New Year’s Resolutions - COVID style

1. I’m going to do better at keeping my mask on. I have no problem masking in public indoor spaces. Private spaces, though, are hard. Large work meetings, parties, friends’ houses. No one I spend time with has ever pressured me not to wear a mask, but I feel weird anyway. And sometimes I give in to the weird feeling. I don’t want to get COVID. I don’t want to bring it home to my family. I need to do better.

2. I’m going to find a neutral I-don’t-agree-with-you phrase to reply with when people say dumb stuff about COVID. I have a tendency to either ignore people’s misinformation or go way too hard

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   . I need to find a middle ground. Maybe “I don’t think that’s true,” and then I just stop talking unless they ask.

3. I am decent at thinking about the medical aspects of COVID - epidemiology, COVID research, care and treatment. But I’m very very good at thinking big picture about the ways that COVID intersects the forces that shape our lives. I can name several people who are vastly better at reading COVID data than I am, but only I can connect COVID to Tori Spelling and Nigerian street hustle. I’m going to focus more on that kind of linkage and analysis in 2023 and leave the data crunching to the people who are good at it.

4. I’m going to start pitching two media pieces that build on things I’ve written here in more detail. One on COVID and misogyny and a second on COVID and hustle culture.

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5. I’m not going to stop thinking about COVID. Even if it’s hard and makes me sad. I genuinely cannot keep thinking about every ghastly painful aspect of modern life. I can’t carry that much. But I can keep thinking about COVID, at least. And I can keep sharing those thoughts, and maybe they’ll be useful to other people.

1. In late 2020 I told my husband’s boss that more COVID waves were coming and anyone who couldn’t see that was stupid or in denial. Right after he said COVID was over. Luckily my husband’s colleagues know I’m a health person and it just made them start coming to me for professional input on COVID programming.

2. Outlet suggestions are welcome! I haven’t published in old school media since my Telegraph piece in 2018.