How it feels to be disabled in a pandemic

Exhausted. Confused. Angry

Hello everybody, happy Tuesday.

It occurred to me that last week’s newsletter, about how disabled people are being asked to make impossible Covid risk calculations, skirted around a key issue: how this all feels.

Personally, it feels like a lot of extra work. The constant weighing up of options. The same questions go around in my head: does the effectiveness of the vaccine in someone my age balance out my additional risk? Is seeing a friend worth the care chaos that would ensue if I got Covid? Should we meet outside even though it’s so cold I am more likely to get ill from freezing than from Covid? Agh. And with all disability-specific guidance long since shelved, it’s impossible to know what the answer is. And yet an answer must be reached, creating an exhausting cycle of evaluation and re-evaluation.