A grim reality of the pandemic that is often overlooked is that people lost friends and family not only to death but also to misinformation and political polarization. Those who remained cautious—especially those with disabilities or who live with others who are at risk—watched in dismay as their friends and family abandoned all precautions and refused to take any steps to protect them. Indeed, many family members bought into the lies and conspiracy theories that Covid was over, that vaccines are dangerous, and that wearing a mask indicates submission to tyranny.

Many simply went along with everyone else by believing that it’s not their responsibility to protect their community and that those who are at risk have adequate protective measures with masks, vaccines, and Paxlovid, and that it’s each person’s personal responsibility to protect themselves if they want. This is the most insidious of the lies, as both the media, both parties of the government, and even medical professionals have bought into it, with messaging that the pandemic is over, that it’s just like the flu, and that those who want to avoid Covid can do so easily and you can go back to normal once you’ve gotten your vaccine.

It ignores that Covid is a risk for everyone, with each infection creating inflammation, immune dysregulation, aging blood vessels, and impacting brain function. But COVID is especially dangerous to the ¾ of adults in the U.S. who would be considered at increased-risk for severe Covid-19 infection by CDC criteria. Yes, 75% of U.S. adults have at least one increased-risk condition, 40% have at least two and, 20% have at least three conditions. Even for adults under 65, 70% are at an increased risk.

Long Covid is now the most common chronic disease in children, even more common than asthma, and we still accept repeat infections in children as normal. Somewhere around 20% of American adults are living with long Covid. There are several millions more people who’ve applied for disability than expected since 2020. Long Covid researchers—the experts—are raising the alarm that Covid is not a benign illness, that there are no consequence-free infections. They caution that Covid has sub-clinical effects on the vascular system, the brain, and the immune system, not dissimilar to the effects of leaded gasoline on a generation, which we are only now starting to understand. Even young and healthy people, including Olympic athletes, have been disabled by a single infection. How much longer will we stay in denial before we take action, or is all this disease, disability, and death an acceptable collateral we pay for the illusion of normality?

But beyond this—and most crucially—we have abandoned our values of community care, of making shared spaces—including hospitals—welcoming and accessible to those at the highest risk. These are people who suffer from numerous conditions such as ME/CFS, severe migraines, severe brain fog, fatigue, chronic illnesses, those who are immunocompromised, and those with many disabilities, 80% of which are invisible. These millions who suffer from long Covid or who have other conditions that put them at a high risk have been consigned to their homes, aghast at society’s willingness—or, rather, determination—to infect them with an illness which not only threatens their life but risks deteriorating whatever health they have left even further.

My grandmother was one of these vulnerable people, and she did not have a choice in getting infected. She suffered a stroke which partially paralyzed her, and she died after contracting her third Covid infection in her nursing home. She was unvaccinated as her caregivers refused to vaccinate her or wear a mask around her despite my pleas. She did not speak English nor have the mental capacity to advocate for herself. Unless a significant portion, even 25%—the same percent of people that get vaccinated—of us protect them by wearing high-quality respirators indoors, many vulnerable people just like my grandmother will be at risk of hospitalization, disability, or death. Even one person masking can prevent innumerable infections due to the exponential nature of disease spread.

But maybe I am too optimistic, and we’ve never actually held those values of caring for each other in the first place. After all, we let homeless people decay on the streets, we use jails as treatment centers for people with mental illness, and we struggle to provide bare-minimum accommodations for people with disabilities. Maybe the early days of the pandemic when we stayed home and wore masks to protect each other, and hailed doctors as heroes were an anomaly. It seems that we’ve used up our reserve of compassion and now with pandemic fatigue, unyielding self-interest has roared back with vicious vengeance worse than we’ve ever seen before.

Seeing how society has refused to take any precautions, it’s hard to see us in any other way than frogs boiling in the stew of infection-laced air, poisoning the well of shared spaces, becoming habituated to the harm we inflict upon ourselves and others through a thousand cuts of repeat infections, indifference, and denial. It is a tragedy of the commons, where everyone—by thinking only about themselves—does not do their small part to protect each other.

The science is clear, but science cannot tell us how to act; actions are based on our values, and we must decide as a society what values we want to embody—individual responsibility, self-reliance, and each-man-for-himself mentality, or community care, kindness, and shared responsibility.