Recently, President Joe Biden announced that COVID-19 is no longer a pandemic in a TV interview. It has sparked some commentary and repetitive news clips of his claim. I’m not a scientist, so I cannot say if the US is technically in a pandemic or not right now and I don’t plan to try.

Here is what I do know.

The pandemic is not over around the globe, and this means new variants will continue to remain a threat. We need to continue to vaccinate here at home and support programs that provide vaccines abroad. Just because the United States might be doing better, doesn’t mean we can just forget about our neighbors around the world.

The fall is always worse than the summer. Just like regular colds and the flu, COVID will surge again as the northern US stays inside from the cold. We can’t be complacent as school returns and our time indoors increases.

Lastly, disabled people continue to be forgotten in the larger COVID conversation. A few months ago, the CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky, blundered by saying that it’s encouraging that deaths from COVID now are mostly among people with multiple comorbidities, as if we don’t matter. Furthermore, the realities of the immunocompromised population are completely ignored. For many disabled people, COVID remains a very real and deadly threat.

There are two simple things you can do right now to make things safer for our disabled community:

1. Get vaccinated and boosted. This will reduce the ability of community spread and the emergence of variants.

2. Mask up inside public spaces, or outside when in a crowded place. Masks can help individuals wearing them from catching COVID, but the protection is vastly improved when everyone is wearing one, especially inside.

Testing is useful for catching cases of COVID, but negative tests are not a guarantee. I myself caught covid last New Years Day from my brother-in-law who tested negative before visiting. If you’re visiting someone who is immunocompromised, you still need a mask and vaccine to really protect them, not just a negative test.

You can choose not to do these things; it is your right. However, if you want the pandemic to truly be over for everyone, then this is what it takes. Because it’s also your right to choose not to be a dick.