We Are The Vulnerable: Putting A Face To Those At-Risk From COVID-19

I hope you’re a good person. But I fear you might be the person risking someone else’s life. Who do you think you are?⁣⁣

I don’t know if people are inherently good or inherently bad, but I do know that people have selfish tendencies.

We like to think about ourselves and what’s best for us. We rebel against anything that threatens our personal freedoms. We’re so frighteningly unaware of the ramifications that our individual actions have on others.⁣⁣

But let me be clear: today, your actions have very real consequences. YOU could be the difference between whether another human being suffers, lives, or dies.⁣⁣

Are you so certain that this pandemic is a hoax that it’s worth gambling with someone’s life? Is going to the mall, the bar, a restaurant, or ignoring social distancing mandates so critical to you that it’s okay if it results in people losing access to a hospital bed, or getting sicker than they already are, or having to mourn the death of a loved one?⁣⁣

Please look at me and all the other faces of people joining this campaign. #WeAreTheVulnerable. Click the hashtag, search it on Instagram, read their stories, get to know them. It's not just the elderly at risk, though we must protect them too.

Many people with chronic diseases, who already suffer so much, are immunocompromised or have impaired immune systems. Did you know chemotherapy is used for treatments outside of cancer? Did you know that we work so hard to not catch even a common cold because of how severely it can derail our already struggling systems?⁣⁣

Think about people fighting cancer who are going through chemotherapy and their family members.

Think about people with respiratory illnesses and weakened lungs - this could be death for them.⁣⁣

Think about newborn babies, especially the ones already battling illness.⁣⁣

This is your chance to be a good human being who makes choices to protect the wellbeing of ALL people.

Seize this chance. Choose your goodness.

Stay home. Keep your distance.

Save our lives.

Please.

Note: this campaign was started on Instagram by Rachel Kamen (@rkamen) and Sara Grace (@imstillhere_sgb). The mission of this campaign is to put faces and names to those who are most at risk during the COVID-19 Pandemic. We are trying to humanize your reason for social-distancing. So don't be an asshole; stay at home. Because we are not disposable. And we are not invisible.