As COVID Deaths Surpass Those from AIDS, HIV Activists Consider How To Respond
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Deaths from COVID-19 have surpassed those from HIV/AIDS at a rapid pace. It’s only the second year of the COVID pandemic while the AIDS pandemic is in its fourth decade. With that in mind, activist Mark S. King has thoughtfully considered how HIV activists should approach the issue in an Op-Ed in The Baltimore Sun: “Activism is a selfish business. It has to be. For 35 years I have been laser focused on convincing people of the threat of HIV while promoting compassion for those living with the virus. Only with the deadliest years of AIDS in the rear-view mirror, and with COVID figures surging higher each day, am I reminded that it isn’t always about me and the disease that changed my life.”
My Fabulous Disease: “I’ll go a step further. HIV activists got used to commanding the world’s attention, once upon a time. As much as we hated the numbers game of pitting one disease against another — which was the leading killer in what age group, how many research dollars vs. cases, that sort of thing — it was easier for us to be generous when AIDS was sprinting up the epidemiological Billboard charts with a bullet. The competitive, less humanistic part of me is more flummoxed than heartbroken by the new COVID numbers. We’ve been throwing our grief and our bodies into the issue of AIDS for our whole lives, and now, some new virus wipes out our death toll in less than two years?”
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King concludes: “I learned a long time ago that the best thing I can do with my tragic history is use it to better understand and help people unlike myself. In doing that, I take my grief and my trauma and I turn it into a tool for positive change. JD Davids has offered us a roadmap to help those dealing with Long COVID and other chronic conditions. Check out his work at The Cranky Queer or one of the Long COVID resources mentioned above.”