Yahoo Finance Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is 'Thankfully Recovered' After Contracting COVID: It's 'No Joke'
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New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is "thankfully recovered and wrapping up quarantine" after a bout with COVID-19 — "probably omicron," she added in a Sunday Instagram post.
"Covid was no joke," the Brooklyn-based Democrat, 32, wrote after announcing more than a week ago that she'd contracted the virus and was experiencing symptoms even though she was fully vaccinated and had received a booster.
"For a while I've noted the term 'mild' is misleading when the bar is hospitalization and death," she wrote in her Sunday post, listing a few potential lingering conditions people have reported post-infection that have collectively been referred to as "long COVID."
"This isn't to be a downer or induce fear, just a reminder that we need to be careful," Ocasio-Cortez wrote, "and if you do get it, it's key to care for yourself and REST."
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Ocasio-Cortez included a photo of her positive and negative test results as well as cuddly moment she had wrapped in a blanket with her French bulldog, Deco.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Instagram
She also criticized the recently updated guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which shortened isolation periods to five days for those for asymptomatic and those with mild illness — which will include many people who are already vaccinated and largely protected from severe illness.
"The idea of forcing people to work just 5 days after symptoms start is sociopathic and 100% informed by a culture that accepts sacrificing human lives for profit margins as a fair trade," she wrote. "The good news is that we have an antidote: community." (CDC officials have said they made the change in isolation guidelines to reflect, in part, the restrictions they thought the public would accept.)
Elaborating on the "community" aspect of prevention, Ocasio-Cortez pointed to the need to think of others when making health decisions.
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"While some of these recommendations are good- like getting a vaccine + wearing masks where appropriate, the motivations for them shouldn't just be selfish," she wrote on Instagram. "It should also be bc we actually give a damn about other people - our disabled neighbors, our coworkers who haven't said (and shouldn't feel obligated to say) they're immunocompromised, etc."
The Capitol Hill community has seen an "unprecedented" number of cases amid the Omicron surge, according to the attending physician for Congress, Rear Adm. Brian Monahan, who said earlier this month that "hundreds of individuals" have been affected.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Instagram
Those circumstances, combined with some members' refusal to follow a rule that requires lawmakers to wear masks in the House chamber, prompted Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark to call for the use of isolation boxes at the Capitol.
"Individualism is inadequate for planetary forces like climate change or global pandemics, no less societal ones like healthcare, economic inequity and racism," Ocasio-Cortez continued in her Instagram post, expanding on the advantages of a communal approach to political issues she often prioritizes. "But WE, as a collective, can confront them. In a world of MEs, let's build team WE."
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The lawmaker also shared some fatherly advice that she applied to her hope that Americans will come together to tackle current and future disasters and adversities that affect everyone.
"My dad used to say that life makes you repeat lessons until you learn them," she wrote. "And if there's one lesson I think we as a country are repeating until we learn, it's that community and collective good is our best shot through our greatest challenges."
