Potentially “disabling and life-altering”
An old friend in a nearby town touched base the other day. As people do these days. we compared pandemic notes. He’d lost 12-15 people he knew to Covid, including a Fox-watching brother-in-law. None for me.
Neither he nor his wife nor me and mine had caught the crud. Other fully vaccinated friends have caught these highly contagious variants recently after letting their guards (and masks) down.
I’m still masking when going to shop indoors despite so few others doing so. Should any belligerent need to know, it’s a) force of habit, b) a fashion statement, or c) haven’t had a cold since 2019. Pick one.
Here’s another reason (Reuters):
Nearly 1 in 5 American adults who reported having COVID-19 in the past are still having symptoms of long COVID, according to survey data collected in the first two weeks of June, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday.
Overall, 1 in 13 adults in the United States have long COVID symptoms lasting for three months or more after first contracting the disease, and which they did not have before the infection, the data showed.
The data was collected from June 1-13 by the U.S. Census Bureau and analyzed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Long COVID symptoms range from fatigue, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, cognitive difficulties, chronic pain, sensory abnormalities and muscle weakness. They can be debilitating and last for weeks or months after recovery from the initial infection.
Unless you’re into that sort of thing.
Similar findings are reported in a Lancet study. Fifty percent “in a large ongoing study still have one or more symptoms three months after becoming infected with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2,” a Dutch study found:
Fatigue, shortness of breath, brain fog, and loss of smell are particularly common long-term effects of Covid-19. This is apparent from the studies mentioned above, but also the interim results of the RIVM’s study released on June 21st. For some, symptoms are relatively minor. For others, however, they can be disabling and life-altering.
Unless you’re into that sort of thing.
There’s more coming out from long-term studies (CNN):
Even the littlest children can experience long Covid, according to a large study, one of the first of its kind to include infants and toddlers.
The study published Wednesday in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health included 44,000 children in Denmark ranging in ages zero through 14 years old. Of the children, 11,000 had tested positive for Covid-19 between January 2020 and July 2021.
While symptoms associated with long Covid are general ailments children can experience even without Covid — headaches, mood swings, stomach problems and tiredness — the children in the study who had previously tested positive for Covid were more likely to experience at least one symptom for two months or more than the children who never tested positive for Covid.
The study also revealed that a third of children who had tested positive for Covid experienced at least one long-term symptom that was not present before testing positive.
Do them and yourselves a favor and stay vigilant.
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