Opinion The epidemic as a life- event: epidemicity and epidemic form, 2024, Minou, Wilson and Herron"

The epidemic as a life-event: epidemicity and epidemic form – Lina Minou, James Wilson and Daniel Herron
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/92111/9781526180056.pdf?sequence=1#page=43

Extract:

The epidemic as a life-event page 14-5

The other theme concerns sufferers of chronic conditions, particularly Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/ CFS), who recognised in the symptoms of long COVID similarities with the reality they have been experiencing for many years and which has been largely unnoticed or downplayed. The visibility of long COVID afforded visibility of their condition and this, remarks Callard, upsets the temporality of a pandemic narrative by allowing us to imagine a group of people who have essentially been waiting, in a sense, for the pandemic in order for their own concerns to become perceivable and to be given proper attention in the public and the scientific eye (Callard, 2020: 732).

 

I certainly was not "waiting for" the pandemic so much as dreading a situation that would result in the huge increase in numbers of people with complex, chronic diseases that I wouldn't wish on anyone!

 

I wish I could say I personally fully agree. But 25 years (now nearly 30 years) severely affected by ME left me impatient for progress. Though I do also feel sad to see all the people falling ill. So I suppose I would say: I wanted the connection between infections and ME/CFS to be recognised and urgency with regard to investment in research to follow.

 

I understand impatience!! (And I am very sorry you have been so sick for so long!)

I hope progress is made so each of us can lead the lives we want to live.