Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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I have ME/CFS already...

A new Covid variant found in Asia is the most mutated version of the virus yet, according to scientists.

The morphed Delta variant was swabbed from a patient in Jakarta, Indonesia.

It has 113 different mutations, 37 of which affect the spike protein – the part used by the virus to latch on to humans.

The new strain has been labelled the “most extreme,” with the Omicron variant having around 50 mutations by comparison.

It’s believed to have been spawned by a case of chronic infection before it was submitted to a global Covid database in early July.

hronic infections typically occur in individuals with health that is already compromised, such as those with chronic illnesses or undergoing cancer therapy.

While the threat of a new outbreak is possible, top doctors believe there’s no reason to panic – it’s highly unlikely to trigger more lockdowns.

Warwick University virologist Professor Lawrence Young said it wasn’t clear if the new strain would go on an infect others because it would need to beat the variants already in circulation, like the Omicron strains.

However, he said the possibility of the new strain emerging quietly is a concern, with countries like the UK dialling back genetic analysis processes as the pandemic dies down.

“This virus continues to surprise us and being complacent is dangerous,” Professor Young said.

“This highlights the problem of “living with the virus.”

The new strain was highlighted by an online Covid variant tracker before being flagged by a US virologist.

The Biden administration announced Monday it is forming a new Office of Long COVID Research and Practice to study the condition and help those who have been diagnosed with it.

The office, which will be under the Department of Health and Human Services, "is charged with on-going coordination of the whole-of-government response to the longer-term effects of COVID-19," according to a news release.

"The Office of Long COVID Research and Practice will enhance efforts being undertaken across the U.S. government to improve the lives of those who continue to experience the long-term impacts of the worst public health crisis in a century," HHS Secretary Admiral Rachel Levine said in a statement.

"Bringing together the resources and expertise of federal, state, and local partners, patients, providers, researchers, and the business sector to answer the American people's most urgent calls to action," Levine said

The HHS estimates that anywhere from 7.7 million to 23 million Americans have developed long COVID after being infected with the virus.

A CDC survey last year found 81% of adults with ongoing symptoms of COVID lasting three months or longer -- or four out of five adults -- are experiencing limitations in their daily activities compared to before they had the virus. Additionally, 25% said they were experiencing significant limitations.

The HHS also announced Monday that the National Institutes of Health is launching long COVID clinical trials through the RECOVER Initiative, which seeks to understand, treat and prevent long COVID.

he new clinical trials will explore possible treatments for extreme fatigue, sleep disturbances, changes in body function and cognitive dysfunction,

"As our nation continues to make strides in combating COVID-19, it is crucial that we address the impact of Long COVID and provide resources to those in need," HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services issued an advisory Wednesday warning about identifying mental health symptoms and conditions linked to long COVID.

Having to battle these physical symptoms for weeks or months on end "can take a toll on a person's mental health," HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

"It can be very challenging for a person, whether they are impacted themselves, or they are a caregiver for someone who is affected," Becerra continued. "This advisory helps to raise awareness, especially among primary care practitioners and clinicians who are often the ones treating patients with long COVID."

The advisory found mental health symptoms and conditions linked to COVID include anxiety, depression, psychosis, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Research has shown that social isolation -- due to lockdowns, school closures and stay-at-home orders -- increases the risks of anxiety, depression and loneliness, especially for older adults.

Additionally, unemployment and insecure employment increase the risk of depression and anxiety, studies have found, with more vulnerable groups such as Hispanic and Black people, women, young adults aged 18 to 29 years and those without a college degree.

The patient may not be the only person who suffers from poor mental health but also family members caring for them, the advisory stated.

Several factors may exacerbate mental health conditions including chronic physical and/or mental illness both physical and mental, social isolation, financial insecurity, caregiver burnout, and grief.

"We know that people living with long COVID need help today, and providers need help understanding what long COVID is and how to treat it," said Admiral Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for Health, said in a statement.

Morganstein added, although not everyone may have access to the same resources, it's important to try and recognize mental health symptoms and to seek help if possible.

Weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen by more than 12% across the country, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, marking a second straight week of this key indicator of the virus climbing.

At least 8,035 hospital admissions of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 were reported for the week of July 22 nationwide, the CDC said late Monday, up from 7,165 during the week before.

Another important hospital metric has also been trending up in recent weeks: an average of 0.92% of the past week's emergency room visits had COVID-19 as of July 28, up from 0.51% through June 28.

The new figures come after months of largely slowing COVID-19 trends nationwide since the last wave of infections over the winter, and again mark the largest percent increases in these key indicators of the virus since December.

While indicators of the virus are now clearly trending up nationwide, hospitalizations for now remain far below the levels recorded at this time last year.

Previous summer waves also saw steeper increases compared to what has been seen so far this year. The U.S. is averaging 1,729 more admissions per week compared to a month prior.

Unlike previous waves, no single variant has yet emerged this summer to dominate infections nationwide.

Instead, the CDC's recent projections estimate that a mix of descendants from the XBB variant that first drove infections last winter are now competing around the country.

Largest among these XBB subvariants are infections grouped as the XBB.1.16, XBB.1.9.1, XBB.2.3, XBB.1.6 or EG.5 strains, which each make up between 10% and 15% of infections nationwide.

Experts had previously singled out EG.5 as one of the fastest growing lineages worldwide. EG.5 is a descendant of the XBB.1.9.2 variant, with an additional mutation that might be helping it outcompete other strains.

"At this time, CDC's genomic surveillance indicates that the increase in infections is caused by strains closely related to the Omicron strains that have been circulating since early 2022," said Conley.

It comes as health authorities have been racing to prepare for a new round of COVID-19 vaccinations this fall.

Updated vaccines are expected to be available by late September, the CDC said earlier this month, after the FDA requested that drugmakers begin producing new formulations targeting these kinds of XBB strains.

Government distribution of current supplies is due to wind down this week in advance of the update, which will also mark the switchover to a traditional commercial market for vaccines.

However, the CDC says current supplies of shots will still be shipped until September for "exceptional" situations.

The health authorities in the United Kingdom are back on alert after a new variant of the Covid-19 virus is proliferating at a fast pace. As per the news agency PTI, the sub-variant named EG.5.1 (nicknamed Eris) is spreading quickly in the country. Notably, the variant Eris was recognized only on 31 July after the infections from the virus skyrocketed. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has advised the countries to stay alert and follow the Covid appropriate behaviour.

s per UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the number of Covid-19 cases is rising in the country. The health agency said that 5.4% of 4,396 respiratory specimens reported through the Respiratory DataMart System were identified as COVID-19. The overall COVID-19 hospital admission rate for week 30 was 1.97 per 100,000 population, an increase from 1.17 per 100,000 in the previous report, the UKHSA said.

1 in 7 new cases of Covid-19
The news platform India Today quoted UKHSA informing that currently, the Eris sub-variant is making one in seven new COVID cases.

"COVID-19 case rates continued to increase this week compared to our previous report. 5.4% of 4,396 respiratory specimens reported through the Respiratory DataMart System were identified as COVID-19. This is compared to 3.7% of 4,403 from the previous report," the UKHSA said in a report.

“EG.5.1 was first raised as a signal in monitoring on July 3, 2023, as part of horizon scanning due to increasing reports internationally, particularly in Asia," the UKHSA said.

“It was subsequently raised from a signal in monitoring to a variant V-23JUL-01 on July 31, 2023, due to the increasing number of genomes in UK data, and continued growth internationally. Declaring this lineage as a variant will allow further detailed characterization and analysis," it said.

Hospital admission rate still low
The medical experts from the health agency pointed out that the overall rate of hospital admission still remains extremely low and the health department of the UK is following the situation closely. They even recommended to follow Covid appropriate behavior to protect oneself.

For the second week in a row, the number of people being admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 rose significantly, by more than 12%.

An additional 9,056 people were hospitalized with the virus last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – that represents a 12.5% jump.

The summer wave started a few weeks ago. Last week, the number of new hospitalizations was up 12.1%.

In about two dozen states, the surge in hospitalizations is far more than 12%. Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming all saw more than a 20% increase in new COVID hospitalizations.

New Hampshire saw the biggest jump in a single week – 96%, or a near doubling in the number of people being admitted.

When you take a closer look, county-by-county data shows the surge isn't happening everywhere at the same time. Within a single state, one area could see hospitalizations triple, while the other end of the state is seeing fewer people with serious COVID come into emergency rooms.

Stéphanie Longet is an immunologist and a COVID researcher at the University of Saint-Etienne in France, and just like 10-20% of adults who were infected with the virus, she continues to have symptoms well after her infection has resolved – a condition known colloquially as long COVID.

"I got COVID one year ago and I developed some persistent symptoms," she says. "I cannot work too long. My legs are quickly exhausted. In the morning it feels like I had run a marathon during the night, and I didn't do anything, I just slept."

Longet and other scientists don't exactly know why some people develop long COVID while others don't, but preliminary research released in medRxiv in July suggests that genetics plays a role.

The new research, which was an international collaboration between dozens of scientists, describes how some people carry a version of a single gene, FOXP4, that is associated with developing long COVID. Longet calls the new research an "important element" in understanding why some people's COVID symptoms seemingly never resolve.

A surprising finding about long COVID
Long COVID only affects a small percentage of people who are infected with SARS-CoV-2, but the scope of the pandemic means that many millions of people are suffering. Roughly 25 million people in the U.S. and over 17 million people in Europe have long COVID symptoms, with many more in other parts of the world.

There isn't a universally agreed upon definition for what is considered long COVID – people experience a range of different symptoms including "fatigue, muscle pain, intestinal disorders and brain fog" and for different periods of time according to Longet, who was not involved in the new research. That's made the disease difficult for scientists to fully understand.

But the new research adds to the growing body of work showing that genetics can influence COVID outcomes. It was only a few weeks ago when NPR reported that genetics might make some people resistant to developing any COVID symptoms at all.

Jill Hollenbach, an immunologist at the University of California, San Francisco, was one of the scientists who led the research on asymptomatic COVID. She says she was "surprised and excited" about the new long COVID findings.

"The fact that the authors were able to detect this association [between the FOXP4 gene and long COVID], I think, is spectacular," Hollenbach says.

Hollenbach also thinks that the new research on long COVID is refreshing because "there's a lot of frustration on the public's part around progress" of understanding the disease and how to treat it. "There can be a perception out there amongst some people who are involved in advocacy for long COVID that it's being dismissed [by the scientific community] and I don't think that's true."

The gene that may be connected
The new study looked at DNA from 6,450 people who developed long COVID and compared it to the DNA of those who did not. Not everyone who reported long COVID symptoms in the study had a clinical diagnosis so the research team used a broad definition of long COVID as self-reported symptoms of COVID that affect day-to-day life three months after the initial infection.

When that data was analyzed, only one connection between a person's genes and whether they developed long COVID stood out – the FOXP4 gene.

The FOXP4 gene is what biologists call a "transcription factor," meaning that it helps regulate processes throughout the body but isn't responsible for any one thing in particular. The new research shows that the gene is active in the lungs and mentions that other studies have found an association between FOXP4 and lung cancer.

However, the research does not point to FOXP4 as a smoking gun. "If you have the variant of FOXP4, in theory, you could have a higher probability to develop long COVID," Longet says. "But it doesn't mean if you have the variant that you will have long COVID."

Hollenbach, who published similar work on asymptomatic COVID in the journal Nature, says the new work is "methodologically extremely sound" and that "the result appears to be really clear."

But Hollenbach is also quick to point out that the genetic effect of the FOXP4 gene is relatively small – though that's not entirely surprising. "It's uncommon to see extremely strong genetic effects," she says. "What we find in studies like this gives us insights into what the underlying pathophysiology is."

The new research hints at "some underlying immune dysregulation in the lung itself," Hollenbach says, suggesting an abnormal immune response to COVID might be causing the long-term harm. "We need to just continue to follow these breadcrumbs and see where they lead us."

That might partially explain why so many people with long COVID are having lung problems, but for other common long COVID symptoms, like brain fog and fatigue, the activity of FOXP4 doesn't provide much of a clue, meaning there's more work to be done in order to understand all facets of the disease.

Why your genes may not fully dictate your COVID destiny
The latest research shows that there are clear connections between a person's genetics and how they respond to COVID. So does this mean that every individual's COVID fate was set in stone from the day they were born?

Hollenbach doesn't think so. "I don't believe that we are unnecessarily subjected to some kind of pre-destiny according to our genes," she says. "There's going to be many genetic and non-genetic factors that are going to be in play here."

One thing that Hollenbach says the scientific community agrees upon, and that this new research reinforces, is that, "you're more likely to have long COVID If you've had a very severe bout of COVID."

Which is why, according to Hollenbach, "vaccination is still our greatest tool" in the fight against COVID because it can prevent or reduce the severity of a COVID infection, reducing the chance someone develops long COVID.

In the meantime, however, there doesn't seem to be any imminent relief for those who are already dealing with the effects of long COVID. Longet suggests that people, "find different ways to organize your life. It's what I've done a little bit."

Working different hours, making diet modifications and trying light breathing exercises are all little things researchers have found to help manage symptoms.

[The main symptoms of the new Omicron strain EG.5.1] are a sore throat, a runny nose, a blocked nose, sneezing, a cough without phlegm, a headache, a cough with phlegm, a hoarse voice, muscle aches and pains and an altered sense of smell. However, shortness of breath, a loss of smell and a fever are no longer the main symptoms.

I am going to go a little off topic. COVID struck and millions died or experienced severe forms of the disease. But it might not be the most significant threat out there.

It is possible we may soon discover that another Virus a variant of H5N1, is waiting at the door. It can produce a high death rate, really off the charts.

According to a recent article:
Are We Facing Another Coronavirus-Like Viral Pandemic

Avian flu kills almost all the birds it infects, and globally, from January 2003 to May 2023, 876 cases of human infection with avian influenza A (H5N1) virus were reported from 23 countries. Of those cases, 458 were fatal (case fatality rate of 52%).

Based on reports from across the world, there is reason to be concerned that we could be in store for a shift event. In 2022, 67 different countries reported H5N1 flu in both domestic and wild bird populations, with over 130 million poultry lost from virus infection or from culling performed to stop virus spread. The 2022 outbreak was the deadliest on record in the U.S., affecting nearly every state and forcing culls of more than 50 million birds. (That’s the main reason that poultry and egg prices spiked last year.)

Equally if not more disturbing are recent reports of H5N1 among mammals in 10 different countries since 2022. This is certainly an underestimate, as outbreaks of avian flu in mammals would be unexpected and, therefore, underreported. Over two dozen species of mammals are known to harbor the virus, including cats and dogs. The extent of this spread makes it inevitable that the virus will reach humans.

Ten symptoms of new rising Covid strain Eris - from headache to altered sense of smell



Emphasis mine.
This will not go well.

Too early to tell what Long Covid from this Omicron sub variant will look like. But since it is Omicron I am cautiously optimistic it won’t be as bad as the original COVID-19.

The percentage of US adults reporting long Covid symptoms has fallen since the summer of 2022, but some people say they are still coping with changes to daily life brought on by the condition, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC analyzed data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey from June 2022 to June 2023. The national survey is designed to measure the social and economic effects of Covid-19 on US households.

Long Covid questions were added to the survey in June 2022. Respondents were then asked to report whether they had ever tested positive for Covid-19 or whether a doctor had ever told them that they had the virus. They were also asked if they had long Covid, which the CDC describes as the “wide range of ongoing respiratory, neurologic, cardiovascular, and other symptoms that can last for weeks, months, or years” after an initial infection.

According to the data, published Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, long Covid prevalence among all U.S. adults fell from 7.5% in June 2022 to 6% in June 2023.

Among adults reporting previous Covid-19 infections, long Covid prevalence fell from 18.9% to 11% during the study period, the data shows.

Long Covid tended to be less prevalent in the “the youngest and the oldest age groups” of adults reporting previous infections, the CDC researchers noted. Rather, the survey data shows that long Covid prevalence was highest among US adults ages 35 to 44.

The researchers noted that adults 50 and older are more likely to have severe Covid-19 symptoms, but they could not identify whether there is any associated risk between age and long Covid.

The researchers suggest that the decline in overall long Covid cases – particularly in older people – could be due to an overall decline in the prevalence of Covid-19 infections, a decline in severe infections and an increase in preventative measures such as the Covid-19 vaccine.

During the study period, however, about 1 in 4 (26.4%) respondents with long Covid said they had “significant activity limitations,” meaning they have difficulty carrying out day-to-day activities like going to work or to the grocery store.

Overall, the data suggests that this percentage of people with significant changes to daily life did not change over time, the CDC researchers say.

More than 200 symptoms are associated with long Covid, and the condition can affect nearly all systems within the body, including the nervous, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, pulmonary and immune systems.

Long COVID can persist for at least a year after the acute illness has passed, or appear months later, according to the most comprehensive look yet at how symptoms play out over a year.

The multicenter study, a collaboration between UC San Francisco, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and seven other sites, expands knowledge of post-COVID-19 conditions, describing trends in more detail than previous research and highlighting significant impacts the epidemic has had on the U.S. health care system.

The study appears Aug. 10, 2023, in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a publication of the CDC.

For about 16% of the COVID-positive people in the study, symptoms lasted for at least a year; but for others, they came and went. The study assessed symptoms every three months, enabling researchers to differentiate between symptoms that improve and those that emerge months after the initial infection.

“It was common for symptoms to resolve then re-emerge months later,” said lead author Juan Carlos Montoy, MD, PhD, associate professor at UCSF’s Department of Emergency Medicine. “A lot of prior research has focused on symptoms at one or two points in time, but we were able to describe symptom trajectory with greater clarity and nuance. It suggests that measurements at a single point in time could underestimate or mischaracterizes the true burden of disease.”

Fluctuating nature of disease
The study involved 1,741 participants – two-thirds of them female – who sought COVID testing at eight major health care systems across the country. Three-quarters tested positive for COVID, but those who tested negative may also have had an infection of some type since they were experiencing symptoms. These included fatigue, runny nose, headache, sore throat, shortness of breath, chest pain, diarrhea, forgetfulness and difficulty thinking or concentrating.

COVID-positive participants were more likely to have symptoms in each of the symptom categories at baseline, but by the end of the year, there was no difference between those who were COVID positive and negative.

“We were surprised to see how similar the patterns were between the COVID-positive and COVID-negative groups,” said Montoy. “It shows that the burden after COVID may be high, but it might also be high for other non-COVID illnesses. We have a lot to learn about post-illness processes for COVID and other conditions.”

The data came from the CDC’s INSPIRE project (Innovative Support for Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infections Registry), which includes Rush University, Chicago; Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; UTHealth Houston, Houston; University of Washington, Seattle; and Yale University, New Haven.

An unusual case of a long Covid patient's legs turning blue after 10 minutes of standing has been reported in a study published in The Lancet journal. The study described the case of a 33-year old man who developed a condition called acrocyanosis, which refers to blood pooling in the veins of the legs.
A minute after standing, his legs began to redden and became increasingly blue over time, with the veins becoming more prominent, the study from the University of Leeds, UK, said.

The colour was seen to become much more pronounced after 10 minutes of standing, with the patient describing a heavy, itchy sensation in his legs.

However, his original colour was observed to return two minutes after he resumed a non-standing position.

The patient said he had started to experience the discolouration since his COVID-19 infection, the researchers said in the study.

"This was a striking case of acrocyanosis in a patient who had not experienced it before his COVID-19 infection," said Manoj Sivan, the study's author and associate clinical professor at the university's School of Medicine.

The patient was then diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition causing an abnormal increase in heart rate upon standing.

Long Covid has been shown to affect multiple systems in the body, including the autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for regulating involuntary processes in the body such as heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, digestion, and sexual arousal.

Acrocyanosis has previously been observed in children with dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system (dysautonomia), a common symptom of post-viral syndromes.

"Patients experiencing this may not be aware that it can be a symptom of long COVID and dysautonomia and may feel concerned about what they are seeing. Similarly, clinicians may not be aware of the link between acrocyanosis and long Covid," said Sivan.

Previous research by Sivan's team has shown that both dysautonomia and POTS frequently develop in people with Long Covid.

Dysautonomia is also seen in a number of other long-term conditions, such as Fibromyalgia and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or ME, both of which affect muscles and cause pain.

In 2019, I was in high gear. I had two young children, a busy social life, a book tour and a novel in progress. I spent my days racing between airports, juggling to-do lists and child care. Yes, I felt tired, but I come from a family of high-energy women. I was proud to be keeping the sacred flame of Productivity burning.

Then I got covid.

I didn’t know it was covid at the time. This was early February 2020, before the government was acknowledging SARS-CoV-2’s spread in the United States.
In the weeks after infection, my body went haywire. My ears rang. My heart would start galloping at random times. I developed violent new food allergies overnight. When I walked upstairs, I gasped alarmingly.

I reached out to doctors. One told me I was “deconditioned” and needed to exercise more. But my usual jog left me doubled over, and when I tried to lift weights, I ended up in the ER with chest pains and tachycardia. My tests were normal, which alarmed me further. How could they be normal? Every morning, I woke breathless, leaden, utterly depleted.

Worst of all, I couldn’t concentrate enough to compose sentences. Writing had been my haven since I was 6. Now, it was my family’s livelihood. I kept looking through my pre-covid novel drafts, desperately trying to prod my sticky, limp brain forward. But I was too tired to answer email, let alone grapple with my book.

When people asked how I was, I gave an airy answer. Inside, I was in a cold sweat. My whole future was dropping away. Looking at old photos, I was overwhelmed with grief and bitterness. I didn’t recognize myself. On my best days, I was 30 percent of that person.

I turned to the internet and discovered others with similar experiences. In fact, my symptoms were textbook — a textbook being written in real time by “first wavers” like me, comparing notes and giving our condition a name: long covid.

There was no more worshiping productivity. I gave my best hours to my children, but it was crushing to realize just how few hours there were. Nothing was more painful than hearing my kids delightedly laughing and being too sick to join them.

Doctors looked at me askance. They offered me antidepressants and pointed anecdotes about their friends who’d just had covid and were running marathons again.

I didn’t say I’d love to be able to run. I didn’t say what really made me depressed was dragging myself to appointments to be patronized. I didn’t say that post-viral illness was nothing new, nor was PEM — which for decades had been documented by people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome — so if they didn’t know what I was talking about, they should stop sneering and get caught up. I was too sick for that, and too worried.

I began scouring medical journals the way I used to close-read ancient Greek poetry. I burned through horrifying amounts of money on vitamins and supplements. At night, my fears chased themselves. Would I ever get relief? Would I ever finish another book? Was long covid progressive?

It was a bad moment when I realized that any answer to that last question would come from my own body. I was in the first cohort of an unwilling experiment.
When vaccines rolled out, many people rushed back to “normal.” My world, already small, constricted further.

Friends who invited me out to eat were surprised when I declined. I couldn’t risk reinfection, I said, and suggested a masked, outdoor stroll. Sure, they said, we’ll be in touch. Zoom events dried up. Masks began disappearing. I tried to warn the people I loved. Covid is airborne. Keep wearing an N95. Vaccines protect you but don’t stop transmission.

Few wanted to listen. During the omicron wave, politicians tweeted about how quickly they’d recovered. I was glad for everyone who was fine, but a nasty implication hovered over those of us who weren’t: What’s your problem.

Friends who did struggle often seemed embarrassed by their symptoms. I’m just tired. My memory’s never been good. I gave them the resources I had, but there were few to give. There is no cure for long covid. Two of my friends went on to have strokes. A third developed diabetes, a fourth dementia. One died.

Despite the crystal-clear science on the damage covid-19 does to our bodies, medical settings have dropped mask requirements, so patients now gamble their health to receive care. Those of us who are high-risk or immunocompromised, or who just don’t want to roll the dice on death and misery, have not only been left behind — we’re being actively mocked and pathologized.

I’ve personally been ridiculed, heckled and coughed on for wearing my N95. Acquaintances who were understanding in the beginning are now irritated, even offended. One demanded: How long are you going to do this? As if trying to avoid covid was an attack on her, rather than an attempt to keep myself from sliding further into an abyss that threatens to swallow my family.

The United States has always been a terrible place to be sick and disabled. Ableism is baked into our myths of bootstrapping and self-reliance, in which health is virtue and illness is degeneracy. It is long past time for a bedrock shift, for all of us.

We desperately need access to informed care, new treatments, fast-tracked research, safe spaces and disability protections. We also need a basic grasp of the facts of long covid. How it can follow anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of infections. How infections accumulate risk. How it’s not anxiety or depression, though its punishing nature can contribute to both those things. How children can get it; a recent review puts it at 12 to 16 percent of cases. How long-haulers who are reinfected usually get worse. How as many as 23 million Americans have post-covid symptoms, with that number increasing daily.

Some days, long covid feels manageable. Others, it feels like a crushing mountain on my chest. I yearn for the casual spontaneity and scope of my old life. I miss the friends and family who have moved on. I grieve those lost forever.

So how long am I going to do this? Until indoor air is safe for all, until vaccines prevent transmission, until there’s a cure for long covid. Until I’m not risking my family’s future on a grocery run. Because the truth is that however immortal we feel, we are all just one infection away from a new life.

They're starting to report that EVERY Covid infection causes permanent organ damage...it's just a matter of whether or not it's enough damage for one to notice.

I know quite a few people who've had Covid, and they don't necessarily have Long Covid, but they say that they can tell they aren't the same person anymore. A lot of them have cognitive difficulties now.