New study from @universityofga:

"We found #LongCovid.. increased likelihood of facing financial hardships, such as food insecurity, inability to pay bills, and threat of losing services.. partially explained by employment loss or reduced work hours." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/14… "This, coupled with the fact that lower income groups had a disproportionately high share of #LongCovid cases indicate the need for targeted assistance programs aimed at protecting the poorest groups from long COVID-related hardships and thereby improving health equity."

"The cost of breaking [denial] is high & it’s hard. Even for someone like me, who is relatively well-resourced financially.. #LongCovid has been by far hardest thing I’ve ever done. So I understand why that denial is so strong" — @MattMcGorry @thesicktimes thesicktimes.org/2024/12/09/its… "Breaking the denial comes with high cost — especially in beginning. I empathize with that, because I understood that for myself too. As social animals, we often assess risk by looking at what others are doing. If everyone else is doing it, maybe its not so bad right?" #LongCovid

New #LongCovid funding announced:

"NIH recently received approval to reallocate $147M to support ongoing efforts of RECOVER. This allocation is in addition to $515 million NIH announced earlier this year, bringing total new funding to $662 million." nih.gov/about-nih/who-… "To date, the program is.. large.. with more than 40,000 participants. The adult cohort has donated more than 822,000 biospecimens, & pediatric has donated more than 85,000 biospecimens – all accessible through RECOVER biorepository for further studies within & beyond RECOVER"

One of the best reads of the year from @MattMcGorry

“The science is really clear getting Covid over & over again is not good for anyone. It feels like where the climate movement was 10 years ago, where scientists were saying things & people were not really listening.” #LongCovid “I was in denial about it.. I knew that if I did have #LongCovid, that I probably couldn’t afford to get it again, and if I couldn’t afford to get it again, then everything in my life would have to change. Breaking out of that denial was the first step.” theguardian.com/wellness/ng-in…

"Even if you're not concerned about others, you should still care about protecting yourself from multiple infections.. news has not done a great job talking about #LongCovid. As people get infected 2, 3, 4, & more times, they are playing against the odds" lifehacker.com/where-to-find-… "You can only get the intervention Paxlovid within 5 days of symptoms... one of the things we think helps prevent #LongCovid. Second, no one knows who will get LC, and you might need proof of that positive test in the future for insurance or benefits or even to justify sick days"

Reminder that some of the biggest issues Americans are currently concerned about are greatly impacted by #LongCovid — & we’ve still done absolutely nothing about it.

“The bottom line is that LC is.. why wage inflation remains so high” — Apollo Global Management “#LongCovid is why the labor force participation rate has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, even in a situation with solid wage growth”

This continues to be a challenge for the Fed.. to get inflation quickly back to the Fed’s 2% inflation target.”
cnn.com/2023/02/03/inv…

“When we compare the rates observed in this study to the national population, it could mean as many as 2 million people may be out of work because #LongCovid

This is not a small problem. So it does require big interventions.” — @Yale news.yale.edu/2024/08/15/sic… "This is especially startling.. since the participants in this study were fairly young; the average age was roughly 40.

This has big economic impacts.. on those people individually in terms of their own income security & their ability to care for themselves and their families.”

“I was initially diagnosed with #MECFS 10 years ago..

I was unresponsive to everything until beginning rapamycin treatment, 6 mg once weekly in December 2021. I noticed an improvement in 3 weeks and by 6 weeks I was in remission.” healthrising.org/blog/2022/07/0… “Why was I interested in this drug? In 2009, Rapamycin was found to significantly extend the lifespan of a mammal, a mouse. Only severe calorie restriction (30-40%) had previously been shown to increase lifespan and health span.”

Wrote a piece in @statnews today with @julialmv

It’s been almost 5 years since me & millions had our lives destroyed by #LongCovid — & still no approved treatments.

Many of us are fighting for our lives to get access to off-label meds for some relief.

Where is the help? 🧵 The burden of researching & trialing potential treatments for #LongCovid has been left almost entirely on patients.

This is a disastrous public health crisis & we need medical providers to step up — & US Gov to provide guidance on the evidence to date. 2/
statnews.com/2024/10/24/lon…

“The American Medical Association’s top journal, JAMA, in August published a key new study and editorial about pediatric #LongCovid. The editorial cites several robust analyses and concludes that.. LC symptoms appear to occur after about 10-20% of pediatric infections.” “The mistaken idea that children have nothing to worry about has had some help from scientists. In 2023 AMA’s pediatrics journal published a study reporting #LongCovid in kids was ‘strikingly low’..

In August, the authors of the study retracted it”
scientificamerican.com/article/long-c…

“Matthew Fitzgerald, a 28-year-old former engineer at Tesla, described his #LongCovid impairment during a clinic visit: ‘I’m a shell of myself. My physical issues aren’t half as bad as my brain problems. You can say brain fog, but that doesn’t come close to doing it justice.’” "There is now ample evidence that both older and younger people with #LongCovid and other infection-associated chronic conditions are at risk of developing #Alzheimers disease and related dementias (ADRD)." nature.com/articles/d4158…

"Whether they were hospitalized or not, adults who have had COVID-19 are about 36% more likely than uninfected people to develop GI disorders including ulcers, pancreatitis, IBS, & acid reflux, according to a study in Nature Communications." #LongCovid time.com/7027179/covid-… "GI problems are also common among kids with #LongCovid. Stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting are telltale signs of the condition among children younger than 12, according to 2024 research published in JAMA."

“Viruses hide, that’s what they do,” said @PutrinoLab. “If you’re finding evidence of them in plasma, that probably tells you that there’s a lot more going on in tissue where viruses like to hide, like nerve tissue, gut tissue, joint tissue, et cetera.” #LongCovid “Walt’s team applied.. blood test 1,000x more sensitive than standard laboratory tests to 1,569 blood samples.. The ultra-sensitive tests, detected fragments of virus’s signature spike proteins in roughly 43% of samples drawn from those [w/] #LongCovid” bostonglobe.com/2024/10/15/met…

“In the most expansive study of its kind, researchers have for the first time shown serious and prevalent symptoms of #LongCovid in kids and teens.

The study, which followed 5367 children, found that 20% of kids (ages 6-11) and 14% of teens met researchers' threshold for LC” “By enrolling children who had been infected with acute COVID-19, as well as those who had not, researchers were able to isolate #LongCovid symptoms in kids and teens”
medscape.com/viewarticle/lo…

“The Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University have developed a Model Clean Indoor Air Act, which state legislatures throughout the country could use in writing new indoor air laws.” "We—and especially our children—should be able to walk into a store or a gym or a school and assume the air is clean to breathe. Like water from the faucet, regulations should ensure our air is safe." scientificamerican.com/article/kids-a…

“Schools must make it safe for all children that attend, whether they currently suffer from #LongCovid or not,” Robertson said. “Many children are.. just one more infection away from developing the debilitating effects of long COVID.” “We feel we will never heal from this as long as schools have no ventilation, open windows, air purifiers, and policies that children and staff can come to school while actively positive with COVID," #LongCovidKids salon.com/2024/10/06/for…

“There are political reasons to deny that there are any long-term effects of COVID,” @kfrhoads said, “to allow for us to ‘get back to normal.’”

“Dr. Linda Geng said #LongCovid has become a ‘huge public health problem,’ affecting millions of people in the United States long term” “It really shows that this bill has broad support — as it should — because it’s aiming to address the crisis of #LongCovid in a way that puts the resources that are necessary behind it,” @LisaAMcCorkell said kqed.org/news/12006894/…

“A new study reveals that people who had two COVID-19 infections were more than twice as likely—and those who had three or more COVID-19 infections were almost four times more likely—to report #LongCovid as those with one infection.” "The study involved 3,382 global survey respondents and was conducted by researchers with @patientled on #LongCovid. It was published this week on Research Square, which is the preprint service of the Nature Portfolio." cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/covid…

“In U.S, about a million more working-age adults reported having serious difficulty remembering, concentrating.. compared to before the pandemic, according to a New York Times analysis”

“Studies have even found that people’s brains can shrink after having COVID-19” #LongCovid “Vibell is currently trying to measure #LongCovid inflammation and neuronal damage.. When he began publicizing the study, he says, ‘I got so many emails from lots of people saying the same thing’: that they’d never fully bounced back after the pandemic.” time.com/7021575/covid-…

“Without more public or private investment, it’s unclear how research can proceed. The small corner of the private sector that has endeavored to take on #LongCovid is slowly becoming a graveyard.” “At least 4 companies that were developing LC treatments have shut down because of.. lack of finances. Others are evaluating a shift away from #LongCovid.”

“Levy says the company tried to communicate with NIH RECOVER multiple times but never heard back” cen.acs.org/pharmaceutical…

“These abnormalities were through advanced imaging techniques like dual-energy CT scans & ventilation-perfusion scans. These tests revealed a non-segmental & ‘patchy’ perfusion abnormality in the upper lungs, suggesting that the problem was vascular, Price explained.” #LongCovid “Most patients (n = 26) were treated with apixaban, potentially contributing to the observed improvement in gas transfer parameters, Price said.” #LongCovid medscape.com/viewarticle/pa…