In this article, soprano Julia Claire Taylor provides an update of her experience living with Long COVID, as well as information about the continuing dangers the infection poses to singers.
I felt my cheeks go hot as I watched one of my favorite neighborhood spots tearing apart their chic outdoor dining shed in upper Manhattan NYC. This place had been decorated to be cozy, with heaters for cooler weather, fans for hotter summer weather, high-top tables and cute string lights to add charm and atmosphere. I’d known that there was a looming deadline for local restaurants to apply (or not) for expensive permits and to jump through hoops to meet new codes, or be fined—but seeing one of the few neighborhood “safe” places for people like me, who don’t want to catch COVID again, to socialize be destroyed brought up anger and grief that seems to ebb and flow constantly. The culture of “COVID is over” is seemingly (pun intended) infectious.
Living in a tightly packed city that has accepted “compulsory reinfection” as the public health strategy to manage a deadly virus that has personally disabled me has been physically and emotionally challenging, to say the least. The summer surge of 2024 was some of the highest wastewater levels of COVID since the Omicron variant made the rounds.
Allegorically, it seemed everyone was getting sick, even while outdoors, even at the doctor’s office—and even people who had previously been “Novid” (never previously infected) seemingly succumbed.
I watched this surge from an indoor (and masked) bubble. The hot temperatures this summer were taxing on my Long COVID symptoms, so for the sake of my recovery I largely stayed in the air conditioning of my apartment or masked in larger indoor spaces. At my numerous doctors appointments, I have to ask for “accommodations:” that a mask be worn by my doctors and staff. I am often shepherded to a “safer” waiting room when I remind the staff at each appointment that “I am immunocompromised.” Due to the cultural attitude shift to discuss COVID-19 in past tense, some of the medical staff in these offices have never even heard of Long COVID, despite the recent study determining that 1 in 10 patients with a previous COVID infection report having Long COVID.
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As I gratefully note that my health has slowly improved over the last year (still far from my previous active high-achiever lifestyle, but far less bedridden), I enjoy getting out of my apartment for not only the doctors appointments but also small social or cultural outings. Due to the lack of masking, a concert or high-density crowd still feels too risky, but museums and outdoor dining with COVID-informed friends has been a lifesaver for my mental health. I still have to be very aware of each “energy expenditure” like I’m spending coins from an energy “piggy bank,” and impatiently wait through a recovery period after each activity or outing. A helpful way for me to explain this “pacing” to non-sick people is using Christine Miserandino’s “Spoon Theory” designed for chronic illness patients to help bridge the gap in understanding. My daily life feels like a fatigue “limbo:” not quite deathly ill anymore, but very far away from what I would consider “normal”. . . and I’m unsure if that kind of normal will ever be my baseline again.
Usually, I am one of very few fellow maskers in any setting. When numbers are higher, I’ll notice a couple others on the train or in whichever room I find myself in wearing a mask, and when we make eye contact, our eyes crinkle behind our masks in a smile of understanding and solidarity. There is a sense of pride in resisting the inevitable and rebelling against the culture of “it is what it is” and accepting a fate of further jeopardizing one’s health. Of course, I acknowledge that I am rarely in positions where I am asked or pressured to unmask—and when I am, I have a kneejerk response that my condition dictates that I protect my health fiercely from infectious disease, regardless of societal pressure or etiquette: Would you ask an amputee to discard their crutches?
But even if I were not sick, I still wouldn’t want to get COVID again and roll the dice for how it could affect every system in my body.1 I didn’t sign a contract agreeing to reinfection again and again. It’s not healthy for any person, much less singers or independent contractors who pay for their own health insurance. The American public is losing access to free vaccine, testing, and mask programs every day. The Bridge program, which provided the COVID vaccine to uninsured adults, was phased out in August of 2024, immediately before the FDA approved the newest COVID-19 booster shot, costing uninsured Americans over $200 apiece. RAT tests (the basic home test kit) have become increasingly unreliable with decreased sensitivity to new variants and a high false negative rate, and are further inaccessible due to cost.
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So, when politicians on both sides of the aisle state that “we have the tools,” we actually are losing access to the tools as thousands of people continue to die and become disabled by a virus with no mitigation in place.
I understand that people want to forget the trauma of being isolated and stuck at home during 2020. There is a precedent of this desired oblivion historically, when we look back to the 1918 Spanish Flu that also involved lockdowns and the general public trying to move on quickly, even while the disease was still circulating and spreading. However, this culture is making and keeping people sick, including singers. When we pretend that respiratory illness isn’t circulating in rehearsal rooms and at concert halls, we are doing a disservice to performers, donors, audience members, and staff, as well as creating an environment that contributes to the rise in performance cancellations we have been seeing for a couple of years.
It’s so important to be an advocate for your own health and safety in a culture that ignores respiratory illness risk and denies COVID-19’s ever-present risk to public health. Great ways to take charge of this include monitoring current levels of COVID-19, masking in medical settings and crowds, for your safety and that of others, and advocating for yourself and others in situations where masking might help everyone to feel safe and prevent illness transmission (choirs, choruses, rehearsals, travelling, etc.). Lastly, talking about COVID-19 in the present tense is the best way we can keep denial at bay. Many people are still dodging current cases of COVID-19, or managing lingering symptoms from a previous infection, or even mourning losses from the virus.
Resources:
Spoon Theory: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/
People’s CDC Weather Report (current wastewater levels and interpretation): https://peoplescdc.substack.com/
Federal CDC COVID-19 Wastewater Monitoring Page: https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/index.html
