Recently my dad got Covid. It’s been a little over four years since Coronavirus got to Montana for the first time, so when he tested positive most of the wow factor was gone. We’d been through the whole ordeal of having a family member test positive a few times in the past, so when he shouted “Will! I have Covid!” across the house I just said “Ok!” through my toothbrush and went to school. He grabbed a mask and secluded himself in his room, and at the time I’m writing this I haven’t seen his chin in six days.
But that got me thinking. When does Covid undergo the normalizing transition from being thought of as a pandemic-level disease worthy of social distancing to just another cough? When is it safe to think of it that way, if ever? Or, will getting Covid always be this inconvenient, temporarily life-altering development?
Here’s the reason I don’t think so: humans get bored of issues really quickly. News for example: important world events are constantly cycled out of the spotlight after being reported on for just a little while. The war in Ukraine? Still happening, just as much as it was when it started. Is it being covered in the news as much? No. We as a culture cycle out problems from our lens of attention every single day, even when these issues are still present and affecting people.
I think it’s only a matter of time before a similar phenomenon happens to Covid. Should this happen? Is it even safe? It’s unclear. But sometime in the near future, our response to getting covid is going to shift from a “hide from your family for a week” type of thing to something more like our response to a cold or the Flu.
Miraculously, I never ended up not getting Covid from my dad. We’re in the home stretch of the recommended isolation period, so I’m feeling good about my chances of staying healthy. It was a weird blip in my week, for sure, but to be honest it didn’t change much in my day-to-day life. That might be a sign that Covid’s already starting to become normalized as just another cough. Or maybe there’ll be another major outbreak and we’ll be in online school by October. Who knows?
