What to do with pandemic guilt

I’ve been feeling guilty a lot lately. The feeling last hit me recently while out in a restaurant in New York with friends. I was happy, but then I suddenly thought of friends in Europe who hadn’t been to a restaurant in months and the smile kind of froze on my face.

Before I knew it, my thoughts were full of people suffering far worse fates than not eating out. I saw nightmare scenes in Indian hospitals, the doctors facing agonizing life or death decisions on an hourly basis. I saw patients struggling to breathe in the street. I saw the mass crematoria. All at once, my food didn’t seem so appealing. 

This guilt is not a new thing. Thinking back, it started a year ago, when New York was the global epicenter of the pandemic. Back then, I remember feeling bad about retreating into the safety of my apartment and working from home, while so many had to keep risking going out to earn a living. 

Thousands have died since then in New York alone, among them friends of friends. Globally, COVID has now claimed close to 3.4 million lives. Of the 160 million people who have survived infection, an unknown number are suffering debilitating symptoms we still don’t fully understand.

Every day, I hear stories that fill me with sadness. This terrible disease has marred the lives of tens of millions across the world. But it hasn’t touched mine, at least not personally. I feel blessed, of course, and thankful. Still, I can’t help thinking: Why them, and not me?

Now I’ve had the vaccine, I’m confident I dodged getting seriously ill with COVID. That also goes for my loved ones too, all of them fully vaccinated during the astonishing US roll-out. We've been astronomically lucky. Anyone who has already gotten a jab is in the first 10% of people on the planet to get protected. 

Again, I’m thankful. But I also feel bad. I feel guilty about living in a place so awash with vaccine doses that it can afford to vaccinate children while most of the world’s front-line workers and most vulnerable are still months away from getting protection. It just isn’t fair.

The global vaccine divide is simply breaking my heart. Here in the US, fear of COVID is beginning to subside. We vaccinated are slowly getting used to living without the oppressive fear of catching or passing on an illness that could kill or debilitate us or our loved ones. The joy, the relief, is palpable.

Though many are still cautious, there is a spontaneous joy returning to our greetings and reunions. We are starting to draw close to each other again after months of distance. Hugs and smiles are back. Businesses are open, the streets are busy. We are beginning to take off our masks. 

But outside our bubble, the pandemic rages on. The more I learn every day about what’s happening in the rest of the world, the guiltier I feel. I’m impatient for everyone on the planet to start to feel this relief, this joy, this sense of turning a new page. I won’t - I can’t - fully enjoy it until they do.

There’s no simple way to ease this discomfort. All I can do is allow my guilt to drive me on in my work, to resolve to redouble my efforts to spread the message on vaccine equity. That message must be clear and unrelenting: The whole world must be vaccinated as soon as possible.

If, like me, you are one of the lucky ones, there is something you can do to share your good fortune. Visit the COVAX platform Go Give One and donate vaccine doses to those who need them. Let’s do something useful with our guilt. Let’s turn it into compassion. Let's give others their shot of freedom.