This Is Not My First Pandemic

An auspicious day to write this post: Good Friday, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Good Friday is when Christians remember that God suffers with us, as we recount the story of the betrayal, denial, and abandonment of Jesus, the injustice and indifference of the powers that be, the agony of suffering and death.

As you know, this is not my first pandemic. For most if not all of you, it is not your first pandemic either. AIDS is still with us, and has been for decades, though the more privileged among us have access to prevention and treatment.

Unlike the coronavirus of COVID-19, HIV is not casually or easily transmitted, but before that was known—even after that was known—those living with HIV were avoided and excluded and judged, given disposable paper plates and plastic cups at dinner parties if invited at all, refused touch and medical and pastoral care and governmental attention.

I hear many echoes of the AIDS pandemic in the present one. Calling it “the Chinese virus” reminds me of the first name for AIDS: Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, G.R.I.D., extending AIDS fear and prejudice and hate crimes to the whole queer community.  At one point it was related to Haitians because of an outbreak there. Or understood as a “foreign” disease because it may have evolved from monkeys and chimpanzees in Africa.

Even by the LGBTQ community, it was often considered the disease of those who lived in “the fast lane” of the gay world, and of those—regardless of sexual orientation—who were promiscuous or drug abusers.

Only when the infection appeared among those with hemophilia or who had blood transfusions did the public consider there might be “innocent victims.” The first major HIV/AIDS bill passed by the U.S. was named for an Indiana teenager with hemophilia, clearly such an innocent, but one who also had done his share of activism.

The public discussion about quarantines reminds me of the desire to quarantine those living with HIV/AIDS, even when it was known that HIV was not transmitted casually. Decades after the causes of transmission were known, a fundamentalist Christian friend of mine told me insistently, as if on some kind of moral high ground above the science, “I don’t believe it can’t be transmitted casually.”

The current admonition “be safe” reminds me of the AIDS admonition to “play safe.” Condoms and dental dams and sexual distancing were our version of face masks and social distancing. Both viruses can be carried and transmitted before symptoms occur, and it’s disconcerting in either crisis to see those who are not sick behaving as if they cannot pass it on to others, particularly the more vulnerable health-wise. 

Of course, the other difference between the retrovirus that causes AIDS and the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is that the first was almost always fatal. And because in the public view it was affecting and infecting already undesirable/immoral/inferior citizens, there was little sense of urgency within the general population for finding treatments or cures. The then U.S. president resisted even using the name of the pandemic. 

But those of us in the thick of it were frequently attending funerals, memorials, and “celebrations of life” of lovers and friends, neighbors and colleagues whose lives were cut short—often very short—by the inattention and indifference of the larger “society.” 

Thanks be to God for the political activism of groups like ACT-UP and the community centers created largely by LGBTQ people to serve PWA’s that eventually influenced a more compassionate response, thanks in part to the media willing to report their stories. Also helpful was when the Christian community began to recognize that “The Church has AIDS.” 

An extremely familiar parallel is how minority and poorer communities have been disproportionately affected by each health crisis. The latest pandemic is revealing the medical vulnerability of people of color, especially those who live on limited incomes.

An unpublished futuristic novel I wrote in 1992 entitled The Cure: A Post-AIDS Love Story explained that my imagined medically-developed multipart curative treatment for AIDS—which included an ingredient newly discovered in the part of the world most endangered by climate change—worked better on white males than people of color and women.

I quoted The Plague by Albert Camus about his protagonist doctor’s conclusion at the end of the book. I offer this now in thanksgiving for the first responders, health care workers and caregivers risking infection in the present pandemic:

Nonetheless, he knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of a final victory. It could be only the record of what had had to be done, and what assuredly would have to be done again in the never ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts, despite their personal afflictions, by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.

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Copyright © 2020 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite.