Washington: From the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, because of fear and insulation spread, Dave Perruzza had one thought he had seen it before.
“For me, it thinks of the AIDS epidemic again, how no one considers it seriously,” said Perruzza, who has two LGBT bars in Washington, the US capital.
“Well,” Well, we will consider this serious.
“With the omicron variant triggered fresh restrictions around the world, some older members of the LGBT community said their experience with the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s put them in front of the curve throughout the pandemic .
Perruzza has needed months that require customers to show Covid vaccination cards to enter the popular gay pitchers and their own league lesbian neighbors, in the Adams Morgan district in the city.
He applied the vaccine rule in July, one of the first in Washington to do it – and months before the regional government began this month to do the same.
“I think my age bracket is the last bracket that sees people who really die of AIDS,” Perruzza, 43, who lost his first girlfriend for this disease, told AFP.
“I won’t let the history repeat himself.” The HIV / AIDS crisis in the United States went berserk for two decades after the first US case was discovered in 1981, and still claimed the current life.
This mainly affects gay and bisexual men, black and Latin men and trans women.
Then President Ronald Reagan did not declare a Federal Priority AIDS research until 1985, and the first treatment was developed in 1987.
At the end of 2000, at least 450,000 people died because AIDS in the United States, according to government data.
– Hysteria and the same lie – Pandemi has also brought back painful memories for Eric Sawyer, a member of the founder of the AIDS advocacy group acting, who also lost his partner in the disease.
“Information is wrong, Hysteria, the spread of only absolute lies (and) efforts by individuals to overcome them is part of the problem,” Sawyer said, who also worked with the UN HIV / AIDS program.
“Stigma and discrimination of people who have a covid face are completely parallel to the HIV response.” But some lessons might have been studied between two health crises.
“The HIV epidemic teaches us that education, testing and access to the prevention methodology” can be effective, Sawyer said.
HIV activists also advocate for better supply distribution, as well as vaccines access to the poor, color and homeless communities.
Even when these activists worked to fight Covid-19, however, the pandemic took the victim in an ongoing battle against HIV.
Studies by Global and Unaids funds found that pandemics throughout the world caused a 11 percent decline in prevention and treatment and a 22 percent decline in 2020.
Unaids linked a decline to lock which forced people to be isolation, and disrupted HIV / AIDS program.
– You have to care – “Because of our experience now – four decades – four decades with HIV, we understand chemical trials, we understand antivirus,” Chris Beyrer, an epidemic expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health, told AFP.
“We are not afraid of science.” “As a community, we have a lot of solidarity,” he added, showed that many of them living with HIV were immunocompromised and needed extra support.
LGBT activists rose at the beginning of the pandemic to regulate financial assistance and housing that were safe for HIV-positive people.
They also prepared Covid testing at the center of sexual health and pride events.
Gay bars throughout the country began to require evidence of vaccinations at the door, months before several US countries followed.
Nearly half of the country still rejects such requirements.
“The LGBTQ bar is different more like a community center,” said Ed Bailey, who jointly had Gay Washington and number 9 trading, showing that the gay bar had distributed HIV literature and condoms for decades.
“Our bar is sometimes the only place some people who patronize we can go and feel comfortable enough to be who they are,” said Bailey, 55.
“It creates a completely different level of responsibility.” “You have to care about your community.”