Long Covid in the media and social media 2022

From the Netherlands:

NL Times Healthcare employees with long Covid can be dismissed

quote:

Many healthcare workers who have been battling long Covid since the early days of the pandemic are fearing for their futures as the end of the two-year protection against their dismissal looms on the horizon, according to AD. Nearly 1,000 healthcare employees have been suffering from long Covid complaints for almost two years now.

Almost half of the 4,500 healthcare workers with long Covid have been ill for over a year and have had to lose 30 percent of their salaries as a result of not being able to work. Healthcare workers with long Covid say this has added to the stress of everyday life with the chronic illness.

"When the coronavirus pandemic broke out, we received so many fruit baskets, flowers and support, that was great," a 50-year-old nurse who wished to be known as Tamara told AD. "And now I'm discarded. I have too little air, too little energy to lift people out of bed, to wash and to care for them."

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1515774921053556742

 

Not 100% sure about this guy, he got many things wrong at first, but seems to be learning. It's known that his son had(still has?) LC, so good chances it's first-hand experience with the consequences.

But he is influential, former White House adviser and ex-administrator for Medicaid, the medical insurance program for poor people, and Medicare, same but for everyone 65+.

Name-drops ME a few times, seems to at least get the impact of misguided advice.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1515798926279946241

 

Moved post

https://www.reuters.com/business/he...zers-paxlovid-treating-long-covid-2022-04-18/

The case for testing Pfizer's Paxlovid for treating long COVID

 

Morning Consult: Most Long COVID Patients Are Seeking Help From Their Primary Care Doctor

quotes:

.. some clinicians say that instead of standing up more specialty clinics, those with newfound expertise on long COVID should be disseminating what they know more broadly, particularly in primary care. That’s because long COVID affects up to 23 million Americans — an estimated 10% to 30% of those who get COVID-19 — and the sheer magnitude of the disease means the number of patients will continue to outstrip availability at these clinics.

“It’s something that physicians are going to have to become comfortable with,” said Dr. Daniel Karel, a primary care doctor at George Washington University’s long COVID clinic and an assistant professor in medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine. “It is completely unsustainable to have long COVID clinics exist the way they do today.”

...

“We hope everything we learn from patients with long COVID will help patients who have been sick for decades,” said Dr. Lucinda Bateman, who runs a nonprofit specialty clinic and research center in Salt Lake City for patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and related issues.

Bateman said she first suspected that COVID-19 could lead to a wave of chronic illness in mid-2020, and she was giving lectures on post-viral syndromes by that fall. Her clinic, the Bateman Horne Center, has been studying these conditions for more than two decades, but she said “it’s like herding cats” to keep public attention and funding coming in.

 

Profile of a Long Covid patient in the Washington Post:

She went to one doctor, then another and another
Lindsay Polega’s two-year odyssey with long covid shows how the medical system fails many patients

Gift link, no paywall for 14 days: https://wapo.st/3uQCafR

EDITED on April 22: I have read that the gift link I posted does not work for several folks on the forum. Sorry! I guess gift links don't work in some locations?

Here's the regular Washington Post link for that story:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/04/18/long-covid-medical-care-challenge/

I believe the site allows non-subscribers to read a certain number of stories per month before the paywall kicks in. But here's a short extract where ME/CFS is mentioned:

 

Sadly, your link doesn't work for me. I usually do have problems with the Washington Post. I've cleared cookies, used a private window, but no dice.

Edit : Grammar

 

Pushing ‘Long Covid’ Sufferers Too Hard Could Cause Them to Crash
NY Times

full article
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/opinion/long-covid-cdc-fatigue.html

 

I was puzzled about this too, as Slavitt's comments have been vey bad in the past. I get the sense here that he is just repeating what he has been told by others possibly contributing to his podcast. And one of the people referenced in his thread that he's probably relying on for information has recently acknowledged mistakes:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1514601581798301698


I am wondering if these comments by Slavitt and those of others may signal a change in the way this is being talked about in the US? It is quite a change from the narratives we have been getting. He obviously feels there is some use in pursuing this angle now and he is politically connected. There are so many Long Covid patients. Are people stating to get it?

ETA: This is the post that references Putrino Lab https://twitter.com/user/status/1515798942679666693

 

What is the natural recovery rate (w/o treatments) of pw/post-infectious illness in general?

 

New podcast on Long Covid from "Follow the Science" with journalist Faye Flem. It seems she's planning several episodes on Long Covid and more will come.

This time she interviews Bruce Levy, head of the Recovery Center. Nothing new, but good, general info on Long Covid with some mentions of ME/CFS as well.

Cracking the Mystery of Long Covid w/Bruce Levy

 

Thank you @Kalliope. Do you happen to have any time-stamps of ME/CFS before I click into the 30 minute segment? No worries if not.

 

Sorry, no. But ME was mentioned mostly in the beginning. The first ten minutes, I think.

 

The second episode is out:

JOSPT Insights - Ep 78: Managing the condition that breaks all the rules - pacing and post-exertion symptoms exacerbation, with Dr Todd Davenport

 

Says it's only an abstract for now so paper should come out later. The idea that not finding evidence of infection in the blood positively means no virus is present is frankly bizarre, especially given common knowledge that many pathogens are latent in almost all humans, even more so that many of them are known to activate much later. I guess it must be too hard to look in the lymphatic system?

Still, a human body is relatively as small compared to the planet Earth as it is large to a virus. It's roughly the same idea as thinking that some satellites in orbit looking at the surface at low resolution positively means the entire volume has been checked, including everything under cover. Or trying to find that one water pump dishing out cholera by looking at the combined outflow of the entire sewer system. Makes no sense at all to forbid things just because they're hard to do. I mean, how could bacteria possibly survive the acidic environment of the stomach? Puh-lease.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1516449903093891075

 

There is a pre-print from February, though it doesn't have a whole lot more detail.

There's also this report for GI and liver tissue, plus the recent findings of virus in stool samples, and anecdotal reports of Long Covid improvement with Paxlovid. Hopefully this is the start of some serious research effort to figure out if long-term persistence of Covid is common and if it is associated with Long Covid symptoms. This seems to me like a fairly answerable question that would move our knowledge of LC (and probably also ME) forward, whether the results are positive or negative.

 

Welcome @LarsSG, glad you've joined us.

 

Friday's Independent Sage session will be on Long Covid. They are asking for questions to questions@independentsage.org