Marking #WorldAIDSDay during the second pandemic I’ve experienced is a particularly strange experience. I came of age shortly before the advent of protease inhibitors, which transformed HIV from a death sentence to a chronic health condition.

Over the years the people I’ve lost succumbed to long term health complications, or simply shame, not AIDS. When I look out my kitchen window, I can see the apartment building of one of them, and I’m reminded just how long a shadow something like AIDS can and continues to cast.

Over the past several months I’ve pondered similarities, differences, and connections between the two experiences.

Similar: the echo of a fear that I might give it to or catch it from my partner. A failed government response rooted in denial and indifference. People like Mike Pence on one end, and heroic first responders and healthcare workers on the other.

Different: a threat to anyone, in a way the HIV wasn’t, but also not a death sentence. The breathtaking speed with which multiple promising vaccines have been developed. That many of our best public health leaders this time started their careers during the previous epidemic.

We only need to make it a few more months until a vaccine will be available. Please be careful, take care of yourselves, and those around you.