Like COVID-19, uncertainty and stigma characterized the outbreak of HIV. Now these men navigate a new pandemic

I agree with Dr. Michael Gottlieb, a UCLA HIV doctor who identified the first cluster of HIV in 1981.

“They survived one virus,” he said. “They don’t want to get caught up in this.”

Lessons learned from one pandemic save lives in another

John Schumacher, a 63-year-old soft-talking gay man, is a case in point. Over the years, long-term HIV survivors and community volunteers have faced many dangerous moments in his health.

“I have learned to neglect,” Schumacher said. “Without my consent, if anyone else wants, wear a condom, wear gloves, and do a safer or safer way.”

When the coronavirus began to spread, he began to wash his hands diligently and put on a mask before being widely recommended. He always carries a hand sanitizer, and the same can be said for 31 housemates who are HIV positive. The group shares a San Francisco community house. Fortunately, no one tested positive for COVID-19.

“I think I’ve been trained to be better at this pandemic,” said Jesus Gillen of San Francisco. “We have many of these experiences. We know how to overcome the barriers of the past.”

For example, Gillen loves to socialize, but when officials announced a directive to stay home, he didn’t hesitate because he had a good understanding of what was at stake. Over the years, tall flashy Latino Americans have lost many close friends, including the first American lover they met shortly after crossing the Mexican border in 1984.

“I was the only one,” he sighs. “And unfortunately he died a year later.”

“We have real social dispersion”

Today, the 65-year-old woman with pointed platinum hair and turquoise earrings is a proud activist in San Francisco. But he was a shy immigrant who didn’t tell anyone when he first knew he was HIV positive.

“At the time, they did not allow HIV-positive people to stay in this country,” he said.

But it was more than just fear Deportation Gillen was silent. 1985, Los Angeles Times poll It revealed that the majority of Americans support the quarantine of AIDS patients.

“We gained a social distance through discrimination, prejudice, homophobia, all of that, and a real social distance,” he said.

At the beginning of the outbreak of the coronavirus, memories of the 1980s rushed. A Grand Princess cruise ship carrying passengers at COVID-19 was anchored in the Auckland harbor. It was when Gillen heard a conversation on the bus.

“She was an average person, “Why do they allow them to be right there in Auckland? They should take these people to the island.”

“So I was infected with HIV in the early 80s,” Gillen became dumb and “people wanted to put us in cages and completely separate places.”

Unforgettable similar

Forty years ago, no one could imagine AIDS killing any more people 700,000 American people, and 32 million World wide.

Dr. Michael Gottlieb of UCLA said: “We didn’t know that AIDS was caused by a virus. We didn’t know it for two years after the first patient’s description.”

Scientists like Gottlieb struggled to raise money to study HIV. It took years for researchers to understand how AIDS can spread. Fear annoying a gay neighborhood like Castro. People worried about possible death sentences for coughing and toilet seats.

“You’re on the street at night and no one is there,” said 65-year-old Berkeley-based Rick Solomon, who participated in the COVID-19 study at San Francisco General. “And the bar was almost empty. People didn’t go out.”

Throughout the 1980s Solomon kept a small notebook containing the names of those who died. The list has grown to over 200 people. He was not surprised when he gave a positive reaction in 1990.

Although HIV and the new coronavirus are not similar in genome, transmission, or mortality, their experience of the two plagues is horribly comparable.

“The apocalyptic scene of the ICU in New York City is overwhelmed by people with COVID-19 pneumonia and reminds us of the early days when AIDS patients presented Pneumocystis pneumonia very late and needed a ventilator.” Gottlieb said.

Other factors are well known. The results of small studies are exaggerated. Authorities suddenly change courses. Public health is politicized. Life becomes statistics. The headline touts a new cure. The vaccine is promised. And after all, individual actions save lives.

“In the early 80s, the answer was a reduction in condoms and sexual partners,” Gottlieb said. “Today, the answer is masks and social distances. Behavioral changes are essential to prevent the spread of both of these viruses.”

Differences in earrings

However, for many long-term HIV survivors, the differences between the two pandemics mask the similarities.

For years, HIV defenders and patients have protested to raise government attention and funding. “We were literally fighting for our lives,” Solomon said.

Today, many medical researchers say it’s hard to find funding for a project not Coronavirus. Scientists have mapped the entire COVID-19 genome and understood the transmission within months rather than years after the first infection occurred in China.

Now, months after the outbreak of the coronavirus, some struck the streets asking civil servants to do so. Less To protect society from coronaviruses.

“In many ways, there is no comparison,” Gillen says. “At that time, the reality was that society generally didn’t care.”

At this week’s AIDS 2020 conference, scientists may uncover the physiological reasons why HIV patients are weathering coronavirus more than expected. However, Gillen believes that coping skills play an important role. Long-term survivors have been pushing indifference, oppression, and even dislike for decades, but nonetheless, “we have found a way to continue,” he said.