Bad opinion piece in @guardian trying to prime people, in my opinion, to accept mass infection | death | #LongCovid
The overall argument is that in view of "naive" [sic] zero covid policy, Australians are now having "anxiety" to accept infection
To be absolutely clear: • mass infection with a SARS virus is a deranged, dangerous policy that will result in lasting health problems in many of those infected. Being worried about mass infection with SARS-CoV-2 is absolutely right
• a poorly controlled SARS-CoV-2 spread will bring about social, economic, healthcare and personal disruption. The amount and gravity of this will depend on how the spread will be managed. But it is absolutely appropriate to be concerned and worried about it
• zero | no covid policies aren't naive. They are smart, appropriate and intelligent. If zero covid | hard containment had been implemented globally, we would have saved millions of human lives and prevented a monstrous wave of disability | #LongCovid | social disruption
A reminder that the scope of healthcare | public health policy should be to prevent disease spread and related fatalities. Some of bravest and most visionary efforts in medicine and public health brought us to smallpox eradication (other diseases are candidates | close)
I am worried and saddened by the huge failure of public health and policy making in controlling the covid-19 emergency: the lack of courage and vision, the petty interests, the lies, the incompetence, the fear to take action
And, yes, we have now vaccination. So hopefully the damage inflicted by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be less severe than in the first waves. But there are many issues that deserve further attention: from #Omicron immune escape properties to vaccine equity. We need to remain vigilant
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First, we have to consider these data in view of large hospitalization surges from covid worldwide: 145.000 people are hospitalized today in the US alone. We can't acritically apply data from one context to another. Yet, it's clear many hospitalized patients will suffer long term
It is absolutely evident ---also in view of innumerable studies on hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients--- that SARS-CoV-2 infection can lead to prolonged, potentially lifelong, disabling, and life-threatening symptoms and sequelae: #LongCovid
It remains a SARS virus. It is able to kill and send people to hospital. We know omicron is able to infect with symptomatic, sometimes severe disease even the vaccinated, or those with previous infection. This is *bad*
People who already have #LongCovid, had previous covid but recovered, or still have covid-related subclinical (barely symptomatic damage) could be particularly at risk from a variant which is so good at reinfection.
Are multiple SARS-CoV-2 infections good? I wouldn't bet on it!
Not everyone in the world is vaccinated, or boosted, especially children --- do we *really* want a SARS virus to infect kids unchecked?! People in low-income countries, or marginalised communities, don't have access to vaccination. Not everyone responds optimally to vaccination
We need to always keep in mind #Omicron's potential to lead to #LongCovid
Many early omicron symptoms have been described as "mild" in the press. Yet, they are potentially signs of growing, severe, prolonged pathology, like neurological impairment and immune dysfunction
We always need to remember covid often starts with a milder prodromal phase (early few days). More severe pathology can develop across the disease course, especially in view of immune dysfunction, neurological impairment and vascular damage ---> #LongCovid
Earlier variants appear to have been more likely to lead to severe pulmonary pathology, with a first peak in the second week --- often dubbed "second week crash". This can also be accompanied by life threatening "silent hypoxia" | barely symptomatic low saturation
This is a scary, concerning, but excellent point we all have to reflect upon --- especially as patients and researchers. We've seen a large amount of erroneous, incorrect views about SARS-CoV-2 coming from public health experts and those in healthcare
These erroneous ideas included comparing covid --- a SARS like disease --- to a "flu" or a "cold" | denial about #LongCovid and the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on pediatric patients ----> #LongCovidKids, MIS-C etc. | Denial of airborne transmission #COVIDisAirborne
Promotion of herd immunity and mass infection theories | Great Barrington Declaration | #MildCovid | denial of the multi-system nature of covid, including its vascular, neurological and clotting components | "endemic covid" = mild
Not a positive take, I am afraid, from the @guardian about "endemic covid" and "mild" #Omicron
I don't like calling a "ray of light" a SARS-CoV-2 variant which is spreading at the speed of light, is putting children in hospital, and is killing
It is possible that #Omicron is "milder" on average in the acute pulmonary phase --I say milder, not "mild" --than other variants of concern. But we still don't know in detail about the full spectrum of disease that this VOC can cause in the long-term, especially in #LongCovid
We don't know which long-term trajectory of development this virus will take in months or years. We don't know if #Omicron or other evolving SARS-CoV-2 strains will give rise to new, more dangerous variants. We already know omicron is killing and putting people in hospital
#LongCovid was defined by the patient-advocate-researchers who first identified | named the condition as a prolonged form of severe covid, indeed 🔥
This is in the 2020 peer-reviewed | medical literature
Policy makers are trying to minimize it to promote erroneous policy
For example, prominent #LongCovid researcher Prof. @felicitycallard successfully and powerfully questioned the "mild covid" narrative in a May 2020 academic publication
In "How and Why Patients Made Long Covid" @felicitycallard and I make clear many early #LongCovid advocates | patient researchers had severe, life threatening covid
Many were left at home with no care in extreme conditions. These are real people