We need to get used to occasionally being sick

We need to get used to occasionally being sick

A few thoughts on post-pandemic risk calculation

A graduate student handles a swab and specimen vial last year in an on-campus coronavirus testing lab in Boston. (Charles Krupa/AP)

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Like most U.S. professors, I have been teaching in person since the start of the fall semester. On the whole, being back on campus and interacting with students has been great. Sure, wearing masks indoors can be aggravating at times, particularly when I’m lecturing for 75 minutes straight. The students at my school seem overjoyed by the in-person instruction, and just being on a campus that feels populated and alive. After some initial awkwardness with real-time, in-person lecturing (“Wait, so I look down at my notes and then look at the students? I don’t remember this being so hard!”), I think I can say that both students and faculty are remembering how this works.

The coronavirus has not completely gone away. As it starts to get colder, more and more activities will move indoors, potentially increasing risks of infection. Still, the Fletcher School has completely revamped its ventilation system, Tufts University is wisely testing everyone weekly to avert an outbreak, case numbers are going down in the region, and the delta variant wave might be the last big one. This seems promising!

As we all adjust to some semblance of our pre-pandemic routines, however, folks need to start acknowledging an ever-increasing risk: cold and flu season. And by “acknowledging,” I mean, “You know that some people are going to catch a cold … and that’s okay.”

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To some readers of Spoiler Alerts, this might seem obvious. Of course cold and flu season will be more prevalent. Despite fears of a “twindemic” from last winter, it turns out that masking and social distancing did a bang-up job of suppressing the flu season. I, for one, did not catch anything between the spring of 2020 and this fall.

With in-person activities back, however, it is inevitable that non-covid viruses and bugs will reemerge. I know this because, as I type this, I’m getting over my first post-pandemic cold.

A few weeks ago at my place of work, someone suggested that individuals who test negative for the coronavirus but are experiencing flu or cold-like symptoms should “of course” stay away from campus. But that strikes me as a massive overreaction. Before the pandemic, there were no restrictions on those who had a cold from attending class. If anything, the current masking requirement means that the chance of spreading a cold now is lower than in the pre-pandemic era. Making students stay home for non-covid illnesses is punitive and unnecessary.

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It is also understandable, because we have spent more than 20 months being panicked at the first sign of any sickness — myself included. A rational calculation of the risks should acknowledge that there are costs to excessive caution. Society might not be able to readjust to the higher risk of catching a perfectly ordinary ailment, but this can and should be part of returning to a semblance of normality.

People should get vaccinated for the flu, of course, but those vaccines are much more variable than the mRNA vaccines against the coronavirus. There is no vaccine against the common cold. Perhaps a norm of masking when sick would be a solid precaution to take. But so is the notion that for some illnesses, the costs of possibly getting sick are outweighed by the benefits of living one’s life.