For many, working in person during the pandemic is risky. For me, it would've been riskier not to.

In nearly every discussion about work arrangements during the pandemic, people who work from home are considered lucky, and people who work onsite every day are considered to be risking their lives. And for many, this is true. For people who are at high risk for severe coronavirus, the ability to work from home may quite literally be a lifesaver. For people who don’t mind working from home, or even enjoy it, the benefit far outweighs the cost. And the frontline workers who would feel safer at home, but continue to go into work every day are nothing short of heroes. But at least for me, it would’ve been far riskier to have stayed home for nine months than it was to go into work in person.

For my age group, the infection fatality rate of COVID-19 is estimated to be about 0.01%. This means that if I were to become infected with COVID-19, I’d have a 0.01% chance of dying - or, equivalently, a 1 in 10,000 chance. I can say with 100% certainty that the health benefits I gained from going into work each day far exceeded the increased chance of facing this 1 in 10,000 chance.

The “health benefits” I am referring to are the incredible improvements that going into work provided for my mental health. I was lucky enough to be able to work as a summer camp counselor from June until August, and then as a supervisor of children who were attending virtual school from September until December. Had I not had the incredible fortune of having these jobs this year, I’m not sure exactly where I would be at with my mental health, but I can say with certainty that it would not be good.

Explaining why going into work was so beneficial for my mental health is not simple. It isn’t because I’m an extrovert who needs to spend time with other people. It isn’t because I was bored at home - there are no shortage of movies and TV shows I could watch, or Sporcle quizzes I could play. It isn’t even because it was the only way I could generate an income - my parents have provided me with a place to stay throughout the pandemic, so luckily, finances have not been a big concern for me. The real reason I so desperately needed to have an onsite job is because I needed some way of being reminded that the outside world still exists. That children are still learning. That friendships are still being made. That couples are still getting married. That there will still be a world to return to when all of this is over. That this “new normal”, which, in an instant, took away so much of what I loved about life, will not last forever.

Being at work certainly didn’t feel “normal” - everyone still wore masks and followed other safety procedures. But it did allow me to meet new people, something that was virtually impossible during the early months of the pandemic where I spent nearly all of my time at home. It did allow me to have a place to go everyday beyond the bathroom, the mailbox, and the local pharmacy. It did allow me to explore a town I hadn’t spent much time in before. And it did allow me to have simple, real, human interactions that were virtually nonexistent in April and May - such as when I taught chess to a six-year old, and played the game with him each day, which was undoubtedly one of the few highlights of my year. A few instances throughout my time working in both jobs, we had to take a week or two off for precautionary reasons. Even in those short time spans, I noticed a significant drop in my mood - often feeling like things would never change, like I would be trapped in this coronavirus purgatory forever. If that’s how I felt after two weeks, I shudder to think what I would’ve felt like after nine months in isolation.

I don’t mean to imply that coronavirus restrictions shouldn’t exist just because they are detrimental to my own health. They do provide health benefits to many others, so many of them remain extremely important. My point is simply that health is multidimensional. It isn’t just a binary function determined by your COVID-19 status. While COVID-19 has dominated the headlines, other health factors still exist. Furthermore, health outcomes are not the same for everyone. Staying home for months may be a positive thing for many people’s health, even without the threat of a virus. For others, it may be crippling. So, when someone tells you to “be safe”, don’t think only of how to decrease your chances of getting coronavirus. Think about how you can keep yourself healthy in every sense of the word. Provided that the steps aren’t endangering others, do whatever you need to do to keep yourself healthy - no matter what “healthy” means to you.