| dc.description.abstract | For some U.S. workers, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant becoming less visible, as many workplaces have shifted away from in-person obligations, allowing these workers to hide behind the virtual platforms of Zoom, Slack, and remote desktop apps. This sense of reduced visibility in the workplace has resulted in a variety of humorous gaffes, including accidental background blunders, unintended no-pants shots, and even a Supreme Court justice flushing the toilet during oral argument. Still, for other U.S. workers, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant becoming more visible—not in terms of apparel choices or grooming habits, but in terms of a far more serious matter: their underlying health conditions.
Some workers’ health conditions may have always been apparent to their coworkers and supervisors. Workers with obesity, especially in its more severe forms, are not able to hide their condition. Pregnant women in their second and third trimesters may similarly find themselves increasingly unable to conceal their condition (to the extent they so desire). In contrast,
many common health conditions remain invisible to coworkers and supervisors: hypertension and high cholesterol, for example, are not apparent in the absence of a serious complication.
And yet, many of these invisible health conditions place workers at substantial risk upon contracting COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), conditions like hypertension and high cholesterol place an individual at increased risk of morbidity and mortality upon contracting COVID-19. As a result, the pandemic has transformed such health conditions, which were typically a nonissue at work, into a considerable danger. Nor are these two particular cardiovascular conditions unique; scientific research has identified a whole host of underlying health conditions-—many of which are invisible—that place individuals “at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19.” | en_US |
