By Andrew Pulrang: For Complete Post, Click Here…
The holidays are a good time — the third time now — for disabled and chronically ill people to take stock of the state of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The end of the year is a convenient milestone. It’s also the time of year when we are most likely to be pushed into close interactions with others who may or may not view pandemic risks the way we do.
It seems like many if not most of the risks are at least somewhat reduced for most people at this point. But that arguably makes these holidays more complicated, uncertain, and therefore physically and emotionally risky for at least some people with disabilities and chronic illnesses.
Death and hospitalization rates overall have been falling in most places for a good long time. But they are on the rise again, and some areas of the U.S. are in bad shape. Infection rates are rising again too. In at least some places, like where I live, even when rates are low the danger is still significant because hospitals are full of patients with COVID, flu, and other viral infections. And new variants keep emerging. Some of them may turn out to be no worse than what we’ve already seen. But they can always end up being much worse, nightmare variants.
