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[74/365] covid health inequalities
Mar. 15th, 2022 07:45 pmThis morning was such a lot, I have so many thoughts about it, but I am too tired to even write any of them down so I'll definitely forget a bunch.
Cycling went great, the weather was perfect -- chilly but bright, no worry about rain -- and it all went pretty smoothly except for the point where I was so grumpy at other people's obliviousness that I worried I might have missed my turn, but then I hadn't. And on the way home it was ridiculously windy, particularly on the first bit, a long straight road with the wind coming right at me, I was so tired after I got home, haha.
But it wasn't really the physical exertion making me tired, it was the now-strange experience of being in a room with a dozen or more strangers (only one person I knew, and one or two I'd seen on Zoom but at least one of those is too important to recognize me -- she was very nice about a point I made, though!).
I was the only person wearing a mask, which I expected and which only shook me a little -- this is a group about covid but I guess "pandemic's over!" has really embedded itself? I do see a few masks in Tesco or on the bus still, not a lot, but like I was the only person in a crowded pub last night wearing a mask when I was there (for as little time as possible, getting drinks for us to drink outside). But, fuck, I was there at the last minute replacing someone else who couldn't go because she has covid, I mean...
When I got home I had a shower and some lunch, did a couple chores, and then did a Zoom call with an undergrad who's doing her dissertation on how the pandemic has been for blind and partially sighted people. I did my usual list of obvious things -- video calls are both good and bad, LFTs are inaccessible, I'm crap at social distancing, the government was thoroughly uninterested in addressing the specific needs of blind people (like so many other groups) for months -- at best, many of our needs they're never going to address at all of course.
It was kind of interesting but kind of depressing to dwell on all this stuff again. Combined with some stuff from this morning: everyone was exclaiming about how great it was to be in the same room, which is fine on an individual level but everyone was assuming that this is inherently, objectively better than other options and like...this meeting would have felt just the same for me on Zoom except I would've been able to eat or drink (I did sneak sips of water from a straw, moving my mask as little as necessary to do that, but that was it; I skipped most of the lunch provided at the end, though someone did see me eating a cheese sandwich behind the building next to where my bike was locked up, which I know because they shouted "Do you want a napkin? Are you sure?" so I felt like a very competent grown-up there, heh).
Disabled people asked for remote appointments and working from home and stuff for years and decades and were told it wasn't possible: work couldn't happen, clinical assessments couldn't happen, via video or whatever. And now oh look it is possible and it's not just barely-tolerable or better-than-nothing, it's actually better than everything being face-to-face all the time. I'm not saying nothing should be face-to-face, just that I really hope we aren't going to lose these hard-won advances, I really hope we aren't going to exclude all the people that excludes.
Cycling went great, the weather was perfect -- chilly but bright, no worry about rain -- and it all went pretty smoothly except for the point where I was so grumpy at other people's obliviousness that I worried I might have missed my turn, but then I hadn't. And on the way home it was ridiculously windy, particularly on the first bit, a long straight road with the wind coming right at me, I was so tired after I got home, haha.
But it wasn't really the physical exertion making me tired, it was the now-strange experience of being in a room with a dozen or more strangers (only one person I knew, and one or two I'd seen on Zoom but at least one of those is too important to recognize me -- she was very nice about a point I made, though!).
I was the only person wearing a mask, which I expected and which only shook me a little -- this is a group about covid but I guess "pandemic's over!" has really embedded itself? I do see a few masks in Tesco or on the bus still, not a lot, but like I was the only person in a crowded pub last night wearing a mask when I was there (for as little time as possible, getting drinks for us to drink outside). But, fuck, I was there at the last minute replacing someone else who couldn't go because she has covid, I mean...
When I got home I had a shower and some lunch, did a couple chores, and then did a Zoom call with an undergrad who's doing her dissertation on how the pandemic has been for blind and partially sighted people. I did my usual list of obvious things -- video calls are both good and bad, LFTs are inaccessible, I'm crap at social distancing, the government was thoroughly uninterested in addressing the specific needs of blind people (like so many other groups) for months -- at best, many of our needs they're never going to address at all of course.
It was kind of interesting but kind of depressing to dwell on all this stuff again. Combined with some stuff from this morning: everyone was exclaiming about how great it was to be in the same room, which is fine on an individual level but everyone was assuming that this is inherently, objectively better than other options and like...this meeting would have felt just the same for me on Zoom except I would've been able to eat or drink (I did sneak sips of water from a straw, moving my mask as little as necessary to do that, but that was it; I skipped most of the lunch provided at the end, though someone did see me eating a cheese sandwich behind the building next to where my bike was locked up, which I know because they shouted "Do you want a napkin? Are you sure?" so I felt like a very competent grown-up there, heh).
Disabled people asked for remote appointments and working from home and stuff for years and decades and were told it wasn't possible: work couldn't happen, clinical assessments couldn't happen, via video or whatever. And now oh look it is possible and it's not just barely-tolerable or better-than-nothing, it's actually better than everything being face-to-face all the time. I'm not saying nothing should be face-to-face, just that I really hope we aren't going to lose these hard-won advances, I really hope we aren't going to exclude all the people that excludes.