Noah’s Mark

Noah Lyles was a huge favorite to win the 200m in Paris. But in getting the bronze, he may have pulled off one of his more impressive feats. Why? Because Lyles ran the race while suffering from a nasty case of Covid. It was a reminder that even the greatest athletes in the world can fall victim to illness or injury. But it was also a reminder that Covid is still here. Imagine if someone had told you on March 11, 2020, the day everything really started to shut down, that the virus would not only impact the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, but it would still be messing with us during the Paris games. WaPo (Gift Article): On the night Noah Lyles was to become a legend, he became a reminder. Four years later, we still can’t outrun Covid.

+ Adding a fraction of a second to an elite athletes’ time is certainly a far cry from refrigerator trucks housing bodies in major cities. But for part of the population, a really large part, no reminder of Covid was needed. They’re still suffering from a series of often untreatable and even unexplainable maladies associated with an illness the rest of us desperately want to forget. For them, Covid is not a sprint, but a marathon. NYT (Gift Article): About 400 Million People Worldwide Have Had Long Covid, Researchers Say. “The authors cited studies suggesting that only 7 percent to 10 percent of long Covid patients fully recovered two years after developing long Covid. They added that ‘some manifestations of long Covid, including heart disease, diabetes, myalgic encephalomyelitis and dysautonomia are chronic conditions that last a lifetime.'”