Thread by @dianaberrent

"The fact is that they are never going to be able to accommodate the number of people who are suffering from long COVID," said @dianaberrent...
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'It never seemed to end': Family with long COVID-19 pleads for treatment as surge wanes timesunion.com/news/article/L… via @TimesUnion

...founder of @Survivor_Corps, an advocacy group of over 200,000 members with current, chronic or past COVID-19.
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“When we're talking about #LongCovid, I want you to think abt our members who are in their early 30s, who were athletes, who were marathon runners, at the height of their career, who are now in wheelchairs; they're on permanent feeding tubes, they are disabled,” Berrent said."
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“When we looked into what the one symptom was that was most predictive of long COVID — was it having a cough, was it having a fever? No," said Berrent. "It was being asymptomatic."
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"So you have to remember that most of these people were not hospitalized. They had what are considered mild cases of COVID or asymptomatic cases, and they are largely the healthiest among us.”
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"On an individual level, Berrent said Survivor Corps receives suicide threats daily from members experiencing long-term symptoms.

“They might have their lives, but their livelihoods have been ripped from them,” she said."
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“And so this is more than just fatigue. This is more than just anxiety. These are lives that are ruined ... We have had many members actually take their own lives."
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"So that is what we're talking about here. That’s not from depression. That's from having no hope for the future because their symptoms are so ravaging.”

/end