Some people experience stigma once testing positive for COVID-19, but the reasons why aren't that clear to me.

Okay, so we're in the middle of a pandemic, something the majority of the population has  never faced before. While this is new, and for some maybe a little unnerving, why the social stigma once someone has tested positive?

For some reason, a lot of times when someone is diagnosed with COVID-19 they're stigmatized by their friends and colleagues. I understand that no one wants to get sick with a potentially deadly virus, but why put someone down for something that really isn't under their control?

You can be as safe as you possibly can and still contract the virus. That doesn't mean that you're a dirty or unhygienic person.  It simply means that at some point you came in contact with the virus and your immune system was compromised.

I'm going to take this in a slightly different direction, but bear with me because it will all come full circle.

I'm a person who likes to use analogies, so I also use the same rhetoric when it comes to unprotected sex. If you have unprotected sex a couple things can happen:

  • pregnancy
  • contracting an STD
  • nothing

Some people have unprotected sex and they get pregnant. Does that mean they're a loose or promiscuous person? No, it simply means they had unprotected sex. If someone gets and STD from unprotected sex, the same rules apply. Then we have that person that absolutely nothing happened to. Just because nothing happened to them doesn't mean that they're better than the other two. They simply had a different outcome from the same situation.

Honestly I really don't understand stigmatizing others in any situation. If you come in contact with the coronavirus, there's a chance you'll become infected. In my opinion, we're all at risk, so why judge someone so harshly when they test positive? We're not better than them for not getting sick. The same outcome could happen to us, so let's not shun or shame those who become positive.

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