A Long Time Coming
As if we needed a reminder that Covid is still here and still infecting us, there’s this. Fauci tests positive for Covid-19. For most current Covid sufferers, today’s version of the illness comes with fairly mild symptoms. But for massive number of people, the really bad part comes after they stop testing positive, yet some symptoms go on and on. Benjamin Mazer in The Atlantic: Long COVID Could Be a ‘Mass Deterioration Event. “As many as 50 million Americans are lactose intolerant. A similar number have acne, allergies, hearing loss, or chronic pain. Think of all the people you know personally who experience one of these conditions. Now consider what it would mean for a similar number to have long COVID: Instead of having blemishes, a runny nose, or soy milk in the fridge, they might have difficulty breathing, overwhelming fatigue, or deadly blood clots. Even if that 30 percent estimate is too high—even if the true rate at which people develop post-acute symptoms were more like 10 or 5 or even 2 percent, as other research suggests—the total number of patients would still be staggering, many millions nationwide. As experts and advocates have observed, the emergence of long COVID would best be understood as a ‘mass disabling event’ of historic proportions, with the health-care system struggling to absorb an influx of infirmity, and economic growth blunted for years to come.” That’s the broad problem. The more narrow problem is the suffering encountered by individuals impaired by long covid and further debilitated by an overtaxed health system that isn’t quite sure how to help them.