And because in our time, you can catch a disease at your camp and bring it to mine....

I'm reminded of a quote from The West Wing episode Inauguration Part 2: Over There 
"We're for freedom of speech everywhere. We're for freedom to worship everywhere. We're for freedom to learn... for everybody. And because in our time, you can build a bomb in your country and bring it to my country, what goes on in your country is very much my business. And so we are for freedom from tyranny, everywhere"... 

In this day, the increased risk one person takes with COVID-19 gets brought home and circulated to everybody else in their home and likely also to other events that person is going to. Spread begets spread, regardless of how severe the symptoms are, regardless of whether there are long-term impacts to the initial node in the network, it's still spread. And for those of us aware of the potential long term impacts have even a mild case of COVID-19, as well for as those of us who are at greater risk for reasons as common as being overweight or having diabetes or having mental health concerns, for us, that spread is a cluster bomb, so what goes on in your benefit/risk analysis "is very much my business."

Understanding that this is where we exist is important.  I'm not going to ask you to change your ways right now, I know that won't do much.  I'm going to ask you to see things through my eyes... to see me.

Don't just see my concern about my own health causing me to not go to the gym ever again or to not visit my parents at their house every weekend to cook them breakfast as I did pre-pandemic or to not host gaming nights at my house because the benefit/risk analysis on my side just doesn't stack up... see me.

See me and the world I am forced to acknowledge by watching the spread, by watching the deaths, by watching the news say everything is fine, by listening to my friends tell me they just can't be cautious anymore and have to live their lives... see me.

See my perspective.

See my feelings of being dismissed, no matter how many times I'm told that I am appreciated or loved.

See my confusion over why we are willing to do something about second hand smoke but not this.

See my anger, see my rage, see my feelings of being betrayed by the institutions and people I trusted such as the CDC.

See my sorrow for the deaths but also for the hundreds of thousands of Americans that are now disabled because of this preventable disease (a study estimated that as of October 2022, the figure was 280,000-680,000)

See my math.

See how the greater the number of people taking small risks the greater the spread.

See how spread is spread even if it's a mild case, even if you have no symptoms at all.

See how, no matter how hard I may try to lock myself away and leave society in order to keep myself and those I love safe, I know, I know in every corner of my soul, that I can't evade this forever due to the ongoing and, since mid-2021, likely permanent spread... I too will  at some point in the coming years catch COVID-19 with my multiple risk factors for long covid's debilitating outcomes, whether it be from a work meeting or from eating a holiday dinner with my family or from it coming home from one of my spouse's work interactions, and I'll get it multiple times until I am so impacted that I can't anymore.... see how spread is spread, even when the carrier doesn't realize they are sick.

See the calculus of the risk that is not just of immediate illness

See how those mild symptoms you have may not identify the long term health impacts this disease may have and the organ damage, diabetes, brain fog, immune system damage, and more might cause problems in the future that you didn't connect to the illness itself.

See how a neighbor, a friend, a colleague, a family member might be immunocompromised, overweight, suffer from depression or other mental health concern, have heart disease, be diabetic, or any other of the many factors that increase not only the risk of severe illness but also the likelihood of those long term health impacts.

See me.

Don't say you care about my health, physical or emotional, if you aren't changing to take more precautions.

Don't say you understand and then tell me it'll be ok.

But please, just see me, see all of me.... even in silence, even just for a moment.