For immunocompromised people in WA, return to ‘normal’ threatens mental and physical health

Maia Williams spends much of her day combing through medical records of the dead. 

As a government death investigator, her files offer the broad strokes of lives cut short by COVID-19. When the coughing — or other symptoms — began. Which predisposing conditions the person was diagnosed with. If and when they were hospitalized. Which treatment, if any, they received. 

But then she’ll come across a case of someone with an immune deficiency. Someone like her. 

It’s difficult to quiet the thought: “This is maybe what would happen to me if I got sick,” she said. “I’m not looking at the medical records of people with immune deficiencies or chronic inflammatory lung disease who got better … I’m just looking at medical records for people who didn’t.”

As public safety measures against the coronavirus fade into the rearview mirror — Washington’s mask mandate has ended in most locations and, in general, proof of vaccination is no longer required to eat in restaurants or attend crowded events — many people like Williams are receding even further into lives of solitude.

COVID-19 case counts have plummeted, but close to 1,000 Americans are dying from the coronavirus every day. And research continues to confirm what we know about the virus’s risk to people with compromised immune systems. They’re experiencing significantly more breakthrough infections, and dying at higher rates, than people who are otherwise healthy.  

For Williams, contrasting those statistics — ones that decidedly show the pandemic is not over for the most vulnerable — with loosening public safety rules and attitude shifts, is becoming hard to bear. Frustrated, angry, resentful, bitter — these are the words that readily come to mind, she says.