Instead of wasting money on home testing, which would only require more in-person hospital testing if your symptoms present and things get worse, it is probably best to instead purchase masks. Masks do help prevent many pathogens - not just coronavirus, but the common cold, tuberculosis, certain airborne hepatitis viruses, influenza, bacterial pneumococcal pathogens, bronchitis that is highly contagious and airborne, and more. Requiring masks and keeping the air clean with purifiers and fresh air will help reduce the risks even further. Testing doesn't necessarily require much protection at all because many people can test negative one day but then be symptomatic and contagious the very next day - within 24 hours of the last test. And some tests don't detect certain variants like omicron, whereas other tests might detect more false positives, too.

The funding should have instead went to mask production (N95, KN95, and the like; or the new N99s that the US is now creating, which has a rubber seal inside). Masks will help prevent spread from both the vaccinated and unvaccinated and even the unmasked, though you will need a good mask and limited exposure to the unvaccinated and unmasked individuals.

Unfortunately, the abled-bodied almost always wins in these situations. Even when there are laws in place to protect disabled persons, people still find a way to overturn those laws or do what they want to do anyway, because the "majority rules" almost every time. That's why minorities and liberals (allies to minorities) fight hard to protect us. Unfortunately, the world is growing not only pandemic fatigued, but also liberal fatigued, because they no longer want the able-bodied persons to pay taxes that help the disabled, the poor, and/or the elderly; they instead want the majority of able-bodied persons to rule and leave the rest to fend for ourselves, since they assert that "individual responsibility" trumps "collective responsibility."

It's sad, but this is another reality that is not spoken of as much, but it's happening across the globe. Our policies, laws, and economics will show clues to all this.

The only global network fighting for minority rights is the WHO (World Health Organization). Locally, however, we're losing the fight for democracy, liberalism, and certain freedoms for minorities. This is happening in every country, no matter the country's overall religions, policies, cultural practices, etc.

Fatigue/burnout occurs during caregiving. In a global pandemic, burnout extends then to those whom we care about - children, the elderly, the disabled, and then the poor (who are oftentimes mostly the elderly and the disabled, but sometimes also able-bodied persons fall into this category as well). When pandemic fatigue meets liberal fatigue, we're screwed!

History repeats itself if we're not careful, and this is leading to uprisings, civil unrest, many protests, and possibly wars. World War II has many parallels to what we're seeing today globally.

The best thing you can do is to find a strong supportive network that protects minorities (as well as those on the margins/fringes of society), and then grow your social capital. Social capital will be your protecting force going forward. It's become that divisive!

Social support and social capital are considered protective factors in times of local, societal, and global threats. Money won't necessarily save you. But people and resources will.

In criminal justice, capable guardianship is considered a protective factor against future victimization. Capable guardianship comprises things like setting up security alarms, building safe support systems, and building strong social capital in order to prevent future victimization (such as being raped, burgled, robbed, mugged, bullied, harassed, a victim of identity theft, racially discriminated against, targeted as a mentally disabled person, etc.). In psychology and possibly anthropology studies, social support is also a known protective factor that is used to attenuate or ameliorate the effects of trauma, systemic traumas, and/or ongoing traumatic victimizations. The more social capital you have, the better! That's one way to combat both being a victim of pandemic fatigue and liberal fatigue.

But it's the type of social capital that you have that matters. Toxic positivity will NOT help you! Neither will people who are wishy washy and not fully for protecting minorities at all. You will need to find people with similar values, including allies, to help you. The more help you have, the better! If you have people who are on the fence about helping minorities, they might pose a threat to you down the road, when polarization increases globally, and when the able-bodied (non-allies) choose their freedoms over protections for minorities. When this happens, minorities are left to fend for themselves or receive hostility from others, who will likely blame us for their burdens, burnouts, and fatigue. I've personally experienced a mentor blaming me for his burnout fatigue trying to help me, a disabled student. If a professional can blame pre-pandemic, they will certainly blame during this pandemic.

This is why tribalism is a defense mechanism and a survival tool. This is why we could use tribalism to our advantage, in terms of finding allies. Those who survived the Holocaust used allies and social capital to protect them from deathly danger, when eugenics (survival of the fittest in terms of Social Darwinism) was at play during World War II.

Just do a Google search on the information I shared above, and you will find peer-reviewed research that supports my statements - or at least the abstracts of them.