A need to highlight "long COVID"?

[mtbc]

With the excess death rate clearly rising in England and Wales I find it strange that, over much of those countries, pubs remain open. If I contract SARS-CoV-2 then I know that my chances of survival are good but what of the sequelae? There have now been so many cases reported of people, including younger adults, suffering fatigue, cognitive impairment, cardiac injury, etc. that affects them months after recovery. Even if an effective vaccine reaches us next year, I wonder if Her Majesty's Government's efforts to trade off public health against economic impact are taking full account of these less-headline ongoing costs; it's not as if SARS and MERS haven't forewarned us. Calling people's symptoms mild simply because they did not require emergency hospitalization seems to me to mislead dangerously.

Update: A couple of days later I got to introduce this point among European Molecular Biology Laboratory folks, after feeling that the discussion was overly focused on mortality rates.

Comments

[shadowkat]

I agree with you on this. Mainly because I have two family members (an Aunt and a cousin) who suffered from long COVID, along with an acquaintance/friend from my church.
And my cousin is convinced she could die at any moment from a brain aneurysm. One already popped. She had three. My aunt also had one in her hip.

COVID is a disease of the blood vessels, loves a high blood sugar/high blood pressure environment, and can have lasting effects. I'm being careful as possible.

From what I understand - it's akin to playing Russian Roulet - you don't know what COVID will do to you, and you don't know what strain you'll get.