Thread by @SethAbramson

🚨: If not for the war in Europe, the story below might’ve been one of world’s biggest today. The largest-ever study comparing those who got COVID-19 and recovered and those who never got infected reveals major lasting health problems for the former group. cnn.com/2022/03/04/opi…

1/ Many of us have been saying since March 2020—2 years ago—that until we have years of data on the effect of getting sick with COVID-19, the proper attitude is to presume there could be unforeseen long-term effects even if one doesn’t get hospitalized. Our view was marginalized.

2/ To be clear, our view was marginalized by Republicans and Democrats alike, by anti-vaxxers and the CDC alike. All those who saw the pandemic as political had something to gain by focusing almost exclusively on hospitalizations and deaths and writing policy based on that data.

3/ My view has of course been that hospitalization and fatality data is absolutely critical. And needless to say, I believe it would destroy America’s economy and culture if we allowed the emergency policies and mindsets provoked by this pandemic to become a *permanent* presence.

4/ But *these* two things I never understood:

1) Why was America never able to buckle down via draconian measures—for even 30 days—to make community spread of the virus almost impossible?

2) Why couldn’t we wait for long-term studies to decide that infection data didn’t matter?

5/ So now we learn—but only after *almost 100 million Americans* have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus—that it causes *at a minimum* dangerous medium-term clotting in several organs and increases (again, at a *minimum* medium-term) the chance of heart attacks and strokes.

6/ The number of deaths COVID-19 will cause well down the line from infection is unknowable—but could be significant. The future effect on our healthcare system is also unknowable but profoundly troubling. And we’ve no idea what the data means for kids who got sick and recovered.

7/ Standing with science always meant accepting that there was much about the virus we didn’t know and therefore treating it with the *utmost* seriousness until we *did* know. It meant accepting that focusing only on hospitalizations and deaths would be a dangerous leap of faith.

8/ By now, there has been *so* much false rhetoric predicated on the presumption that only hospitalization and death is to be feared when it comes to COVID-19 that the rabbit cannot be put back in the hat. Young Americans basically consider themselves *invulnerable* to the virus.

9/ Fortunately, for the 250 million Americans who haven’t yet been infected by COVID-19 there’s still time to focus yourself and the attention of those you love on *not getting sick* rather than just not getting hospitalized. And that means accepting that the pandemic isn’t over.

10/ In the last week, close to 375,000 Americans have gotten infected, though we know that number is a grave undercount. A reasonable lowball guess is that 2 million Americans are getting infected each month.

This must be regarded as *significant*—and dangerous—community spread.

11/ None of this means that life in America must grind to a halt.

It simply means that people should still be masking and socially distancing and avoiding unnecessary indoor events with strangers.

It also means federal policy should be focused (*also*) on reducing *infections*.

12/ If you or a loved one develop a dangerous blood clot because of a COVID-19 infection from long ago—or if you or a loved one have a heart attack or stroke because of a COVID-19 infection from long ago—you’re not going to say, “Well, at least I wasn’t hospitalized at the time.”

CONCLUSION/ Do everything you can—within reason—not to get infected by COVID-19. There’s so much we still don’t know about the long-term effects of this virus that to take any approach other than *basic* due diligence on the matter of avoiding infection is a form of recklessness.