Covid Consciousness Club Profile
By Louis Chase
Reed and the United States writ large have long since transitioned from treating COVID-19 as an urgent public health emergency to an endemic disease. However, while the official national public health emergency in the United States is over and the World Health Organization no longer considers COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern, COVID-19 is still a major cause of death and disability. The CDC reports that, although COVID-19-related deaths dropped 83% between 2021 and 2023, “COVID-19 still ranks as the 10th most common cause of death in the U.S. for 2023, a drop from 3rd in 2020 and 2021 and 4th in 2022.” On top of this, people previously infected with COVID-19 may develop longer-term complications. ABC News, citing the CDC, reported on March 20 that an estimated “17.5 million adults currently have long COVID and 45.4 million people have ever had long COVID.” The danger presented by COVID-19 remains especially acute for many disabled people and the elderly.
Image Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Note that while weekly COVID-19 deaths in the United States have dropped significantly from peaks in 2020, 2021, and early 2022, the percentage of tests which are positive has continued to fluctuate around the same levels since 2020. The CDC says, “Although COVID-19 infections continue at a level similar to past years, the likelihood of a new infection causing hospitalization or death has decreased.”
Reedies for COVID Consciousness, a new student organization, emerged this semester to counteract what they say are institutional failures to adequately prevent the spread of COVID-19 and protect students, especially disabled students, on Reed’s part. Club founder Bella Chamberland ‘25 says the club has a “twofold” mission of “practical resource distribution, and also a political goal as well.” The first part of the mission is “to get free resources out to people at Reed because unfortunately, we've been kind of institutionally cut off.” Reed has significantly relaxed its COVID-19 prevention policies since the peak of the pandemic, and no longer requires masks in any non-healthcare settings on campus or maintains isolation housing for students with COVID-19. The second part of Reedies for COVID Consciousness’ mission is “a political message that we want to [send to] support disabled people and immunocompromised people and those who have been marginalized by ableism.”
Elaborating on their criticism of Reed’s institutional response to COVID-19, Chamberland said that after initially doing “a really good job” on COVID-19 response in 2020 and 2021, Reed “kind of just cut off all the resources.” In particular, they said that Reed no longer offers free PCR testing, and the mailroom no longer offers free K95 masks (a mailroom employee told the Quest that they now only offer surgical masks, which the Mayo Clinic says are less effective than K95s or N95s). Chamberland added, “I think that's really disappointing, because [Reed] claims to care about students and want equal access for all. I don't think that’s fair or equal, especially because COVID resources are expensive. So people who are not wealthy aren't gonna be able to access them as easily.”
Reedies for COVID Consciousness placed 25th in Funding Poll earlier this semester. Although the club requested $8,611.82 in funding, it received only 14% of this amount, $1212.0. Reedies for COVID Consciousness received the lowest percentage of its requested funding of any Top 30 club. Senate and Treasury said that they “carefully deliberated on the club’s budget and [are] supporting the campus distribution of free masks and rapid tests. However, we are also taking steps to request institutional support for COVID safety per shown student request.” Chamberland said that while the club is still able to offer some free masks post-Funding Hell, which Reedies may have observed in baskets around campus, “our free mask distribution is more like, maybe people can grab them on their way to class. But it's not something where you can get your whole supply there, which is something we originally wanted.” Additionally, Reedies for COVID Consciousness originally wanted to build a number of air purifiers across campus, but due to the lack of funding, Chamberland said, “right now we're looking to build one, just one single one, and then have that in the Student Union.” The club is also planning to obtain rapid tests, and hopes that community members will donate more COVID resources of all kinds for distribution.
Chamberland said it was important to “connect the COVID consciousness mission to the disability justice mission instead of isolating it.” They encouraged Reedies to advance health justice by masking, testing themselves for COVID-19, and self-isolating when positive, and said students should “listen to [disabled people], instead of being defensive and being like, ‘Oh, you're trying to limit my freedom.’” Anyone interested in joining Reedies for COVID Consciousness can fill out a Google Form linked on the club’s Instagram page, @reedies4covidconsciousness.