Bay Area commemorates World AIDS Day

From a candlelight vigil in San Jose to a lakeside celebration in Oakland, Bay Area communities are coming together to honor those who lost their lives to AIDS and the continued progress to overcome the disease as part of World AIDS Day.

Beginning Sunday, Dec. 1, officially recognized as World AIDS Day, celebrations are being held as part of a global movement to recognize the more than 35 million people who have died from AIDS-related illnesses in the past 40 years and share support for the estimated 38 million people currently living with AIDS, according to the National AIDS Trust.

An AIDS Memorial Quilt Display will be featured in San Jose’s Janet Gray Hayes Rotunda from noon to 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1, with a candlelight vigil beginning at 5:30 in the same space on the same day.

For San Jose Councilmember Pam Foley, the annual commemoration is personal.

“28 years ago, when I was pregnant with my daughter, Katelin, my brother Tim died of AIDS-related complications,” Foley wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. “Prior to his passing, I wrote him a letter attempting to give him the strength to live long enough to meet his niece. Unfortunately, I was never able to send the letter as he was sicker than I knew, and he passed away a day later.”

Foley, who’s hosting a series of events with the Billy DeFrank LGBTQ+ Community Center and Silicon Valley Pride, invited the community to participate in the community event series. In addition to Sunday’s activities, a flag raising ceremony will be held at noon on Tuesday, Dec. 3.

In Oakland, performances, awards, food and other activities will be held at the Lake Merritt Sail Boat House from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 5. The free event, themed “Putting People First: East Bay Communities on the Rise”, is being co-hosted by the Oakland LGBTQ Center and East Bay Getting to Zero.

“We aim to highlight the legacy work in addition to those who may be new to the work here in the East Bay around HIV prevention and HIV stigma that continues to move us forward towards ending the HIV epidemic,” wrote the co-hosts in the event announcement.

Sunday services at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco also included acknowledgements of the HIV/AIDS pandemic’s impact, the GLBT Historical Society debuted a new photo exhibition called “Focus on Living: Portraits of Americans with HIV and AIDS” and California state Sen. Scott Wiener and President Joe Biden released statements.

“Today is World AIDS Day, when we remember those we’ve lost, double down on our support for those living with the virus or at risk for it, and strengthen our resolve to end new HIV infections once and for all, here and around the world,” Wiener said.

Broad access to HIV testing and treatment and PrEP could mean “the end of HIV infections,” the senator said.

PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, is medicine people at risk for HIV take to prevent getting HIV from sex or injection drug use. PrEP can stop HIV from taking hold and spreading throughout the body. It reduces the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99% when taken as prescribed, according to the HIV.gov website.

“When people know they have HIV and take the effective medications that exist, they can lead healthy lives and are all but non-infectious. When people take PrEP each day, as I do, their risk of contracting HIV is essentially zero. These strategies combined, if implemented broadly, will mean the end of HIV infections,” Wiener said.

President Joe Biden also marked the occasion, issuing a formal proclamation and posting a statement on social media.

“On World AIDS Day, we raise a red ribbon to remember how far we’ve come, the work that’s left, and those devastated by this disease, particularly the LGBTQI+ folks and people of color who endured the brunt of this epidemic instead of being seen,” the president said. “Let’s finish this fight.”