Long COVID Could Be a 'Mass Deterioration Event'

[Celerity]

A tidal wave of chronic illness could leave millions of people incrementally worse off.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/06/long-covid-chronic-illness-disability/661285/

https://archive.ph/TnxWW



In late summer 2021, during the Delta wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation issued a disturbing wake-up call: According to its calculations, more than 11 million Americans were already experiencing long COVID. The academy’s dashboard has been updated daily ever since, and now pegs that number at 25 million.

Even this may be a major undercount. The dashboard calculation assumes that 30 percent of COVID patients will develop lasting symptoms, then applies that rate to the 85 million confirmed cases on the books. Many infections are not reported, though, and blood antibody tests suggest that 187 million Americans had gotten the virus by February 2022. (Many more have been infected since.) If the same proportion of chronic illness holds, the country should now have at least 56 million long-COVID patients. That’s one for every six Americans.

So much about long COVID remains mysterious: The condition is hard to study, difficult to predict, and variously defined to include a disorienting range and severity of symptoms. But the numbers above imply ubiquity—a new plait in the fabric of society. 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.

Indeed, if—as these numbers suggest—one in six Americans already has long COVID, then a tidal wave of suffering should be crashing down at this very moment, all around us. Yet while we know a lot about COVID’s lasting toll on individuals, through clearly documented accounts of its life-altering effects, the aggregate damage from this wave of chronic illness across the population remains largely unseen. Why is that?

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[OAITW r.2.0]

1. Well, that will be a game changer.

Prepare for 300% rise in healthcare insurance premiums.

Edited to add: Healthcare,,,,it's a growth industry.

[MontanaMama]

2. I'm already paying $1955 per month

for my family of three. I can’t shoulder much more.

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. I cannot imagine.

I'm 69. have Medicare A/B and an Advantage plan. Total monthly average, to date - currently, is about $300.00 (with annual scrips). Life long smoker, drink too much beer and wine....but somehow I am in relatively good health. Working on a medical exit plan when I can no longer enjoy my current quality of life. I won't be a financial burden on my kids and will not give my assets to Big Healthcare.

[Tickle]

16. I'm right there with you

I could have written your post

[blogslug]

4. Watch this video discussion

[dweller]

5. This fucker is responsible for it all

https://m.

✌🏻

[zipplewrath]

7. And may have it

He already showed signs of mental decline. He could suffer long term memory issues associated with his serious bout of COVID-19.

[keep_left]

14. The guy almost died. He got a huge dose of the Regeneron monoclonal...

...antibody cocktail. The press reported the dosage at some point, and it was something like an 8X dose. It was probably infused over a couple of days, because I can't imagine the human body reacts well to that much of a foreign protein being slammed in all at once.

But to be sure, Drumpf was one walking comorbidity, and if it were not for heroic measures, he would likely be dead. Remember how winded he was going up the steps during his "comeback" event? This is not a guy in good physical shape, and Covid took a big bite out of what little cardio function he had.

[JanMichael]

6. This is why we have kept up masking and no indoor restaurants

Knock on wood but neither one of us have had covid since this all started. We both work full time.

You know the thought of getting knocked out on a ventilator and not necessarily knowing what's going on because you're drugged up didn't really scare me that much.

All of a sudden having my body say I have diabetes or I can't run anymore for the rest of my life that worried me.

[calimary]

10. Yeah, we do, too. Routinely.

I like mine with blue rhinestones. Why not? Might as well have some fun with 'em.

[DET]

8. Fascinating

Long Covid has only recently started to get the coverage that it deserves. People can’t wrap their heads around the sheer number of potential cases. Personally, I’m convinced that long Covid is today’s version of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (now renamed, but whatever). Both present after a serious viral illness (CFS usually after mononucleosis) and have very similar symptoms.

CFS was recognized following an outbreak of a mysterious illness at Incline Village in Nevada in 1984. The CDC was sent to investigate. Tragically, the investigators determined that the illness was a psychosomatic disorder of neurotic middle aged women. It turned out that the investigators spent more time skiing than they did investigating. And they ridiculed victims of the disease.

I developed CFS after a bout of mono. This was before CFS even had a name. Fatigue does not begin to describe the crippling effects of CFS. The ‘fatigue’ is actually profound weakness. Like many long Covid patients, I couldn’t even walk outside my apartment without collapsing for months. Meanwhile, doctors kept insisting that the illness was ’all in my head’. It was traumatizing both physically and psychologically. I was lucky - I became reasonably functional within two years, although I still have lingering after effects decades later. I tell my family that I’m feeling ‘chronic fatiguey’ and they know what I mean.

Personally, I’m convinced that long Covid could have been understood and perhaps reversed if CFS had been taken seriously decades ago. For better or worse, long Covid is now so prevalent that it can’t be ignored or dismissed. And that’s a good thing.

[niyad]

12. One of my friends lived in Incline, and was one of the first to be diagnosed with

myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, but then called CFS, or, snarkily, housewife syndrome), so I have been acquainted with this appaling, often life-changing, condition for a very long time. My heart goes out to you for what you, and so many millions, have endured.

One of the best story arcs on "The Golden Girls", was the three-parter where Dorothy is duagnosed with CFS, after being dismissed as nuts, elderly, or just a drama queen by several doctors. The scene in the restaurant where she confronts the most obnoxious of them is one of my favourites.

Your connection of chronic fatigue and long covid is one that I hope will be heeded and studied.

[DET]

13. We need to do better...

Thank you for the feedback. I remember those episodes on the Golden Girls. That series ‘went there’ on a variety of issues that were considered too risky at the time to approach. So many conditions that primarily afflict women are dismissed by mostly male doctors that it’s hard not to see it as outright misogyny. Which is infuriating.

[ReluctanceTango]

18. Doctors blew off my Graves Disease symptoms

For over six years. One simple lab test could have found it.

Then, while I was getting treated for the Graves, my endocrinologist outright ignored my concerns about post-menopausal hemorrhaging. Turned out I had uterine cancer.

I fired that murderous quack, and made a huge stink about it at the reception desk when they tried to schedule me a follow up. Around 40 people were in their mini-Auschwitz holding area--er, waiting room. They were all paying close attention to the woman reading that clinic the riot act.

[liberal_mama]

9. People must not be informed of the risk of Long Covid or they would be masking/taking precautions

In my area, hardly anyone wears masks, even at the doctor's office when everyone is coughing! People are getting reinfected within months. It's scary to think of the health consequences to come.

I doubt people would be acting so recklessly if they knew that they could have long covid and other post viral illnesses for the rest of their life.

As an immune compromised person with diabetes, lupus, psoriasis, and RA, it is so difficult to deal with chronic health problems. I long for those wonderful days before I developed chronic illnesses. Health is the most important thing. It makes me sad to see people risking their health everyday because they don't want to be inconvenienced by Covid precautions.

I notice that very few public health officials even talk about Long Covid. Even though new terrifying studies come out almost every day about long term consequences.

I know many people with long covid, including my own husband. It's very sad.

[YoshidaYui]

11. i will probably wear a mask in public

for the rest of my life, i don't ever want to get covid.

[anarch]

15. I have it; it sucks

my quality of life is frankly comparatively godawful (persistent and very alarming/debilitating breathing problems, crushing fatigue, "brain fog" even two years after the original infection)...and I just had the latest variant (again) despite being vaccinated and masking up any time I leave the house. I'm sure beyond any reasonable doubt that my ability to do my job has been severely decremented--not that I feel like it matters, since I'm obviously not the only one, and I'm old anyway so my remaining time here on this planet is likely not going to be all that long--probably shorter by ten or twenty years after this goddamn virus. If my experience is any indicator, I think we can expect society to become a lot stupider over the next few years.

[Dorian Gray]

17. When my daughter and husband

both tested positive, I made sure they both got PCR tests and sent the results to their doctor so that they had it on record. For this very reason. Was worried about potential long term effects and how it may affect their health down the road.

Neither has had any long term effects, though. It's been a month and a half. Daughter had two bad days, and was lethargic for a week or so after. My husband had essentially a moderate cold and has been fine since.

Hoping that it stays that way and there aren't surprised down the road.

We can all protect ourselves. Vaccine. Booster. Mask in crowded places. Have a treatment plan if you test positive.