AIDS, of course, was always going to be easier to ignore when it first burst onto the scene. Mind you, it was circulating well before that initial mainstream article was published about it in 1981 (eerily entitled “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals”). It didn’t affect straight people, as far as anyone could tell–hence the stereotype and stigma of it being branded the “fag’s disease.” It started out so nominally, as all pandemics do. Just five cases in the U.S. Nothing more than needle-based drug users and gay men. Who cares, right? A sect of society that could easily be swept under the rug without anyone getting up in arms over the suppression. After all yuppies and Republicans could get away with literal murder back then (how do you think the character of Patrick Bateman sprung up?).
“Yuppies,” as it were, at least a germinal version of them, were the ones who brought upon the virus’ more effortless adaptation into the human body. For it was the colonizers of places like Kinshasa where prostitution became a more lucrative “profession” (nay, the only “profession” for most women–if what is meant by that is it was often completely forced upon them) that spurred the transmission. The free-flowing fortification of the latent virus built up without mitigation over time. Just as the novel coronavirus did when it first gained its unchecked traction in the U.S. Or, as some people have speculated, in certain parts of Europe where strains of it seemed to appear before it exploded in China. Except, in the case of HIV, it took far longer for anyone to pay much attention to it. A few “odd cases” here and there does not an alarm bell raise. Even after everything that history has shown us. Hell, after everything that cinema has shown us (here’s looking at you, The Last Man on Earth and The Crazies).
In corona’s instance, its unignorability has somehow managed not to signal some vague silver lining. For rather than people seizing upon the opportunity to recognize the threat and take steps to mitigate it, they have instead opted for the same level of ignorance as those who, on a different spectrum of extremeness, believed you could get AIDS from sharing a glass. With ‘rona, you can contract the virus in this way, yet the drinks are free-flowing. It’s almost as though some sort of inverse equation has been implemented in the handling of this pandemic.
Where AIDS caused an immediate stigma, many people in the U.S. displayed a certain proudness over having COVID (e.g. people throwing parties to test if someone really had it and then giving payouts to those that caught the virus). That “proudness” also extending to politicizing mask-wearing as some kind of First Amendment issue. Where with AIDS, it took a celebrity finally dying of it in 1985 for those in the “straight world” to start noticing, it seemed as though COVID was quick to go for the mainstream celebrity jugular–with Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson blazing the famous person’s trail.
But AIDS and ‘rona are very closely aligned in terms of misinformation spreading as quickly as “droplets” in the early days of their arrival. Another parallel to AIDS is that ‘rona has a greater effect on marginalized communities–those that corporate (a.k.a. government) America sees less “use” for. Use meaning purchasing power–what a person can “give back” to the economy. As many were quick to pontificate throughout 2020, as though it was some grand revelation, coronavirus “unmasked” the economic divide in every nation–perhaps the clearest example of that being the blatant financial chasm between the one percent and the rest of us. Let us not forget, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg all became richer as a direct result of the suffering caused by COVID. Pfizer and Moderna will soon stand to become billions of dollars richer as well. Maybe if AIDS had been a less “icky” issue in the 80s, a similar one percent could have better capitalized on profiting from a cure as well.
As attention has been entirely funneled into all things corona–including every scientific resource wielded to come up with a vaccine as rapidly as possible–HIV/AIDS has fallen by the wayside in terms of the focus it still needs in order for the fight against it to be won. A fight that, if slackened, will likely cause the perfect storm for an unwanted flare-up, thereby further increasing divides in socioeconomic backgrounds. That “First World” countries like Europe and the U.S. have seen an uptick in the percentage of HIV/AIDS cases is a testament to that nonchalant approach to a virus that has still never known a cure.
As pointed out by Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAids, “Aligning with international policy standards can make all the difference against AIDS. Countries in eastern and southern Africa, where HIV rates are falling, have done this more than those in eastern Europe and central Asia, where rates are rising.” In other words, the isolationist, “every person for themselves” method most countries seem to be taking–the one that has gotten us to such a nadir–is forever doomed to backfire. A universal policy that favors the decriminalization of sex work, drug use and homosexuality (yes, still a crime in places like Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia) could make all the difference in the ongoing battle against this virus. Yet, like the definition of insanity, governments keep repeating the same legislative patterns over and over again that only cause division–particularly in matters of health care as it applies to pandemics and novel viruses.
“Nobody talks about AIDS anymore. They just die from it,” one ACT UP poster succinctly reminded. In corona’s case, it’s all that anyone can talk about, and yet, the bodies are still piling up far more than they should be. Recklessness and denial about mortality knows no affiliative line. Die by the virus, or die by boredom and loneliness, thought the gay men of the 80s and the lacking in resolve “everyperson” of the present. Just as it is with AIDS, it isn’t fair that someone else gets to make that choice for another human being because of their own heedlessness of the facts.
