I saw someone on the Twitter say that "Long COVID disability can't be that bad if people are still able to work" and rather than taking the bait and engaging with the post and putting money into Elon's pockets I decided to vent about it here.
Screaming into the void.
How can someone not understand the many ways you can be disabled and still be able to work? The ways that enjoyment can be completely stripped from your life...but hey, as long as you're still able to provide some useful economic output for society right?
This is the kind of mindset that comes from buying completely into the idea that the entire worth of a person comes down to what they can do for capitalism, ignoring the idea that society should work for people, not the other way around. Or don't we work so that we can enjoy life anymore?
What kind of corporate bootlicker do you have to be to say with a straight face that, "yeah, I'm getting my foot amputated next week because of COVID induced diabetes but I don't want to be considered disabled because I can still work."
It reminds me of an article I read a couple of years ago where Tim Kaine, one of the senators from Virginia, said that since his mild COVID infection in 2020 that he has experienced 24/7 tingling sensations throughout his entire body, but he, "doesn't consider himself disabled".
He must be a tougher guy than me because that sounds like absolute torture, and I would consider losing the ability to enjoy a cool breeze without being distracted by persistent nerve or neurological damage a disability. I'm sure that there are millions of Tim Kaine's out there who have had their lives altered significantly, but not significantly enough to consider taking COVID and long COVID disability seriously.
Six years into a pandemic that society has chosen to ignore because the powers that be decided that making society safer for everyone would be too expensive, so it's better to just "let it rip" and kill and disable folks in droves. The powerful are making two bets, the first is that the working class will adapt to the virus, and the second is that they will be able to keep themselves safe using various local mitigations. Note that elite events still have masked workers, air filters, and in some cases even COVID testing.
But our kids have to go to schools even when they have fevers to sit in enclosed classrooms with unmasked teachers.
When it's this obvious that the folks in charge of society have decided to sacrifice the working class at the altar of capitalism we have to take steps to protect ourselves.
As for myself, I will continue to #MaskUp as I have been doing since 2020, back when we all first learned that the virus was airborne and because nothing we have learned about the damage that COVID does since then has convinced me that getting infected with it repeatedly is the smart choice. There's also the added bonus that I have only been sick once in the past 6 years, and that's nothing to sneeze at either.