Long Covid in the media and social media 2023

https://twitter.com/user/status/1635882060605960193

 

Michael A Osborne on Twitter:

"Today, Mar 15th, is #LongCovidAwarenessDay. Please amplify Long Covid voices."

"My views on covid seem to have become a bit, well—radical. Please allow me to explain. I did not start out radical. I am lucky to have a settled, establishment-adjacent, career. Three years ago, on the eve of the pandemic, I trusted the establishment."

https://t.co/PktHgac8M5 / Twitter /thread

[...]

"Why did it take sick strangers on Twitter to teach me about ME/CFS? Why was there no public warning? Twitter also taught me a name for my own illness: #LongCovid. But beyond my personal experiences and other anecdotes—how do I know that Long Covid is a serious problem?“

[...]

 

“Still offering zero treatment” is a problematic statement, given with our current understanding of ME/CFS and Long Covid, we don’t understand the aetiology, so can not be expected to have any targeted treatment. Although obviously for the patient it is understandable that the desire for a treatment outweighs the desire for a scientific explanation of the condition(s), there do seem a fair number of researchers who hope to drop down on a treatment before we understand the condition.

There is also the problem, that we have no evidenced treatment there is still a need for support and symptom management. Though this is available for some, an awful lot of people lack appropriate input or for some any input.

Unfortunately, despite there being no evidenced treatment, some people with Long Covid are being offered treatments involving psychotherapy and exercise, despite these having been shown to little reliable effect in ME/CFS and for many to result in significant harm. Those with Long Covid meeting the diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS and/or displaying post exertional malaise (PEM) curative psychotherapy is almost certainly going to be unhelpful and if along with exercise increases in activity are promoted they could be harmful. One of the justifications for these potentially harmful intervention is that there is nothing else, so people should have something rather than be left with zero treatment. Usually those arguing this miss out a genuine cost benefit analysis. No treatment is better than treatment that worsens the condition being treated.

 

Opinion piece by the chairperson of the Swedish covid association.

Debatt: Varför ska vi bry oss om covids långvariga konsekvenser?
https://www.etc.se/debatt/varfoer-ska-vi-bry-oss-om-covids-laangvariga-konsekvenser

("Why should we care about the long-term consequences of COVID-19?")

 

The actor, who was struggling with long COVID only last year, was vocal about being anti-COVID protocols

Swinton expressed her delight that the audience was largely not wearing masks, apparently, and volunteered the information, "I'm just about to start shooting a picture in Ireland, and I was told . . . to wear a mask at all times, and I'm not." The SXSW interviewer, who was visibly ill, did not challenge her — but Swinton wasn't done talking about COVID and talking about it as if it's all over (and good riddance), becoming only the latest celebrity to misuse a powerful platform in order to spread disinformation. In Swinton's case, that multiple infections and faith will protect her.

https://www.salon.com/2023/03/14/tilda-swinton-anti-mask-sxsw/

 

This is actually significant. People often forget that labor is a market. Wages go up and down based on supply and demand. When there are fewer people working, they have more negotiating power. They can move to another job if another company wants to poach them. They can go to their boss and ask for a raise.

It definitely leads to wages going up. This is a smaller scale version of what happened in Europe after the plague.

And the demand side of the labor market hates rising wages with a passion. I think this played a significant role in price-gouging, to negate the increase in wages and reduce employees' negotiating power.

It has lead to lower unemployment and higher wages. This is a significant impact, and mostly unnoticed. I'm sure it's talked about in professional circles, those things are counted accurately, but it's rarely ever talked about. Glad to see it.

Other things that need to be talked about a lot more: opportunity cost, the alternatives that we give up by making a choice, and externalities, unseen costs that are offloaded to society at large, like pollution.

The medical professionals don't even want to count us, explicitly refuse to. But other people are counting the consequences. Doesn't mean it will help us, but this is hard to miss, those are details that experts are paying attention to. Even if medicine doesn't see mass disability as an issue worth looking into, the consequences are visible everywhere else.

 

I'm noticing the same. Even locally, almost every mention in the media of LC only ever get bots and trolls in replies. It's a huge problem, and a direct consequence of public health's failure to tell the simple truth, even though it's what their playbook says.

 

Swedish researcher Petter Brodin said in a TV interview today that a cure for long covid can/will be available later this year(!). The statement is based on a research study that is to begin very soon...

He specifically mentions getting rid of lingering viruses, adjusting the activity of the immune system and preventing or dissolving blood clots.

Botemedel mot långtidscovid kan komma i år
https://www.tv4play.se/program/efter-fem/botemedel-mot-långtidscovid-kan-komma-i-år/20476833

(Yes, it's the same Petter Brodin who used to do research into ME.)

 

A person says that a treatment he hasn't done research on, yet, will be cured. By the treatment he is yet to research. In a year (presumably an earth year, as other places have longer years).

So, clearly, obviously, someone to be taken seriously.

 

Crutches and Spice , a long time disability advocate / activist on the impact of COVID on women - increased levels of disability

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpxlgV-DTsu/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

 

Yes, before the end of 2023...

 

More from the same programme today (video, 11 minutes, in Swedish)

https://www.tv4play.se/program/efter-fem/20476849

 

Maybe it's a year on Uranus, considering its origin.

 

Ida, 45, har varit sjuk sen december 2020: Lever i en liten bubbla
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/...juk-sen-december-2020-lever-i-en-liten-bubbla

"We have not seen this phenomenon before"

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1636183880347820032

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1636117665944072193


Full video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsCqe4D8gbs

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1636274051457982464


Full segment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuiZF8d_UBM

 

The size and coverage of the LC awareness day have frankly been not much bigger than our May 12. Barely any media coverage. It's basically comparable to what we did, so the size of LC isn't that much bigger than the existing ME base.

However while medicine is pretending this all brand new and novel and so mysterious that no one could have predicted this, the Central bank of Spain is warning that the rise in overall illness is a serious economic risk:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1635946251978956803


And yet the entire BPS model was built purely to reduce costs. About as smart economics as investing it all in pumpkins come November 1 because sales are going through the roof.

Seems fitting to point out that no study or trial ever found the model got anyone back to work. They wasted billions on this nonsense and all they have to show for it is economic ruin and millions of lives destroyed. Great job, geniuses.

 

Translated by me (not Google!)

Banco de España (Bank of Spain):
The latest reports from CIS Institution's "health barometer" show higher demand for healthcare in our country and an increase in days of work lost to sickness, short-term disability and accidents.

(The graph is titled "Economic Bulletin Articles" and the label is
Loss of work hours due to health problems*
*Employees who were not working in the past week due to sickness, accidents or disability. Percentage of employees)

There is uncertainty regarding what caused these changes and how persistent they are, but some of these data are in line with the literature on the sequelae of Covid-19. If these dynamics are prolonged and were related to a long-term decline in general health of the Spanish population, its economic impact would be significant.

(Chart: Economic effects of a possible decline in the population's health
Short term:

• Increased demand for healthcare
• Loss of days of work

Long term--potential results:

• Smaller workforce
• Lower productivity?
• Effect on accumulation of productive capital: ??

Source: Bank of Spain)

Comments:
"I'm going to print this thread and frame it. NOT WITHOUT MY MASK: we go on" (or: continue?)

"Covid can disable people. Long Covid is disabling! Unmitigated transmission is a mass disabling event." (Similar sentence structure and vocabulary to English and from a person who doesn't Tweet in Spanish. Composed with Google Translate?)