<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/30/britain-long-covid-lives-us-boosters>
"Trust me, no one, even in public health or medicine, wants to talk or think
about Covid-19. The trauma of those pandemic years is burnt into our minds.
But, whether we want to deal with it or not, Covid-19 is still affecting all of
us, and circulating at fairly high levels in Britain this month. While
community surveys are no longer conducted by the Office for National Statistics
to estimate overall cases, hospital data from England indicates that the weekly
hospital admission rate for Covid-19 is at 4.64 for every 100,000 people, with
the north-east region at 8.91.
These figures just cover people who are admitted to hospital and don’t reflect
those suffering at home or attending GP clinics. While we were mainly fixated
on death rates during the pandemic, the longer legacy concerns people who had
and cleared the infection, but are still suffering – what is usually referred
to as long Covid.
This chronic condition still has many questions hanging over it. We are still
learning about its overall prevalence in the population (estimated at 5.5% of
those infected in the UK in one study, and 15% in another study from the US),
and there is continuing research on the underlying biology and immunology
behind symptoms, including attempts to identify markers for diagnosis, as well
as work towards promising treatments. Sufferers have had to fight first to have
their condition recognised as “real” (instead of a figment of their imagination
or a sign of mental weakness), and second for medical services to provide
support and care.
Recent concerns about economic inactivity (that is, people who could be in the
workforce or looking for employment, but aren’t) are tied to the growing
percentage of those unable to function due to long Covid. A study in the
Lancet in August 2021 estimated that 22% of people with long Covid were
unable to work, and 45% were on reduced hours. A 2023 study from the US
surveyed more than 15,000 people with prior Covid-19 infection and found that
40% who reported symptoms were unemployed. The authors, looking at the issue
from an economic perspective, noted that “acute Covid is a pandemic; long Covid
could be a mass disabling event”.
Fortunately, studies are also coming out that track and understand the
condition and how to prevent it. A recent study in the
New England Journal of
Medicine found that vaccination strongly reduces the chance of serious
problems of long Covid. The authors used health records from roughly 440,000
military veterans who had been infected with Sars-CoV-2 in the US to look at
the impact of vaccination on reducing long-term symptoms linked to the disease.
The study found that the incidence of experiencing symptoms one year after
infection decreased during the pandemic from 10.42 cases for every 100 people
for unvaccinated individuals in the pre-Delta period, to 3.5 cases a 100 people
for vaccinated individuals in the Omicron period. They estimate that roughly
72% of the reduction in long Covid was due to the vaccines, while 28% was
linked to changing variants. The authors highlight the importance of
vaccination in reducing lingering Covid symptoms, but say that even with
vaccination and in the Omicron era, a substantial number of people suffer with
long Covid after infection."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: October 31, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-115042386
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
