This is *not* the case for many people whose cases are also classified as medically mild.

There are also people who are asymptomatic, or close to it. That’s not the fucking point. When you look at the percentage of CoVid patients who they say have “mild” cases, you need to know that “mild” just means “you don’t need to be in the hospital.”

My husband is an ER doctor who sees CoVid patients and knows where they fall on the scale of possible CoVid outcome ranges. When I say I was “very, very mild” I mean I never remotely became close to needing medical intervention.