There was a short but sweet period at the start of the year when I suspected I was superhuman. Everyone I knew seemed to have contracted Covid, but I’d managed to evade it. I’m probably immune, I thought smugly. Scientists should do studies on me. You can guess what happened next: in late March, my entire household got Covid. Forget superhuman, for a week I was barely human. On day five of testing positive, when I was starting to feel marginally better, I thought I was probably well enough to write my Guardian newsletter. I sat down to work and was immediately overcome with brain fog. The only thing I could write was “urrgh, sorry” to my editor. At least I was within my word count for once.
I’m not bringing this up because I want belated feel-better chocolates (although they wouldn’t go amiss), but because I am aghast at the number of public figures merrily announcing that they’re working through Covid, like a deadly virus is no big deal. On Monday, for example, it was announced that 71-year-old Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senate majority leader, has “very mild symptoms” but will work remotely. Last month, 81-year-old Dr Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, said he had tested positive with “mild symptoms”, but would “continue to work from his home”. Around the same time, Pete Buttigieg said exactly the same thing: mild symptoms, will work remotely.
Perhaps all these people got far milder versions of Covid than I did. Perhaps they are perfectly capable of working while sick. But that’s not something they should be boasting about – particularly as there is still so much we have to learn about long Covid. A number of health experts have warned that public figures saying they’re just going to keep working from home while sick are “minimising the risk of long Covid and encouraging others to think, ‘If I have the virus, I can just push through it.’” The cult of productivity is a sickness all in itself.
• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
