Thread by @TedGenoways

55% of #COVID19 patients still had neurological symptoms 3 months after diagnosis, including "impaired mobility, limb numbness, tremor, fatigue, myalgia, memory loss, mood changes," suggesting "disruption to micro-structural & functional brain integrity."

thelancet.com/journals/eclin…

15% of competitive college athletes at Ohio State who had tested positive for #COVID19 but suffered few or no symptoms displayed cardiac magnetic resonance results suggestive of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), supporting a study at Penn State.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamac…

56% of patients who suffered acute #COVID19 symptoms, according to studies done by French and Austrian researchers, still displayed shortness of breath, cough, and lung impairment at their 3-month check-in. hcplive.com/view/covid-19-…

These are small-scale studies, and symptoms may lessen over time. But the effects, across the board, seem to be much worse than SARS1, which typically took patients two years to fully recover from. We're likely looking at years of recovery from #COVID19 for millions of Americans.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA), leaving some 20 million people uninsured—many of whom could be denied coverage entirely due to pre-existing conditions, including #COVID19. cbpp.org/research/healt…

There have been 6.5 million confirmed cases of #COVID19 in the US. A study of coronavirus antibodies in blood samples collected found that the real number ranged from 6 to 24 times the number of reported cases, with most sites at more than 10 times higher. jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai…

That would conservatively put the estimated number of #COVID19 cases in the US at 50 million by the end of 2020, and we know that the virus disproportionately affects BIPOC, especially African Americans.

The prospect of long-term symptoms and the widespread loss of insurance, among the same BIPOC communities most likely to have contracted the virus, adds up to a health care crisis in the near term.

And the ripple effects of reduced employment and productivity due to protracted illnesses are hard to even fathom. If 5-10 percent of the country is suffering from some degree of chronic lung, heart, or brain damage by the start of 2021, the impact will be incalculable.

Last but not least, when you figure in the cascading effects of underlying conditions and work and living conditions like those caused by fires in the West, the health of the whole nation is at risk—but especially the health of essential workers.

https://twitter.com/UFWupdates/status/1304791099282579456?s=20