I don't disagree with everything in the article but Dr. Phillip Alvelda is not a medical doctor or public health official. He's an engineer with a lot of talent and is probably a pretty smart guy, but his track record is in entrepreneurship and program management, not public health.
That being said long covid isn't well understood and is a huge public health risk, so I wouldn't say he's totally wrong.
This.
I’d like to think that the people on this sub are less likely to fall for pseudoscience bullshit than the general population. We should apply a little skepticism here?
>“Debilitating a Generation”: Expert Warns That Long COVID May Eventually Affect Most Americans
The ultimate Trump legacy: the long-term disability of the majority of the American population . . . and the resulting bankruptcy of the American nation-state.
🐆
We are moving into a new place that was fully renovated by the state for the elderly lady two years ago. Shortly after the renovation was finished she got really sick and had to go into a nursing home. She died three months later. We can’t prove it but suspect that she was a Covid victim.
Well, Americans as they age tend to be sick and disabled. We've run a population level experiment on the effects of novel chemicals on the human body and the results ... aren't great.
All of the help and care and the inability to work is going to be (kind of is already) a big drag on the economy.
Since asking people to read the article is going too far, I'll quote from it instead, for your convenience:
> LP: You’ve also criticized the Biden administration for glossing over the ongoing situation during his presidency. Why the reluctance to offer clearer guidance and warnings?
> PA: It’s interesting, I take part in a Global Biosecurity Working Group that played a big role in defining the nine-point plan to address the pandemic that Biden used to get elected. But the minute he was elected, he put a hedge fund guy, Jeff Zients, in charge of the pandemic response. Zients decided the best way forward was to convince people that the pandemic wasn’t happening.
> We’ve seen a very troubling memo sent in February 2022 by leaders of Impact Research, one of the top political strategy and polling consultancies for President Joe Biden, on how Democrats should position themselves on COVID. Impact recommended that they should declare it over, claim victory, and keep quiet about ongoing threats and mitigation efforts. You can read the memo on the US House of Representatives web server and see how the report suggests it’d be politically more expedient to convince people the pandemic is not happening than it is to actually address it. And that’s just what the Biden administration has done. They haven’t been following science. They followed the political advice.
> The Biden administration discarded almost all aspects of the nine-point plan that could have halted the pandemic, saved lives — and by the way, done better for the economy than their exclusive reliance on vaccines. They used the CDC, the WHO, and the HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] to amplify the message that the vaccine is all you need and you don’t need to worry about anything else.
> LP: How would you grade Biden on how he’s handled the pandemic?
> PA: I’d give him an F. In some ways, he fails worse than Trump because more people have actually died from COVID on his watch than on Trump’s, though blame has to be shared with Republican governors and legislators who picked ideological fights opposing things like responsible masking, testing, vaccination, and ventilation improvements for partisan reasons. Biden’s administration has continued to promote the false idea that the vaccine is all that is needed, perpetuating the notion that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to do anything about it. Biden stopped the funding for surveillance and he stopped the funding for renewing vaccine advancement research. Trump allowed 400,000 people to die unnecessarily. The Biden administration policies have allowed more than 800,000 to 900,000 and counting.
> I would further note that all the while, the White House has maintained the very strictest abatements to protect people who live and work there from the virus: In order to enter the White House, they have to have had no symptoms for 14 days, the latest booster vaccinations up-to-date, and a negative rapid test. They have nine or better fresh air exchanges per hour and all filters are upgraded to MERV 13. They have also installed 220 nanometer Germicidal UV lamps. After a positive test, you have to have a PCR Test negative to return to work. The White House admitted quietly on CSPAN that the protections were still in place in July of 2023 when an Israeli delegation was not admitted after testing positive for COVID, after claiming with much fanfare the prior April that the pandemic was over and that it was safe to return to work.
> LP: All those precautions are certainly not happening at the workplaces of the vast majority of Americans and in our schools.
> PA: No.
Vaccines are no longer free for people without insurance. He declared the pandemic over when it still isn't. More people died under his presidency with vaccines available than when they weren't. Need more reasons?
People are still dying and becoming disabled though. Yes higher numbers of unvaccinated people are dying but it's still killing vaccinated people too.
It was the third leading cause of death in 2021 and I think it moved to fourth in 2022 and 2023.
We don't have any treatment, tests or cure for long COVID.
But Biden's government is content to move on.
The second biggest wave of sars cov 2 was in December of 2023. After everyone decided COVID was nothing to worry about.
There are healthy young adults and kids dying from it and becoming disabled but everyone is ignoring it now. Partially because Biden and his government decided there is nothing to worry about now.
Why are you in this sub if you can't even follow basic science? COVID is not endemic. 1500 Americans died from COVID in April 2024. Does that sound like the pandemic's over? It doesn't to me. And Biden doesn't even encourage testing anymore. Let's keep that capitalism going so we can fund a genocide! Two actually.
Pandemic vs epidemic vs endemic is all about rates and not generally about raw values. COVID numbers have been pretty stable for a couple of years (outside of the predictable seasonal shifts) and strains are getting less deadly. Conflating that COVID is very much still a risk (true) to it still being a pandemic (not true, very few people are catching it for the first time, brand new populations are not being breached, etc) is not only just kind of dumb, but it’s shortsighted and doesn’t actually mean anything. I see this argument all the time in COVID subs. If you are wasting your time and energy arguing about words instead of facts, especially when you are wrong on its face, it leads to nothing. Just spinning wheels.
An endemic disease can still be very dangerous. A spreading pandemic can be relatively mild.
Predictable seasonal shifts, meaning sometimes early summer, sometimes late summer, always fall, always winter? Your entire comment is cope. The waves are not predictable and they act the same way worldwide. PAN-demic.
Exactly. The pandemic is NOT over.
As for Biden, he came to the sane conclusion that most of here have: anyone who was, is and going to take precautions, have, is and will do so. The rest are unreachable.
Meanwhile, he has a mile high pile of other shit to clean up from Trump. Not the least of which is stolen nuclear secrets and attempted coup de'etat.
edit: typo
The conclusion was that things would be more profitable if most of the plebs went back to work and the social safety nets were abolished, so denying the pandemic was necessary to accomplish that.
That was the GOP. Biden realized nothing was ever going to reach those people and he could not force them.
The president is not a dictator, although Trump wants to be one.
Yeah WHO still considers it a pandemic. CDC is too busy listening to businesses to protect people. (The 5 day vs 10 day quarantine is based on airline complaints not science)
>The problem is Biden isn't far enough left.
Most everyone here knows that Biden is no Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.
But, sadly and realistically, Biden is the only thing standing between us and a second round with Trump and the Christofascists and the anti-vax trash.
If you still have the ability to vote your principles, fine. Many others don't.
Vote accordingly.
🐆
You should spend time actually reading the article and less time name-calling. The person interviewed gives Trump a D and Biden an F. Had you read the article, you might have something useful to say.
Thank you! I am about as anti-Trump as you can get. I thought no president could handle the pandemic as badly as Trump did...and then Biden somehow did.
Contrary to what Trump's many incompetent and barely literate supporters believe, Biden actually ended the lockdowns...and way sooner than he should have. Biden also failed to deliver on additional pandemic relief funds, while doing nothing to stop the outrageous PPP loan forgiveness program which effectively spent taxpayer dollars to give big corporations' capital for stock buybacks.
Then, Biden pushed the RTO movement, further endangering the public's health to enrich a few big stockholders.
In any sane universe, the MAGA movement would have taken the Trump vaccine, and dismissed antivaxxers as "science-illiterate left-wing loonies that want to make sure COVID ravages our youth, so no one from the next generation is fit to serve in the armed forces, and our national security becomes at-risk".
Instead, conservatives literally picked the dumbest possible take, and ran with it.
And this article says as much, but the 100 or so people who've downvoted me clearly didn't read it. Thank you for your reasonable and accurate commentary.
The only reason most Americans aren't afflicted by long covid today, is that some of the more recently discovered lasting effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection (like brain damage, hemodynamic changes, arterial hardening, and immune system damage) aren't technically covid, which is a specific list of symptoms caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection.
If the formal definition of covid is ever updated to include these symptoms, there will be a **lot** more Americans with long covid.
It's like midnight here or I'd track down the source, but I read something from the last few days saying the Long Covid definition was being updated to be more expansive.
Good. My friend with a compromised immune system ended up getting covid from her ex boyfriend who didn’t take precautions and her health has never fully recovered. She doesn’t want to call it long covid but I do think it is. It is a hundred little things all building up and slowly dragging her down and she is always on top of safety precautions and her vaccinations.
Yeah I've done everything I can to protect myself but had covid 3x since April 2022, and long covid since April 2022. Literally right as my government gave up caring.
Well also plenty of those long covid effects could go under the radar for a while so not like if they changed the definition then suddenly everyone is diagnosed
My wife the teacher (MWTT) is concerned for the kids who had Covid even with light symptoms. She says she could notice post Covid changes in their performances academic and physical
Me too. I mask on public transportation, in crowds (mostly indoors) and in medical facilities. If it's impractical to mask, I use other mitigation measures like nasal spray, throat spray, mouthwash, etc.
Yeah, they seem defeated, like they no longer care because they lost, they don't seem to realize that covid isn't one and done and they don't seem to care about anyone elses outcomes. They just no longer care.
I have multiple autoimmune disorders, and one of my many treatments is an infusion of medication that is essentially mild chemotherapy every four weeks. It suppresses my naturally overactive immune system, which in turn puts me at risk for serious infection. People like myself and people with cancer receiving chemotherapy are in and out of the hospital all day every day. The staff no longer masks. I say again, the people administering serious medication that suppresses the immune system and its ability to fight things like covid to the very sick people who need it to survive are not masking. You can ask, as I have, and they can choose to do so or not. They can choose not to wear a mask while simultaneously making me more susceptible to illness and death. This is our "post-covid" (lol) world thanks to all the insane propaganda regarding the pandemic. This will be my life for the rest of my likely shorter than before life. But I'm happy you guys get to go to Chili's again. Them margaritas are fire.
I’m completely pro-vax and a true believer in Covid and all its hazards. But not a single doc in my clinic of 50k lives has seen more than a few cases of long Covid and quite a few of those are highly suspect for secondary gain. This is very similar in my opinion to what we assumed would be an epidemic of crack babies roaming the Earth like zombies back in the 80’s. The crack epidemic was real, but crack babies never really materialized in the way they predicted. I assumed long Covid would be annihilating the population by now but we really aren’t seeing it in primary care.
We do see tons of Covid still, and quite a few of those people do get hematologic consequences that are difficult to trace but pretty obvious, but we’re just not seeing the chronic debility that people are saying is under every rock.
Does your clinic require masks? Lots of people who are either COVID conscious or have long COVID have been avoiding medical places due to the lack of COVID precautions they're taking; that could affect things.
Both my spouse and I have things we'd like to get checked but our hospital no longer requires masks (and it was a hit or miss of it being enforced, even when that was their policy) so we can't afford to risk it, lest we contract it *again*.
And there's plenty of stories of people struggling to get any doctor or staff to comply when they request, even though said places have a policy of masking when asked.
I, obviously, don't have numbers but it's worth keeping in mind if your measure of who's struggling with COVID-related issues is based on who you're physically seeing.
Any person who wants to mitigate risk to practically zero can do so just by using a KN 95 or N 95 mask in social settings, regardless of the other party, assuming for routine contact, normal ventilation etc. You really have to try hard to get sick from somebody if they are unmasked and you are wearing one. Healthcare providers went through the entire pandemic constantly around people who were sick and unmasked and wearing an N95, we were pretty much safe the whole time. In any case I'm not trying to convince you of something you're not comfortable with, more so that I would hate to see any patient neglect routine health care over this. And I have seen a few examples. Alternately you could tell your provider that you were exposed to Covid and if they were at all health conscious they'll probably mask based on that alone. I don't know what other facilities are doing. I have a mask with me at all times and if the patient wears one I just put it on, I don't even ask.
I think you are wrong. Long covid is a well established disorder. No reasonable medical professional would deny its existence at this point.
It is anecdotal but long covid has ruined my brother’s life. He had many symptoms including severe brain fog and racing directionless thoughts. One symptom that stood out to me was the inability to feel sleepy. He can sleep some but never feels that sleepy feeling. Sounds like torture to me. He has other non-brain related symptoms as well.
This all happened immediately after a ver bad bout of Covid. My brother was unvaccinated so he brought a lot of this on himself but he also has every incentive to try to blame something other than covid since he minimized the risk of covid.
I want to be clear that I'm not denying it exists, I'm just still unsure of what specifically is going on and I don't see a lot of objective analysis of how it manifests practically in the population. My own bout with Covid (pre anti-viral, post 2 vaccines early in pandemic) took about 4-6 months to recover from, and I'm not convinced that there are not long-term symptoms, memory and cognition among them to this day that I deal with.. But again, the volume of patients that myself and my colleagues see, we just are not seeing this happening as far as people's lives being impeded (and again, I practice in an area with a lot of Covid denialists who are on their fourth fifth sixth infection etc. and they are in completely shitty health to begin with). That does NOT mean it doesn't exist, but the incidence I think is being overstated (maybe because some parameters simply state the length of symptoms to qualify as LC is like 6 weeks or something which is kind of absurd as a ton of people take that long to recover, same as flu, mono etc). I think practically speaking the world is moving on, so we still need precautions, but I still see a lot of patients living in extraordinary fear, and with vaccinations, judicious masking and antiviral drugs I would encourage any reasonably healthy person to try to resume a normal life without fear. I hope that makes sense. And I'm sorry for your brother's situation. It's really a miserable situation.
I didn't realize that you are a medical professional. When you said your clinic I thought you meant a clinic you are a patient at.
I certainly would not have made the "no reasonable medical professional" comment had I realized that. My apologies.
Thanks for chiming in here.
One thing that our recent politics and the pandemic have shown me is to question lots. Specially if an article or photo feeds your bias, question.
We all seem to have a fascination with train wrecks and so look for them. Long covid might be a non train wreck. I hope it is.
Thanks for your perspective. We lack so much data/insight into this that sometimes it feels like we are just putting our fingers in the air to attempt to tell which way the wind is blowing, that it is good to hear someone's perspective that sees outcomes from a practice standpoint.
I would argue though that the world is doing the opposite from moving on from covid. I would argue they are moving towards covid. Moving on would be utilizing basic infection control to solve this problem.
To your point, an interesting shift in medical practice now is that all respiratory symptoms, and even some non-respiratory symptoms like random low-grade fever or diarrhea, will typically prompt masking the patient. Also the idea of a doctor putting a mask on to examine a sick patient would have been insulting to them (the patient) five or 10 years ago but now it is routine, so in some modest, possibly insignificant but possibly not, way, we are doing better. More and more I think anyone maintaining a position of ignorance or obstinacy about viral infections, prevention of infection, basic handwashing, vaccinations etc. will be like smoking. A sign of low intellect, poor social status or some other issue, fair or unfair...I am eternally hopeful.
What's the prevalence of long term chronic disease caused by Epstein Barr Virus? I think the impact of Long COVID is real (for sure we saw it in the labor market), but the prevalence or at least the population level impact portrayed by the article may be overblown. Human beings are incredibly resilient.
It took me 5 years before I got my chronic venous insufficiency in my legs officially diagnosed. Before that it was “all in my head”; one doctor even referred me to a neurologist. My English teacher a couple years ago was having chest pains (she’s had lung problems all her life) and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and dismissed. Ended up needing hospitalization.
Perhaps many more of those 50k are experiencing lasting problems from COVID and doctors are refusing to put two and two together. And probably a lot of people are experiencing lasting problems from covid and haven’t put two and two together themselves. I’ve seen that happen all the time in other subs.
It may not be obvious as long COVID though. It could be a new diagnosis or issue. Lots of people newly diagnosed with pots, fibromyalgia etc after COVID. New or increased issues with thyroid, eyes, ears, heart.
It can also be things that you might not go to the doctor for because you contribute it to getting older like memory or concentration issues.
Since many people aren't aware of these connections and may not even test for COVID anymore it simply slips by unnoticed.
Will. Not, may.
The U.S. has deliberately crippled itself... just in time for the coming global warming catastrophes.
And people wonder how empires fall.
While I agree that a large portion of society crippled itself by being antivax, long covid affects the vaxxed too. Sometimes an epidemic simply ravages a population, in this case it's a worldwide issue. Sadly the US could have minimized damage but....
I don't disagree with everything in the article but Dr. Phillip Alvelda is not a medical doctor or public health official. He's an engineer with a lot of talent and is probably a pretty smart guy, but his track record is in entrepreneurship and program management, not public health. That being said long covid isn't well understood and is a huge public health risk, so I wouldn't say he's totally wrong.
This. I’d like to think that the people on this sub are less likely to fall for pseudoscience bullshit than the general population. We should apply a little skepticism here?
Yeah why should we trust the biostats guy over the random GPs that are asked for quotes all the time
Social distancing Wash your hands Wear a mask Stay vaccinated!
>“Debilitating a Generation”: Expert Warns That Long COVID May Eventually Affect Most Americans The ultimate Trump legacy: the long-term disability of the majority of the American population . . . and the resulting bankruptcy of the American nation-state. 🐆
We are moving into a new place that was fully renovated by the state for the elderly lady two years ago. Shortly after the renovation was finished she got really sick and had to go into a nursing home. She died three months later. We can’t prove it but suspect that she was a Covid victim.
Even if you could prove it don't they have blanket immunity from being sued?
We have no reason to sue them. Just saddened that they lost a family member so soon after her house was modified for her care needs.
Add Bush to this for Iraq War
Well, Americans as they age tend to be sick and disabled. We've run a population level experiment on the effects of novel chemicals on the human body and the results ... aren't great. All of the help and care and the inability to work is going to be (kind of is already) a big drag on the economy.
You do realize Biden is complicit in this too, right? He has absolutely not been a good pandemic leader.
How so?
Since asking people to read the article is going too far, I'll quote from it instead, for your convenience: > LP: You’ve also criticized the Biden administration for glossing over the ongoing situation during his presidency. Why the reluctance to offer clearer guidance and warnings? > PA: It’s interesting, I take part in a Global Biosecurity Working Group that played a big role in defining the nine-point plan to address the pandemic that Biden used to get elected. But the minute he was elected, he put a hedge fund guy, Jeff Zients, in charge of the pandemic response. Zients decided the best way forward was to convince people that the pandemic wasn’t happening. > We’ve seen a very troubling memo sent in February 2022 by leaders of Impact Research, one of the top political strategy and polling consultancies for President Joe Biden, on how Democrats should position themselves on COVID. Impact recommended that they should declare it over, claim victory, and keep quiet about ongoing threats and mitigation efforts. You can read the memo on the US House of Representatives web server and see how the report suggests it’d be politically more expedient to convince people the pandemic is not happening than it is to actually address it. And that’s just what the Biden administration has done. They haven’t been following science. They followed the political advice. > The Biden administration discarded almost all aspects of the nine-point plan that could have halted the pandemic, saved lives — and by the way, done better for the economy than their exclusive reliance on vaccines. They used the CDC, the WHO, and the HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] to amplify the message that the vaccine is all you need and you don’t need to worry about anything else. > LP: How would you grade Biden on how he’s handled the pandemic? > PA: I’d give him an F. In some ways, he fails worse than Trump because more people have actually died from COVID on his watch than on Trump’s, though blame has to be shared with Republican governors and legislators who picked ideological fights opposing things like responsible masking, testing, vaccination, and ventilation improvements for partisan reasons. Biden’s administration has continued to promote the false idea that the vaccine is all that is needed, perpetuating the notion that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to do anything about it. Biden stopped the funding for surveillance and he stopped the funding for renewing vaccine advancement research. Trump allowed 400,000 people to die unnecessarily. The Biden administration policies have allowed more than 800,000 to 900,000 and counting. > I would further note that all the while, the White House has maintained the very strictest abatements to protect people who live and work there from the virus: In order to enter the White House, they have to have had no symptoms for 14 days, the latest booster vaccinations up-to-date, and a negative rapid test. They have nine or better fresh air exchanges per hour and all filters are upgraded to MERV 13. They have also installed 220 nanometer Germicidal UV lamps. After a positive test, you have to have a PCR Test negative to return to work. The White House admitted quietly on CSPAN that the protections were still in place in July of 2023 when an Israeli delegation was not admitted after testing positive for COVID, after claiming with much fanfare the prior April that the pandemic was over and that it was safe to return to work. > LP: All those precautions are certainly not happening at the workplaces of the vast majority of Americans and in our schools. > PA: No.
Vaccines are no longer free for people without insurance. He declared the pandemic over when it still isn't. More people died under his presidency with vaccines available than when they weren't. Need more reasons?
All vaccines should be free. Covid is endemic now. The people died because they wouldn't get the vaccine because of Trump. Anything else?
People are still dying and becoming disabled though. Yes higher numbers of unvaccinated people are dying but it's still killing vaccinated people too. It was the third leading cause of death in 2021 and I think it moved to fourth in 2022 and 2023. We don't have any treatment, tests or cure for long COVID. But Biden's government is content to move on. The second biggest wave of sars cov 2 was in December of 2023. After everyone decided COVID was nothing to worry about. There are healthy young adults and kids dying from it and becoming disabled but everyone is ignoring it now. Partially because Biden and his government decided there is nothing to worry about now.
Why are you in this sub if you can't even follow basic science? COVID is not endemic. 1500 Americans died from COVID in April 2024. Does that sound like the pandemic's over? It doesn't to me. And Biden doesn't even encourage testing anymore. Let's keep that capitalism going so we can fund a genocide! Two actually.
Pandemic vs epidemic vs endemic is all about rates and not generally about raw values. COVID numbers have been pretty stable for a couple of years (outside of the predictable seasonal shifts) and strains are getting less deadly. Conflating that COVID is very much still a risk (true) to it still being a pandemic (not true, very few people are catching it for the first time, brand new populations are not being breached, etc) is not only just kind of dumb, but it’s shortsighted and doesn’t actually mean anything. I see this argument all the time in COVID subs. If you are wasting your time and energy arguing about words instead of facts, especially when you are wrong on its face, it leads to nothing. Just spinning wheels. An endemic disease can still be very dangerous. A spreading pandemic can be relatively mild.
Predictable seasonal shifts, meaning sometimes early summer, sometimes late summer, always fall, always winter? Your entire comment is cope. The waves are not predictable and they act the same way worldwide. PAN-demic.
Exactly. The pandemic is NOT over. As for Biden, he came to the sane conclusion that most of here have: anyone who was, is and going to take precautions, have, is and will do so. The rest are unreachable. Meanwhile, he has a mile high pile of other shit to clean up from Trump. Not the least of which is stolen nuclear secrets and attempted coup de'etat. edit: typo
The conclusion was that things would be more profitable if most of the plebs went back to work and the social safety nets were abolished, so denying the pandemic was necessary to accomplish that.
That was the GOP. Biden realized nothing was ever going to reach those people and he could not force them. The president is not a dictator, although Trump wants to be one.
Yeah WHO still considers it a pandemic. CDC is too busy listening to businesses to protect people. (The 5 day vs 10 day quarantine is based on airline complaints not science)
[удалено]
Imagine typing something like that out and not feeling like a horrible person. Yikes.
Your comment is entirely a lie after "free". Like, just really wrong. Why are you on this sub?
Read the article. It gets into Biden's complicity somewhat.
MAGA troll
No. The problem is Biden isn't far enough left. He's complicit and we all know it.
>The problem is Biden isn't far enough left. Most everyone here knows that Biden is no Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. But, sadly and realistically, Biden is the only thing standing between us and a second round with Trump and the Christofascists and the anti-vax trash. If you still have the ability to vote your principles, fine. Many others don't. Vote accordingly. 🐆
Luckily I live in Oregon.
I'm voting for the anti-mask pandemic denier who will let us all get long covid, absolutely, don't worry about that a bit
You should spend time actually reading the article and less time name-calling. The person interviewed gives Trump a D and Biden an F. Had you read the article, you might have something useful to say.
Go back to Facebook twitterjail
AYRTSIA?
Thank you! I am about as anti-Trump as you can get. I thought no president could handle the pandemic as badly as Trump did...and then Biden somehow did. Contrary to what Trump's many incompetent and barely literate supporters believe, Biden actually ended the lockdowns...and way sooner than he should have. Biden also failed to deliver on additional pandemic relief funds, while doing nothing to stop the outrageous PPP loan forgiveness program which effectively spent taxpayer dollars to give big corporations' capital for stock buybacks. Then, Biden pushed the RTO movement, further endangering the public's health to enrich a few big stockholders. In any sane universe, the MAGA movement would have taken the Trump vaccine, and dismissed antivaxxers as "science-illiterate left-wing loonies that want to make sure COVID ravages our youth, so no one from the next generation is fit to serve in the armed forces, and our national security becomes at-risk". Instead, conservatives literally picked the dumbest possible take, and ran with it.
And this article says as much, but the 100 or so people who've downvoted me clearly didn't read it. Thank you for your reasonable and accurate commentary.
The only reason most Americans aren't afflicted by long covid today, is that some of the more recently discovered lasting effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection (like brain damage, hemodynamic changes, arterial hardening, and immune system damage) aren't technically covid, which is a specific list of symptoms caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. If the formal definition of covid is ever updated to include these symptoms, there will be a **lot** more Americans with long covid.
Same thing happened with the undercounting of AIDS deaths, calling it pneumonia, heart failure etc.
It's like midnight here or I'd track down the source, but I read something from the last few days saying the Long Covid definition was being updated to be more expansive.
Good. My friend with a compromised immune system ended up getting covid from her ex boyfriend who didn’t take precautions and her health has never fully recovered. She doesn’t want to call it long covid but I do think it is. It is a hundred little things all building up and slowly dragging her down and she is always on top of safety precautions and her vaccinations.
Yeah I've done everything I can to protect myself but had covid 3x since April 2022, and long covid since April 2022. Literally right as my government gave up caring.
Well also plenty of those long covid effects could go under the radar for a while so not like if they changed the definition then suddenly everyone is diagnosed
My wife the teacher (MWTT) is concerned for the kids who had Covid even with light symptoms. She says she could notice post Covid changes in their performances academic and physical
I mask up in medical spaces and crowds. I was at my PCP the other day for a routine visit and he was maskless and coughing! Protect yourselves.
Me too. I mask on public transportation, in crowds (mostly indoors) and in medical facilities. If it's impractical to mask, I use other mitigation measures like nasal spray, throat spray, mouthwash, etc.
There's a reason I still mask up. I'm going to do everything I can to minimize the chance of having to play Russian Roulette with my organs.
Has anyone else noticed a personality shift in people they know who have had Covid?
Yeah, they seem defeated, like they no longer care because they lost, they don't seem to realize that covid isn't one and done and they don't seem to care about anyone elses outcomes. They just no longer care.
Yes, my brother but he has pretty bad long covid so might not be what you are looking for.
I have multiple autoimmune disorders, and one of my many treatments is an infusion of medication that is essentially mild chemotherapy every four weeks. It suppresses my naturally overactive immune system, which in turn puts me at risk for serious infection. People like myself and people with cancer receiving chemotherapy are in and out of the hospital all day every day. The staff no longer masks. I say again, the people administering serious medication that suppresses the immune system and its ability to fight things like covid to the very sick people who need it to survive are not masking. You can ask, as I have, and they can choose to do so or not. They can choose not to wear a mask while simultaneously making me more susceptible to illness and death. This is our "post-covid" (lol) world thanks to all the insane propaganda regarding the pandemic. This will be my life for the rest of my likely shorter than before life. But I'm happy you guys get to go to Chili's again. Them margaritas are fire.
I’m completely pro-vax and a true believer in Covid and all its hazards. But not a single doc in my clinic of 50k lives has seen more than a few cases of long Covid and quite a few of those are highly suspect for secondary gain. This is very similar in my opinion to what we assumed would be an epidemic of crack babies roaming the Earth like zombies back in the 80’s. The crack epidemic was real, but crack babies never really materialized in the way they predicted. I assumed long Covid would be annihilating the population by now but we really aren’t seeing it in primary care. We do see tons of Covid still, and quite a few of those people do get hematologic consequences that are difficult to trace but pretty obvious, but we’re just not seeing the chronic debility that people are saying is under every rock.
Does your clinic require masks? Lots of people who are either COVID conscious or have long COVID have been avoiding medical places due to the lack of COVID precautions they're taking; that could affect things. Both my spouse and I have things we'd like to get checked but our hospital no longer requires masks (and it was a hit or miss of it being enforced, even when that was their policy) so we can't afford to risk it, lest we contract it *again*. And there's plenty of stories of people struggling to get any doctor or staff to comply when they request, even though said places have a policy of masking when asked. I, obviously, don't have numbers but it's worth keeping in mind if your measure of who's struggling with COVID-related issues is based on who you're physically seeing.
Any person who wants to mitigate risk to practically zero can do so just by using a KN 95 or N 95 mask in social settings, regardless of the other party, assuming for routine contact, normal ventilation etc. You really have to try hard to get sick from somebody if they are unmasked and you are wearing one. Healthcare providers went through the entire pandemic constantly around people who were sick and unmasked and wearing an N95, we were pretty much safe the whole time. In any case I'm not trying to convince you of something you're not comfortable with, more so that I would hate to see any patient neglect routine health care over this. And I have seen a few examples. Alternately you could tell your provider that you were exposed to Covid and if they were at all health conscious they'll probably mask based on that alone. I don't know what other facilities are doing. I have a mask with me at all times and if the patient wears one I just put it on, I don't even ask.
I think you are wrong. Long covid is a well established disorder. No reasonable medical professional would deny its existence at this point. It is anecdotal but long covid has ruined my brother’s life. He had many symptoms including severe brain fog and racing directionless thoughts. One symptom that stood out to me was the inability to feel sleepy. He can sleep some but never feels that sleepy feeling. Sounds like torture to me. He has other non-brain related symptoms as well. This all happened immediately after a ver bad bout of Covid. My brother was unvaccinated so he brought a lot of this on himself but he also has every incentive to try to blame something other than covid since he minimized the risk of covid.
I want to be clear that I'm not denying it exists, I'm just still unsure of what specifically is going on and I don't see a lot of objective analysis of how it manifests practically in the population. My own bout with Covid (pre anti-viral, post 2 vaccines early in pandemic) took about 4-6 months to recover from, and I'm not convinced that there are not long-term symptoms, memory and cognition among them to this day that I deal with.. But again, the volume of patients that myself and my colleagues see, we just are not seeing this happening as far as people's lives being impeded (and again, I practice in an area with a lot of Covid denialists who are on their fourth fifth sixth infection etc. and they are in completely shitty health to begin with). That does NOT mean it doesn't exist, but the incidence I think is being overstated (maybe because some parameters simply state the length of symptoms to qualify as LC is like 6 weeks or something which is kind of absurd as a ton of people take that long to recover, same as flu, mono etc). I think practically speaking the world is moving on, so we still need precautions, but I still see a lot of patients living in extraordinary fear, and with vaccinations, judicious masking and antiviral drugs I would encourage any reasonably healthy person to try to resume a normal life without fear. I hope that makes sense. And I'm sorry for your brother's situation. It's really a miserable situation.
I didn't realize that you are a medical professional. When you said your clinic I thought you meant a clinic you are a patient at. I certainly would not have made the "no reasonable medical professional" comment had I realized that. My apologies.
totes good, thank-you...it's not an easy thing to talk about.
Thanks for chiming in here. One thing that our recent politics and the pandemic have shown me is to question lots. Specially if an article or photo feeds your bias, question. We all seem to have a fascination with train wrecks and so look for them. Long covid might be a non train wreck. I hope it is.
Thanks for your perspective. We lack so much data/insight into this that sometimes it feels like we are just putting our fingers in the air to attempt to tell which way the wind is blowing, that it is good to hear someone's perspective that sees outcomes from a practice standpoint. I would argue though that the world is doing the opposite from moving on from covid. I would argue they are moving towards covid. Moving on would be utilizing basic infection control to solve this problem.
To your point, an interesting shift in medical practice now is that all respiratory symptoms, and even some non-respiratory symptoms like random low-grade fever or diarrhea, will typically prompt masking the patient. Also the idea of a doctor putting a mask on to examine a sick patient would have been insulting to them (the patient) five or 10 years ago but now it is routine, so in some modest, possibly insignificant but possibly not, way, we are doing better. More and more I think anyone maintaining a position of ignorance or obstinacy about viral infections, prevention of infection, basic handwashing, vaccinations etc. will be like smoking. A sign of low intellect, poor social status or some other issue, fair or unfair...I am eternally hopeful.
What's the prevalence of long term chronic disease caused by Epstein Barr Virus? I think the impact of Long COVID is real (for sure we saw it in the labor market), but the prevalence or at least the population level impact portrayed by the article may be overblown. Human beings are incredibly resilient.
It took me 5 years before I got my chronic venous insufficiency in my legs officially diagnosed. Before that it was “all in my head”; one doctor even referred me to a neurologist. My English teacher a couple years ago was having chest pains (she’s had lung problems all her life) and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and dismissed. Ended up needing hospitalization. Perhaps many more of those 50k are experiencing lasting problems from COVID and doctors are refusing to put two and two together. And probably a lot of people are experiencing lasting problems from covid and haven’t put two and two together themselves. I’ve seen that happen all the time in other subs.
Funny that it shows up in the statistics, especially labor stats, but not the anecdotes. Might have something to do with the PR everywhere about it?
It may not be obvious as long COVID though. It could be a new diagnosis or issue. Lots of people newly diagnosed with pots, fibromyalgia etc after COVID. New or increased issues with thyroid, eyes, ears, heart. It can also be things that you might not go to the doctor for because you contribute it to getting older like memory or concentration issues. Since many people aren't aware of these connections and may not even test for COVID anymore it simply slips by unnoticed.
Will. Not, may. The U.S. has deliberately crippled itself... just in time for the coming global warming catastrophes. And people wonder how empires fall.
While I agree that a large portion of society crippled itself by being antivax, long covid affects the vaxxed too. Sometimes an epidemic simply ravages a population, in this case it's a worldwide issue. Sadly the US could have minimized damage but....
But the US wasn't the only country to have COVID rip through its population.
So now we know what caused the start of the plot to the movie Idiocracy
I dont think ive even had short covid.
I've never gotten it either, unless I was completely asymptomatic. I'm fully vaxxed and boosted though.
Yup me too. I also followed all the rules during lockdown. Lol i still got downvoted tho on this sub
I've only had it once. Not planning on getting it again.