You’ve probably noticed that I didn’t write as frequently in 2021. While I’m still active on Twitter, blog posts take more time and energy for researching, gathering data and links, and crafting the right words (and just the right amount of snark). For nearly a year, though, my energy has been sapped – by long COVID.
My husband and I, who have worked in-person for the duration of the pandemic, became ill with COVID in late February 2021. We had different sets of symptoms, but thankfully, it was fairly mild for both of us. We don’t know where or how we contracted it; none of the precious few people we’d been around had been ill. We can only surmise it was an unknown asymptomatic carrier. At the time, as essential workers, we were on the cusp of being eligible to receive our first COVID vaccines. But sadly, for us, the vaccine came too late.
At the time of my COVID infection, I was in good health and had no preexisting conditions. But since recovering from the initial infection almost a year ago, I’ve struggled with lingering symptoms that affect my quality of life. Primarily, I experience fatigue, brain fog, and difficulty concentrating. Where I once had a mind like a steel trap, I now find myself forgetting things. I also experience vertigo and other non-cognitive symptoms from time to time. Some days are better than others, but I have to work very hard to remain productive, focused, and organized. And as the pandemic wears on and more research comes out on this virus, it’s clear that I am not alone.
I’m lucky that my symptoms are not debilitating, just frustrating and draining. For some, the lasting effects of long COVID can lead to disability and job loss. And what’s most concerning is how much of this is still a complete mystery. Nearly two years into this pandemic, new research showing physical changes to the brain, possible risks of later developing Alzheimer’s disease, and autoimmune abnormalities in people who have recovered from COVID show clearly that unlike other illnesses that have been researched for decades, SARS-CoV-2 is still very new, its origin is still unknown, and the scientific community has only just begun to understand it.
Given my experiences, my feelings about how public officials and Americans have handled the pandemic are not entirely positive ones. Too many people have dismissed mitigations like masks and vaccines. Or dismissed the seriousness of the disease (e.g., “it’s just a cold”). Or chosen to place a higher premium on capitalism than on public health. The debate over remote schooling continues to rage on with the new, highly infectious omicron variant spreading like wildfire through even vaccinated populations of students and teachers. And at this point in the pandemic, I’ve come to notice a common theme: citizens and policymakers alike see hospitalization and death as the only bad outcomes worth avoiding. As omicron drives metrics sky-high and inundates our health care system, many simply shrug and say, “Meh; it’s mild; we have to go on living our lives.”
Setting aside the 800k American lives tragically lost to this disease – far more than the yearly flu has ever taken – not all of us see mild illness as a worthwhile trade-off for pretending we’re not still living in a pandemic. While I fully recognize that remote schooling was a negative experience for many families, a return to in-person school saw our 6th grader become ill with COVID due to a school outbreak back in October, mere weeks before the Pfizer vaccine was approved for the 5-11 age group. For us, in-person school is why we must now watch our son carefully for long COVID symptoms that could impact his education and quality of life while worrying helplessly that our 7th grader, who is six months post-vaccine and not quite eligible for a booster, will fall victim to omicron. None of us was hospitalized, and we survived, but to say that COVID is “no big deal” is infuriating.
For some of us, it is more than “just a cold.”