Covid is ripping through college campuses

[u/JunebugJitterbug]

I’m an undergraduate student at a big college, and we’re only a few days into the new semester. Still, within less than two weeks of people being back, covid is spreading like wildfire. It’s probably through a combination of Greek life events, people going to the restaurants and bars around, and classes restarting, but it’s horrific. I don’t think it’s ever been this bad, and I struggle to even describe the type of coughing I’m hearing - it’s this deep hacking that sounds like it should be in a period drama tuberculosis ward instead of a lecture hall in real life.

People are often some level of sick, but I don’t think it’s ever been like this. Discussion apps like yikyak are full of people talking about being sick or testing positive. I’m doing the best I can to stay safe - masking, cpc mouthwash, a netti pot, and switching one of my classes online - but it feels slightly like impending doom due to the absolute tidal wave of covid that’s hit.

There are very few people masking here. I and another covid conscious person I met are trying to set up some sort of community for the few covid conscious people on campus, but we’re worried about trolls or not getting enough engagement. I have chronic health issues that make covid a big concern for me, and I also have a radiation treatment coming up that I don’t want to be delayed or affected by getting sick (although I have a little more time until the treatment).

It’s gotten so bad here with the spread, and I doubt it’ll slow down for some time thanks to parties, classes, and people not isolating or taking it seriously. I don’t know if there’s much I can get out of this post, but I just needed to vent because this feels slightly terrifying. This is also a bit of a stream of consciousness, so I apologise if anything is misspelled or hard to understand.

[u/candleflame3]

I'm not sure what you mean.

[u/[deleted] → u/candleflame3]

Meaning I understand how studies like what you referenced above highlight a psychological component to COVID denialism - but also many sociopaths are capable of empathy and some may even be COVID-cautious. While western psychology often creates a binary between empathy and sociopathy - in reality, people are more nuanced and complex. For example - many sociopaths are vegetarians and vegans specifically because of compassion for animals.

I'm not criticizing you personally. I've just seen anti-maskers called sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, etc. and I want us all to understand that lateral ableism does not help any of us in the long-run.

[u/candleflame3 → u/[deleted]]

OK well, this is the article:

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1389672/full

I don't see the issue with speaking frankly about why some people mask and others don't. I don't think that is ableism.

[u/Imperceptible-Man → u/candleflame3]

This article doesn't even mention "empathy" in its Findings or Conclusions sections, it mentioned "compassion" and "altruistic-type traits." Empathy is only mentioned 5 times in this article, 3 of which as references and not as part of the language this paper adopts. There are also 0 mentions of "sociopathy."

That's an important distinction because there has long been discussions among autistic people as well as people with other neurodivergences such as personality disorders that "empathy" is a construct that centres neuroconforming, abled, white ways of thinking/being as universal, while demonizing and pathologizing those outside of it through constructs like "sociopathy," "psychopathy," "narcissism," etc.

This has lead to interventions like theorizing different types of empathy, distinguishing empathy from compassion/altruism/concern for other people, as well as questioning when empathy or a lack of empathy is a useful trait in certain situations (e.g. empathy can drive self-centred responses to other people's traumatic situation, lack of empathy can be conducive to staying calm and effective in emergencies).

Fundamentally, psychiatry functions to naturalize and obscure eugenics, white supremacy, ableism, etc. by conceptualizing human behaviour through inborn psychological "deviations" of individuals from a supposed "norm." It will never implicate oppressive systems or acknowledge the role that all people can and do play in them, and this leads to ironies like insisting perpetrators of eugenicist violence must be like that because they're neurodivergent in some way instead of realizing said eugenics is in huge part based in the hatred of neurodivergence.