Is this going to become a witch hunt?

As I was waiting for my hospital-wide COVID-19 testing swab to result (I am negative!) I was feeling so worried. If I was positive I would be wondering what I did wrong, I would be beating myself up. In a way this feels a bit like a witch hunt.

I remember back when AIDS was first being diagnosed and people were being ostracized. People felt guilty about getting sick, they felt responsible, they felt dirty and unfit. It was a scarlet letter. There was little sympathy for their illness. Victims of the disease were made to feel as though they deserved their diagnosis. I recall an HIV-positive patient walking out to the nurse’s station and people recoiled, while backing away from him. It was ugly and regrettable behavior, yet it happened.

Fast forward to today. No one wants to get diagnosed with COVID-19. With pending test results your first thoughts become: who did I see, what did I do wrong to acquire this, will schools close because of me, will I get hate mail? Not the appropriate: how can I mend myself; will I recover? Is the ugly behavior of the past reemerging?

This attitude leads to the inevitable non-disclosure of illness, secrets--not sharing information when contact tracing is occurring, not calling a friend to let them know you are positive and attempting to bury the infection in the sand.

Enter health care workers. We are exposed on a regular basis. We are no longer called heroes. In fact, when an outbreak occurred at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, The Boston Globe was quick to point fingers. What did those “battle weary” nurses do to let their guard down? What did they do? Let me answer that question for you. They selflessly took care of patients while risking their own health.

In addition to the emotional toll the virus takes on people, the privacy of the disease also has scientific implications. People are getting diagnosed and keeping it undisclosed to their friends/family as well as people are not getting swabbed because they’d rather not know the truth. Either scenario potentiates the virus to spread among us and erroneously underestimates the actual number of positive Covid-19 cases. Why is this behavior dangerous? It leads to a waterfall effect of people thinking that Covid-19 does not exist and thinking they do not know anyone who else ever had it. All we have with Novel Viruses are data and science. We need full disclosure to be able to study the numbers as accurately as possible and make decisions based on these numbers. Data-driven science relies solely on the premise that information we are collecting is accurate and sound.

How do we move past this? We are human. We judge. We protect ourselves over others. We gossip. We feel superior. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, fear of this disease is a double-edged sword, so please be kind to one another. No one wants to get this. No one is immune to this. Wear a mask, socially distance, stay outside when you can, wash your hands, get tested when you are not feeling well, answer the contact tracing questions as honestly as you are able and support one another.

This cannot be a witch hunt. “Treat others how you want to be treated”, my mother always said. We have a long road ahead of us. Civility and nurturing compassion will go a long way.

To find testing sites near you please visit this website.

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/stop-the-spread

~The opinions I have expressed are my own and not representative of the Hospital I work for or the Board of Health I sit on~