There is a saying, born out of activist circles, that has made its way into the common vernacular: we keep us safe. In a country where many people feel left behind by the push for a return to normal and rhetoric of a post-pandemic world despite continued high transmission rates and new mutations of COVID-19, this saying rests heavily on my mind.
In March of 2024, the CDC changed its guidelines for COVID-19 isolation. They chose to shift away from the five-day isolation period to a minimum of 24-hour isolation if symptoms are improving and no fever is present. These new guidelines were proposed as a set of general guidelines for all respiratory viruses and those exhibiting symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, and fever. In many ways, this change feels antithetical to the CDC’s supposed role as the legal arbiter of disease control since, per their own research, over half of COVID-19 transmissions are from people who exhibit no symptoms. One of the reasons they provided behind this loosening of restrictions is to move out of the emergency mindset previously held about COVID-19 and toward treating it like other “everyday” health issues. However, COVID-19 is not an everyday health issue; it is a mass disabling event that has been allowed to continue to ravage communities across the globe. I also feel that this mentality poses another question: why are we not generally protecting ourselves and others from illnesses, even ones we deem miniscule such as colds and flu?
Based on the People’s CDC’s Sept. 16 “Weather Report,” a resource created with data collected by the CDC but presented with marginalized communities’ needs in mind, 37 states currently have “high” or “very high” rates of COVID-19 cases based on data collected from wastewater tracking. Ohio was among those that fell into the “very high” category. In Ohio, the counties with the total number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths related to COVID-19 are also the counties with the largest percentages of Black residents, such as Cuyahoga, the county directly to the east of Lorain. In my eyes and the eyes of many disability justice, community justice, and health justice advocates, the CDC has made it clear that they are no longer concerned with COVID-19 or the people that it continues to impact, instead putting economic interests at the forefront as demonstrated by their loosening of previous isolation guidelines at the request of Delta Airlines. Immunocompromised and disabled people, low-income people who cannot afford to get sick and miss work, elderly people with preexisting conditions, Black and Indigenous people who are disproportionately neglected and targeted by healthcare systems, and other marginalized groups are all being told that they are expendable in the name of making a buck. It is a slap in the face to the general public’s safety and well-being.
With this in mind, I believe we are all faced with the following question: what are we going to do about it?
When I was looking at colleges four years ago, one of the things that attracted me to Oberlin was how it had chosen to handle COVID-19. During lockdown, the College implemented protocols that allowed students to be on campus, although mostly confined to their rooms, and all students had to sign a community agreement specific to COVID-19. When I got on campus in the fall of 2021, proof of vaccination was required to attend, testing opportunities were free and accessible, and masks were still mandatory.
Today, however, things look different. Proof of vaccination is still required to attend Oberlin, but opportunities for testing have fallen away as accessible PCR clinics have been replaced with rapid tests. The reliability rates of rapid tests have been found to range from 53 percent to 90 percent, depending on whether the test is administered by oneself or a clinician and if one is symptomatic or not, according to the CDC and Infectious Diseases Society of America. Mask mandates have also been lifted and all Oberlin College COVID-19 testing statistics rely on self-reporting. At a school that markets itself as community-focused and often invokes its progressive history, why are we leaving our community behind? Why are we, as members of said community, allowing people around us to be treated as expendable?
I bring this up not to claim that we must implement precautions as rigid as the ones in 2020, but to highlight the College’s mirroring of the CDC in its push for a return to normalcy. While many of us might be able to adapt to this change and are okay with the risks it brings, it is not just about us individually. It is about us as a community, both as members of a college and members of a town, and how we show our care for and solidarity with one another, especially immunocompromised people and people from communities that are historically and continuously left behind by systems that supposedly work to protect us all.
An example of the kind of action and care mentality that I think we should shift toward is that of mask blocs. Mask blocs have popped up all over the globe and are independent mutual aid groups that focus on getting effective masks to communities that need them for free. Maskbloc.org is a great resource to learn more about what mask blocs do as well as find mask blocs near you from their global bloc directory. Whether or not this is a resource that would be useful at Oberlin, the ethos of mask blocs and the way that people come together to support one another through them is an ideology we can all adopt.
In an era of mask bans and state-enforced bodily autonomy restrictions, masking and solidarity with disabled communities is incredibly pertinent. Since mask bans sit at the intersection of eugenics and surveillance, specifically of pro-Palestinian activists, our community care must also exist at this intersection and others like it. We must mask, not only to protect ourselves and each other from doxxing and violence but also to prevent the spread of a virus that has killed over 1,200,000 people nationally, the demographic breakdowns of which parallel systemic marginalization and violence. We must start remembering that we are part of a community here, nationally, and globally, and that we have a duty to protect that community and its members, especially when the systems that purport to have our best interests in mind are pushing us away from one another. There can be no return to the old normal, not when people are still dying. If we can reimagine COVID-19 safety and care on this campus in a way that centers those with the highest risk, maybe we can build a community that truly cares about the well-being of all its members.
Free rapid tests can be found at Student Health Services and the Campus Safety Office. Both also have masks for those who need them, with Student Health having large boxes they can give out for events.
