It’s time to reassess how we talk about COVID risk

During this pandemic, I have never had as many suicidal ideations as I had over the past year and a half.

I am not in particular physical danger. Thinking about ending your life is an understandable coping mechanism for overcoming pandemics, living alone, and overcoming adverse conditions such as going without touching or dating indoors for months. I had a good therapist and my thoughts on suicide did not go beyond the idea of ​​actually planning to do it.

The “logic” for these ideas came about in this cycle.

After eating 21 meals alone each week, I longed to get to know others.

However, I was afraid that if I succumbed to such an urge, I would unknowingly start a chain of COVID infections that would kill people, based on risk-free thinking.

I feel like I couldn’t get it another Sometimes I think about 21, 42, 63, 84 meals alone.Well, if you have to kill who, Stephen, maybe you. ”

“It’s better to just remove yourself from the equation.” I would think, Don’t let my desire inadvertently kill someone else.

Although not fatal, these thoughts caused me great emotional and emotional distress. And recently, when I felt the first vaccination punctuated my left arm, those intolerable thoughts drifted from my mind and body, and hopefully forever, a clear relief.

When COVID first started closing the United States, I I am afraid How is a single person living alone like me expected to suck it up and lead a purely lonely life? (I was also afraid of the impact of domestic violence on my family.) Still, I often tell others that the risk is in the spectrum, but it’s not absolute. .. So I’ve been painfully alone for almost all the time I’ve spent indoors over the past year.

With more and more Americans being vaccinated today, the risks of many activities are mercilessly plunging. Even so, I believe it is no longer permissible to attempt an approach to life without the impossible risks in an ongoing pandemic that may be epidemic. As we fight for a fairer world, we also need to learn to live at different risks.

The key to doing this is for us, researchers, journalists, or both, to better explain the concept of risk. Consider three examples of how news media can do a better job.

April 25, New York Times Headlines irresponsibly Shouted out “Millions of people are skipping the second Covid vaccine.” Technically true, the headline framing obscured something more exciting and newsworthy. .. Of the more than 60 million people, only “8% of those who took the first Pfizer or Moderna shot” “missed the second dose.”The real news is 92% The second shot of the people who took the first shot was displayed.

Follow-through of US COVID vaccination has been an unmitigated historic success. In previous multi-vaccination campaigns, it was much lower. For example, in 2018, a study of 350,240 Medicare and 12,599 Medicaid registrants receiving multiple hepatitis A and B vaccines was conducted. Completion rate found It could be as low as 19% and only as high as 48.9%. In addition, a campaign completed between 2017 and 2019 immunized approximately 7 million people for herpes zoster. It was previously listed as one of the most successful multi-dose campaigns in the United States.found 70% and 80% of them “completed the two-dose series, respectively, within 6 and 12 months after the first dose.”More than 92% of them appear in the second COVID shot, and the rest are still 80% protection for a single jab, A very successful campaign. Still, Times I narrated it as a source of concern — if it had to be all or zero, it wasn’t enough.

Journalists and social media users also struggled to properly formulate the potential risks of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine when the Food and Drug Administration suspended the vaccine last month. FDA report In early april 6 The number of blood clots that may be associated with approximately 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine.It was less than one millionth and only one Deadly.. At the same time, about 562,000 of the approximately 331 million Americans died of COVID. This is about 1 in 588 people living in the United States.This means that even if one in a million people get a blood clot from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, there is a risk of not taking it. Many Higher than the risk of taking it.

A reader wrote to me on the night of the pause and was discouraged and asked for advice. We have created an outreach document containing J & J information to secure funding and deliver vaccines to hard-to-reach people. Mathematics shows that if another 6.8 million people who may have acquired J & J are not completely vaccinated, about 11,564 of them could die of COVID. However, the idea of ​​six people getting a blood clot is more than broadly mitigating the effects of a single-dose vaccine with minimal risk, as stories often focus on individual stories and the Holy Grail of Zero Risk. You can register many in the collective consciousness.

Finally, the CDC has recently Recommendation Vaccinated people do not need to wear masks outside unless they are in the crowd. This was wise and wise. SARS-CoV-2 has long been known to be overwhelmingly easy to infect indoors. a Study of 381 outbreaks in China Only one could be traced to the outdoor transmission. As a result, the obligation to use outdoor masks (expecting people to use them indoors) has always been suspicious.As epidemiologist Julia Marcus at Harvard University Once you put it inRequesting a mask outside seems to say, “I think I’ll have you wear a condom when you’re with someone else, so ask people to wear a condom when you’re masturbating. It’s something. “

The risks become even more suspicious as the US population becomes vaccinated.But the idea is Probably may be, There can be a single transmission outside, and many scold the idea of ​​taking off the mask outside. (Curiously, the CDC’s guidance advises vaccinated people that it was. It’s okay to gather indoors Indoor infections are much more dangerous, but conflicts with other vaccinated people are much less common. )

There is still much work to be done to obtain the most affected vaccines in the United States and abroad. But from a place of panic or unnecessary pain or suffering, you can’t do it well. For example High COVID mortality rate in Rhein Cook It has nothing to do with wearing a mask outside, and all It has to do with getting the Rhein Cook vaccine, stronger ventilation, and better working conditions overall. However, unnecessary panic about the former can overshadow our judgment on dealing with the latter.

My body will strengthen COVID protection in the coming weeks, so I’m looking forward to ways to improve my mental health and make my life more comfortable with a much lower risk of infection and infection. I am pleased to let go of the fear of hurting others and myself by engaging in normative living activities. I look forward to hugging, kissing, eating, and sharing unmasked smiles with others again. And I welcome this rise in happiness as a fuel to keep fighting the viral stigma and for the fairness of the vaccine.

Trauma in the last 15 months or so means that many of us have to unmask again and be socialized to be intimate with each other. If news media organizations reassess risks, narrate more nuanced risks, and do not assemble this next stage of the pandemic from an all-or-nothing perspective, their socialization could be better supported.

This is an opinion and analysis article.