Template: COVID Protections Communication

A template for communicating personal health protections and mitigations to loved ones

Jul 24, 2025

Below is a template to help you communicate your COVID protections to your loved ones, in a “choose your own adventure” style. Pick and choose examples from each section that fit your situation or add your own.

The goal of this writeup is not to try to change people’s minds or litigate COVID protections with others, but to provide information and communicate your boundaries, intentions, and needs around COVID protections.

1. Introduction

Hello family & friends,
In the hopes of being able to see you all soon, we wanted to share some information about the precautions we plan to take to help make those visits possible for us. We are still protecting ourselves from COVID infections, given that:

Insert reason(s)

<person> is at heightened risk for acute respiratory complications according to the CDC.
According to the CDC, <person> is at a heightened risk for other complications given their medical history <insert condition if you choose>.
We are concerned about the long term effects of COVID infections, rather than only the acute infection.
We cannot afford to get sick right now and miss work/school/etc.
I am a caretaker for a vulnerable person, and I hope you can help me continue to protect them from worsening health outcomes due to this widely circulating virus.
….

2. Protections

Below is one way to communicate COVID protections along with links to resources. In this scenario, the author is making use of a Metrix testing system and has purchased them for family gatherings.

✅ COVID Testing: Given the preponderance of evidence of worsening health outcomes from COVID reinfections, we don’t share indoor unfiltered air with anyone unless they have tested negative for COVID on a high quality testing system (not a rapid test).
We have a Metrix molecular COVID testing system, because the rate of false negatives in “rapid tests” is very high. We will supply tests for everyone for all gatherings we attend. (We can pool samples and test up to 3 samples with one test).
1. About ½ of COVID transmission is from asymptomatic/presymptomatic infections, which is why we test even if everyone appears symptom free.
2. We swab nostrils, 5 circles each nostril, insert into the test and have results 30 minutes later.
3. If someone tests positive, we will keep our masks on for the gathering, and may choose to move our socialization outdoors, or take a raincheck to meet another time.
4. If someone has symptoms of another communicable illness (even if it seems to be ‘allergies’), we will keep our masks on/socialize outside, as unfortunately any viral infection can trigger Long Covid relapses.

✅ Community Transmission Monitoring: Given that the US no longer tracks the spread of COVID, wastewater surveillance data is one of our only tools to assess community spread, which is vital information to help protect immunocompromised, disabled, chronically ill people as well as other vulnerable folks like children and the elderly. We will monitor Wastewater Surveillance Data and may make adjustments to our travel plans if the community spread spikes, or if we otherwise feel that the risk of transmission is too high.
<Any other protections, like masking outdoors, or requiring masks worn by others, isolation, etc.>

3. Personal Justification

Add a personal justification or other information related to your personal reasons for using COVID protections. Consider how personal to get depending on your audience.

Long Covid:

My health is important to me, and there is no replacement for it once it's gone. It’s well documented that COVID infections often have long term detrimental health effects, and just like I wear seatbelts, sunscreen, and try to protect my health in other preventative ways, I am also choosing to protect myself from COVID.
Youtuber “Physics Girl” Diana Cowern has been documenting her experience, here’s an amazing update video from her to get a glimpse into that experience.
Because we have fought so hard for years to improve <person>’s baseline, we are very cautious about losing this progress, and so wanted to communicate the limitations we are working within when considering family and social visits.

Acute illness:

The current circulating variant is so unpleasant, and I’d like to use the tools we have to avoid it if possible.
The last COVID infection I had landed me in bed for 2 weeks plus many more weeks of taking it easy. I’d like to use the tools we have to avoid that outcome again if possible.
As an immunocompromised person, my body has a harder time fighting off infections. They can be extremely serious for me, and I have to use the tools at my disposal to protect myself.
I have a trip/wedding/event coming up that I cannot afford to be sick or isolate for.

Personal health:

All evidence points to the fact that repeat viral infections are the basis for many worsening health outcomes. I’ve seen this born out in friends with worsening autoimmune disease or <insert specifics>.
Watching Olympians and professional athletes come down with Long Covid has taught me how important it is to protect my health from viruses if I want to continue <insert athletic activity here>.

Caretaker:

It’s really important to me as the caretaker for <person> not to put them at risk for worsening health outcomes and complications from infections.
My partner/parent/child has Long Covid, and is advised by their healthcare team to avoid infections by testing and masking. Though it has fallen out of fashion to test and mask, it’s more important to me to protect them.

Love,

….

Covid Longhaulers Podcast Substack

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