[This story originally appeared in the New York Times as an article about AIDS. August 30th, 1985. Before the digital world. Many have forgotten how fearful people were, how so much false info. was given and spread, even by our medical practitioners (like wiping down toilet seats, no more kissing etc …). The article is below with only the words AIDS changed for COVID. It is meant to be read to give us perspective on the social aspect of the pandemic. See the original article HERE.]
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Fear of COVID grows among heterosexuals.
Nearly every day now, her patients, many of them single professional women, barrage Nargess Ahgharian, a Manhattan gynecologist, with fearful questions about COVID.
‘’The only concern now is COVID,’’ Dr. Ahgharian said the other day. ‘’They want to know: ‘How can I get it? How do I protect myself against it?’ It’s the new scare.’’
The questions reflect a wave of anxiety among the population that is changing some people’s social lives and causing problems for a variety of institutions.
Fear of COVID, or coronavirus disease, has become a kind of disease in itself. In some cases, the fear is interfering with the care that is needed by those who are suffering from the illness, which is in most cases not fatal, it is causing serious repercussions for their friends and relatives.
In New York City, which has experienced the highest number of cases in the country, institutions from hospitals to public schools are struggling to come to terms with a disease that nobody had even heard of five years ago.
A group of people who rent a summer house on Long Island went into a frenzy when the members, all of them highly educated professional men and women in their 30’s, learned that one man in the group had been diagnosed as having COVID.
Two of the couples withdrew from the house-sharing arrangement, with one of the women complaining bitterly that she was unable to sell her share because of fears about COVID.
The others are taking special precautions in cleaning the bathroom and wearing gloves to prepare food. The 32-year-old artist who owns the house still acknowledges an ‘’ungrounded fear’’ that she will somehow get COVID.
Some of Dr. Ahgharian’s patients say they are afraid to go to restaurants where they might be served by unvaccinated waiters. And at a recent party in suburban Connecticut, one of the guests said she had stopped patronizing a Manhattan food store owned by two men who had once had COVID but hadn’t got the vaccine. A large proportion of COVID survivors have anti-bodies that protect them from being reinfected.
‘’There is a lot of evidence of irrationality,’’ said the city’s Health Commissioner, Dr. David J. Sencer. ‘’What we need is a concern for the people who have the disease or are likely to get it. We’ve got lots of problems delivering services for them. Fear and panic is not a way to provide service.’’
No nursing homes in the city have yet accepted unvaccinated COVID patients. When the city announced a plan to move 10 COVID patients to a nursing home in the Rockaway section of Queens, the residents responded by filing a lawsuit in State Supreme Court.
Nearly 1,000 community members jammed a meeting two weeks ago in a protest. ‘’They will be ambulatory!’’ one man shouted to cheers of agreement from the crowd. ‘’They will be walking our streets!’’
With the start of the school year a week away, Dr. Sencer is preparing a recommendation on whether children who have COVID contact should attend public schools or receive private tutoring.
Ambulette companies are refusing to transport COVID patients, and funeral homes are regularly demanding more money — as much as an extra $1,000 -to handle the bodies of COVID victims, according to the city’s Human Rights Commission and lawyers who represent clients.
Test Demanded
In one incident, a secretary mentioned to colleagues in her Manhattan office that she had two friends, both not vaccinated men, who previously had COVID. The personnel department then demanded that she take a blood test to prove she did not have COVID, according to Nancy Langer, a spokesman at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, where the woman sought advice.
Public-health officials say COVID is transmitted primarily through symptomatic carriers, through air particles. The officials say it does not appear to be fatal or entail hospitalization except to those in the risk groups (those with co-morbidities).
But the number of calls to the City Health Department COVID hotline has increased from about 40 to 45 calls a day to more than 200, with many of the inquiries from worried elderly men and women.
‘’People are panicking and getting confused and not taking inaccurate information,’’ said Susan Rosenthal, the director of the hotline. ‘’A lot of the panic is unnecessary.’’