I’ve been away for a couple weeks, to see the solar eclipse. Or rather, to see family who had come out to see the solar eclipse. To a campground. Which means outdoors.
Aside from my recent driving lesson, this was the first time I’d left San Francisco city limits in over two and a half years, and the first time I’d left the state of California since 2019.
It’s not often I get a chance to see relatives in a mostly outdoor environment, and this might be the last time I see certain relatives alive.
Of this group, I’m the only one who currently takes any precautions against covid other than vaccination.
I set out my boundaries in advance: I stay outdoors as much as possible, I always wore a respirator around them, if I couldn’t wear a respirator because I was eating/drinking they kept a distance, and if we ended up in an enclosed space together, we all wore masks (I provided KN95s). They respected this without fuss, and I appreciate that a lot.
I presented this as being about my own health issues, which is true but an incomplete truth. I didn’t bring up their own health issues which would put them at great risk of bad outcomes from a covid infection, nor did I bring up the broader moral issues.
Still, since they respected my covid safety boundaries, I felt safe around them. So I didn’t comment when they referred to the pandemic in past tense, or discussed their unmasked cruise trips, or on their frequent trips to indoor restaurants and stores without a mask.
In a weird way, during that time, I came close to believing that my precautions were mainly due to my own specific vulnerabilities. When everyone around me was acting like the pandemic’s over, it feels that way. When I spotted a stranger wearing a mask, it jolted me a bit because it broke the spell (I no longer notice my own masks most of the time). It’s also just so much easier to live as if wearing respirators all the time around other people is a personal quirk, rather than believe that we’re in the middle of a mass-disabling event and most people have too much learned helplessness to resist.
Suffice to say, these are my dad’s relatives. Most of my mother’s relatives wouldn’t respect my covid safety boundaries, which is why I have no plans to visit them.
They complained about how little they see my dad. This isn’t just due to the pandemic—my dad hasn’t left California in decades, and few of his relatives live in this state. It would be nice if my dad could see these people in person again, but it’s difficult to arrange in a way which would satisfy everyone.
Hearing them talk about their dreams for 5+ years into the future was odd because, well, I don’t expect them to live that long. That’s part of why I came on this trip.
Ironically, I think my approach—setting boundaries for my physical safety, but otherwise not advocating that they do anything to protect themselves or others—is the one most likely to persuade them to take covid more seriously. Not that I’m expecting them to change their minds. But I provided an example of what they could do if they ever decide that covid is worth avoiding.
The Notes Which Do Not Fit 
It’s interesting that you still take so many precautions when most people these days don’t bother. I still wear a (cloth) mask at work/on the bus/at the store, but I’m in a minority. Around friends and family I don’t bother masking, and I go out to restaurants where I have to unmask.
I haven’t done any research on what COVID-19 is doing right now, but it feels like it’s faded into the background enough that I don’t have to mask all the time. I found masking and social distancing stressful, especially when I had to socially distance from people I was close to. In the first couple years of COVID, it definitely felt like avoiding COVID was worth the stress involved, but stress is a health hazard too, and as COVID evolves into less deadly forms it feels increasingly worthwhile to prioritise “not stressing” over “not getting COVID”. So in “Shrug, why not?” situations like grocery shopping I still wear a mask, but I don’t bother if it would be an inconvenience.
Of course, I’m pretty healthy, and even catching COVID wouldn’t be a serious matter for me. If friends or family members wanted me to mask around them, I would, and, since I do mask around strangers, I hope I’m keeping vulnerable people reasonably safe.
Anyway, I’m glad your family respected your boundaries. Even worse than the stress of having to distance from people is the stress of interpersonal conflict when one person wants to distance and another doesn’t. I also liked your comment at the end, about how your approach would probably be more likely to change their minds about COVID than, say, lecturing them or shaming them. I think you’re probably right. They may continue as they’re doing if nothing changes, but if one day some impetus comes along that makes them consider masking again, they will have you as a positive example of someone choosing to mask, and that will probably make them more comforable doing so. And I suppose the influence may work the other way, too. If you ever decide to stop masking, my guess is it will have more to do with the example set by family members who respected your boundaries than the ones who didn’t.
Well, in my personal case, I’m still experiencing lingering symptoms from pericarditis AND I’m taking immunosuppressant drugs (and yes, bloodwork confirms that I’m immunocompromised). Both covid and influenza could trigger another pericarditis flare, and might progress to myocarditis. I want my pericarditis to go 100% away, not make it worse.
However, even if that were not the case, if I still had all the same scientific information I currently have about covid, I would continue to take the precautions I do. I know people who were healthy until they got covid and developed long covid. Some of them were fully vaccinated before their covid infections, and some only developed long covid on re-infection, not a new infection. No new science has shown that the risk has changed. I’ve noticed that, when people claim that the risk of long covid is lower now than it was in, say, 2021, they almost never cite scientific evidence to support that view, let alone explain how the recent scientific evidence that it is still a major threat that still newly disables people is incorrect. To me, it’s obvious that people who claim this are engaging in wishful thinking/denial or yielding to social pressure, not changing their mind based on scientific evidence.
I have also learned more than I ever expected to learn about ME/CFS. After seeing how people with that condition ‘disappear’, I understand how so many people can develop long covid without it seeming common. They ‘disappear’ in the same way people with ME/CFS have been disappearing for decades. A great documentary from 2017 that explains this, Unrest, is available on YouTube for free.
Since you’re wearing masks anyway in some situations, I would recommend wearing respirators, such as N95s (USA/Canada). They are way more effective and well-designed N95s are also more comfortable that cloth masks (yes, I also know some N95 designs suck). If cost is a problem, there are mask blocs popping up in many places, including in Canada. I’m pretty sure there are mask blocs active in Ontario, and they would probably be willing to send you N95s in the mail for free.