<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/26/covid-roulette-clean-air-ventilation-long-covid>
"You could see Covid-19 as an empathy test. Who was prepared to suffer
disruption and inconvenience for the sake of others, and who was not? The
answer was often surprising. I can think, for instance, of five prominent
environmentalists who denounced lockdowns, vaccines and even masks as
intolerable intrusions on our liberties, while proposing no meaningful measures
to prevent transmission of the virus. Four of them became active spreaders of
disinformation.
If environmentalism means anything, it’s that our damaging gratifications
should take second place to the interests of others. Yet these people
immediately failed the test, placing their own convenience above the health and
lives of others.
Now there are even fewer excuses, as we have become more aware of the costs of
inaction. One of the justifications for selfishness was that liberating the
virus would build herd immunity. But we now have plenty of evidence suggesting
that exposure does not strengthen our immune system, but may weaken it. The
virus attacks and depletes immune cells, ensuring that for some people, immune
dysfunction persists for months after infection.
We also know that, with every new exposure, we are more likely to suffer
adverse effects. A massive study in the US found that the risk of brain, nerve,
heart, lung, blood, kidney, insulin and muscular disorders accumulates with
every reinfection. The impacts of long Covid, according to health metrics
researchers, are “as severe as the long-term effects of traumatic brain
injury”. Now that we know how the virus attacks our cells, “traumatic brain
injury” looks less like an analogy than a description. The outcomes can be
devastating, ranging from extreme fatigue and breathlessness to brain fog,
psychotic disorders, memory loss, epilepsy and dementia.
We are all playing Covid roulette. The next infection could be the one that
permanently disables you. I’ve been hit three times so far, and feel lucky
still to be active. But I’ve lost a little every time: stamina, lung capacity,
sleep, general fitness, however diligently I’ve exercised since. In all three
cases, it seems, the infection has come from school. For families with
school-age children, the chamber turns more often than for those without. Yet,
three years after the pandemic began, the government still does almost nothing
to make schools safe."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: February 2, 2023
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-78114114
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
