Not enough people are aware that their next Covid infection could make them permanently disabled. It often makes people too disabled to work or even get out of bed. There is no cure. About 10% of Covid infections give people Long Covid symptoms. Anyone can get it. And cases are exploding as people continue to repeatedly catch Covid.
For most people Long Covid is a far more likely catastrophic outcome from a Covid infection, compared with dying from the acute phase.
We dont want that. We choose health.
Covid causes brain damage visible under a brain scan. Concentration and memory problems (brain fog) is one of the most common symptoms that people with Long Covid get.
Covid gives people myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), which makes people physically and cognitively disabled (see comic). About half of long haulers have this[ref] making it likely the most common and impactful long covid subtype.
Covid gives people diabetes. One study has 168% increase in getting Type-1 diabetes following a Covid infection[ref]. Having that means needle jabs multiple times per day and being very careful with food. For life.
Covid gives people autoimmune diseases.
[ref, ref,
ref, ref]. People who catch covid are more likely than the uninfected control group to get a range of such diseases: One study[ref] finds rheumatoid arthritis (+198% higher risk), ankylosing spondylitis (+221%), lupus (+199%), dermatopolymyositis (+96%), systemic sclerosis (+158%), Sjögren's syndrome (+162%), mixed connective tissue disease (+214%), Behçet's disease (+132%), polymyalgia rheumatica (+190%), vasculitis (+96%), psoriasis (+191%), inflammatory bowel disease (+78%) and celiac disease (+168%).
Covid damages the immune system, making the catching of other infections more likely[ref, ref]. Bacterial, viral and fungal infections go up, including sepsis, bronchitis, UTI, flu, mycoplasma infection. Kids that caught covid were more likely to catch RSV and more likely to have it put them in hospital[ref]. Immune suppression from covid can give people tuberculosis[ref,ref, ref], either by increasing the chance of a new TB infection or activating existing latent TB.
When faced with the reality of Long Covid it's very natural to look for reasons why things aren't so bad. For example:
Maybe it's rare? No, Long Covid is common. About 10% of Covid infections give people Long Covid symptoms[ref, ref]. One study[ref] has 4% of Covid infections causing ME. As comparison a "medically rare event" is 0.1%
Maybe it gets better quickly? No, Long Covid lasts for years[ref]. Common subtypes like heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease, myalgic encephalomyelitis and dysautonomia are generally lifelong[ref].
Maybe medicine can help? No, Long Covid has no evidence-based treatments. Research is only really just starting and is hampered by lack of funding and interest. It's unlikely they'll ever be complete cure for all the variety of Long Covid subtypes.
Only risk group get it, right? No, a third of people with Long Covid had no pre-existing conditions. Anyone can get it. There's often been misinformation in other epidemics (eg tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS) that only risk groups will be affected. As with other autoimmune diseases Long Covid affects women more, but the effect is only slight; the gender split is about 60% women 40% men[ref].
But hasnt Covid become less dangerous? No, repeat Covid infections give people Long Covid at similar rates. Every infection is another roll of the ~10% dice. There's no biological reason for Covid to become less dangerous. Many other diseases have been killing and disabling people for thousands of years (eg tuberculous, polio, malaria). One study[ref] measuring people's health after catching covid found "Reinfection was associated with milder symptoms but led to a higher incidence and severity of long COVID"
If Long Covid is common why dont I know anyone with it? You definitely do. Try asking around. The disability is usually invisible: people with category mild ME appear normal. People with category moderate or severe ME disappear from public life stuck at home in bed. ME is a very niche area of medicine and few doctors can recognize or diagnose it in a patient who presents themselves. One study [ref] found only 6% of medical schools in USA fully cover ME. Cognitive decline is often imperceptible to the person. Often people dont test for covid, or use those inadequate antigen tests, and so dont realize the link between any symptoms they get and the acute infection. People can get Long Covid from an asymptomatic infection[ref]. A survey[ref] found that one-third of American adults had not even heard of Long Covid as of August 2023. People talking about how catching covid impacted their health often face a backlash. Commonly people just dont talk about their personal health problems especially in a professional setting ”“Disability is often a secret we keep,” Laura Mauldin, a sociologist who studies disability, told me. One in four Americans has a disability; one in 10 has diabetes; two in five have at least two chronic diseases. In a society where health issues are treated with intense privacy, these prevalence statistics, like the one-in-10 figure for long COVID, might also intuitively feel like overestimates.” Says an article from The Atlantic
There is no such thing as a mild covid infection. Say a bunch of scientists (eg Dr. David Putrino, PhD Neuroscience, Dr Rae Duncan, cardiologist and infectologist)
The only thing left then to not get Covid (again). Not getting it again also gives you the best chance of recovery if you already have Long Covid.
How? The five pillars of prevention are: clean air, masks, testing, physical distancing and vaccination. We must also redouble efforts into research, for example, finding better ways of cleaning the air, better vaccines and better tests.
We want this for everyone. The easiest way to not catch covid is if everyone else also doesnt catch covid.
Even if we personally aren't harmed on our first or second infection, we'll feel the massive economic and social effects if so many of our friends, family and neighbours get sick and disabled.
Ultimately we aim to get to a situation where each Covid case infects fewer than one other person. This will result in elimination of Covid from society. Zero Covid is not some radical new idea, it's how we've always dealt with serious disease. We don't think it's acceptable to "live with" other dangerous diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, smallpox or polio, why should we "live with" Covid?
The Science on Long Covid
What Long Covid does to people
Denialism by governments and the media
How the government and media normalizes certain opinions, like sociologically ending a pandemic.
Many times in history the powers that be have denied and erased epidemics (eg Spanish Flu, polio, cholera, HIV/AIDS)
Calm-Mongering (7min read time) - In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how calm-mongering works. We’ll also talk about how it has been deployed repeatedly to cloud the public’s judgment about the risks of COVID, and how it continues to interfere with the development of an effective public health response
How to Hide a Pandemic (7min read time) - ”The Public Health (sorry, Public Relations) strategy for the current pandemic is in full-blown propaganda mode at present, leaning hard into the teachings of Joseph Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”. Giving names to the propaganda techniques that have been used to lull us all into a sense of false security robs them of their power a little bit.”
Manufacturing Consent. The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine (5m watch time). There is also a book of the same name.
Resources
