What have we been learning about long covid? The first thing is to answer questions that try to look for reasons it isn’t bad:
- Maybe it is in your mind: No, it is real biological damage.
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- Maybe it is in your mind: No, it is real biological damage.
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- Maybe it is rare: No, it affects tens of %s, and even those without symptoms have organ damage and acute events like heart attacks and strokes, as well as cognitive loss.
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- Maybe it goes away: No it lasts for years, some get better most do not get completely well.
- Maybe vaccination stops it: No, it reduces somewhat the effects, but is not a solution.
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- Maybe vaccination stops it: No, it reduces somewhat the effects, but is not a solution.
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- Maybe getting infected protects you: Repeated infections are similar if not worse than the first, leading to long covid symptoms and acute events that are associated with organ damage.
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- Maybe we have treatments: No, similar chronic diseases don’t have treatments. There are some things we can do, but we can’t do much at this time, and we are just starting substantial research and can’t expect results soon.
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- Maybe the economy will be ok? No, disability of people, reduction in cognitive capabilities including but not limited to experts, are all harmful and have systemic effects on the labor market and supply chains.
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So Long COVID is bad. What can we do?
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The main thing remains to avoid being infected. If you have have been infected before, whether or not you have long covid, the main thing is to avoid being reinfected. This gives the best chance of both not getting Long covid, and getting better if you have it.
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As Rae Duncan has said: “There is no such thing as mild covid” and this means that it causes damage. And the damage it causes is both direct damage and potential for other damage, including through disabling the immune system that protects us from diseases,..
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..cancers and other harms. The consequences of immune deficiency are constantly being referred to these days, but we should recognize that we have immune deficiency that is now widespread in the population.
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So most importantly:
We have the ability to prevent infection: There are five pillars of prevention: Ventilation and HEPA air purifying for clean air, masking, testing, social distancing, and vaccination. Each of these has multiple levels of action.
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We have the ability to prevent infection: There are five pillars of prevention: Ventilation and HEPA air purifying for clean air, masking, testing, social distancing, and vaccination. Each of these has multiple levels of action.
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This means there are many ways to do more to protect ourselves and the people we love from getting infected. This is not a biological problem it is a technology adoption challenge that we as individuals and as a society can decide to win.
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For example:
We can increase ventilation to 5-10 fold per hour—the standard that has been set for air pollution, or we can do it at a significantly higher level to better prevent transmission, or we can even use directed air flow so the air we breathe is clean.
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We can increase ventilation to 5-10 fold per hour—the standard that has been set for air pollution, or we can do it at a significantly higher level to better prevent transmission, or we can even use directed air flow so the air we breathe is clean.
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We can wear N95 masks, or we can go one step higher and wear elastomeric respirators, or we can use PAPRs that can fully stop transmission. The best of course for masking is to do two way masking so that everyone in the space masks which multiplies the effect.
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We can do testing. We can test a couple of times a week, or we can test daily, which our calculations say can by itself control transmission. Or we can even test just before we meet with people. PCR or LAMP tests are much better than antigen lateral flow tests.
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We can also do different levels of social distancing. Yes, stringent lockdowns are the highest level, but we can also focus on limiting as much as possible in person meetings, and make sure that any meetings have the best ventilation, masking, and testing possible.
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Finally, we are just now developing next levels of vaccines but how effectively we use them along with other prevention measures will impact the effectiveness of all the measures. The better we do at preventing transmission the fewer mutations there will be.
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And the less we will have new variants that undermine the immunity we have gained from the vaccine. The power of vaccines is directly related to limiting the transmission itself.
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What we have learned about long covid it that the choice continues to be in front of us, to choose health over disease by prevention, both for those we love and for ourselves.
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Statement at Long Covid Sympsium
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Full symposium
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Symposium in German on Long Covid
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Symposium in Spanish on Long Covid
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