Those who advocate “herd immunity” are not taking into account some of the devastating consequences of being infected and surviving. A friend of mine has developed this symptom after surviving a nasty bout of the disease which did not lead to his hospitalisation. He also experienced psychosis and hallucinations whilst fighting it. Despite having no history of mental illness. He describes having holes in his brain and struggles with memory and thought processes.
I find references to “psychological” causes by some experts insulting. There is a fundamental lack of understanding of such conditions.
Brain fog seems like such an inferior description of what is actually going on. It’s completely crippling. I am unable to think clearly enough to [do] anything,” says Nicholson-McKellar, adding that the experience would be better described as cognitive impairment.
I don’t know whether he is being followed up on these symptoms ST. He is not the sort of guy to make a fuss or go to the doctor unless it’s an emergency. But he talked of this at length so it is clearly affecting his life. His wife has to remind him of things and keep an eye on him. He’s nearing 70 was fully mentally alert before. So doctors will likely put it down to ageing rather than the Covid. Even though it was a direct result. I wonder how many others are not being followed up. It’s not as though there is any treatment for this sort of thing. You just have to wait and see whether the brain cells compensate. But of course if they don’t understand what’s really causing it, that makes it difficult to treat and predict outcomes.
I have already started a thread on “Long Covid” - here’s the link:
Coronavirus: Specialist ‘long Covid’ clinics to be set up in England
and an extract:
Sir Simon Stevens, the head of NHS England said there were “tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands” of patients affected.
People with relatively mild coronavirus infections as well as those who have been treated in intensive care can have persistent health problems for months. The most common symptom of long Covid is crippling fatigue. But breathlessness, joint pain, anxiety, brain fog and many other symptoms have also been reported.
ETA There’s an even earlier thread from the OP:
Long Covid
with my link to this:
Coronavirus: Rehab centre takes first patients
The first hospital dedicated to helping coronavirus patients recover from the long-term effects of the illness has received its first patients. Surrey’s NHS Seacole Centre opened this month at Headley Court, a former rehab centre for injured soldiers.
Sorry about your friend Annie, but any virus or bacterial infection carries the risk of complications in a very small percentage of people.
Even in the article it points out that these symptoms are only a ‘Best Guess’ scenario…More scare mongering I’m afraid. No wonder mental illness and suicides are at an all time high…
“The proportion of people with cognitive symptoms for any period of time as a result of Covid-19 is unknown, and a focus of study now, but in some studies could be up to 20%,” he says.
OGF I directly know/knew only a handful of people with Covid. One died. The others survived. They range in age from 18 to mid 70s. Three have had post covid symptoms. One is in her 20s and has been sick for months. One is in his fifties and had a “mild” case then complications weeks later. This guy is just about 70 this year and was really fit and healthy for his age with a very active lifestyle. A colleague had it. I think he is in his fifties and he has lingering shortness of breath and they think he will not recover full capacity. He had some asthma prior to the infection. I know of other cases but I do not know how they feel now.
But it does seem to carry the risk of mental illness, cognitive disfunction and long term disabling chronic fatigue (which nobody healthy can really understand until they have it themselves). It’s not that you want a little lie in, you simply cannot get out of bed and do anything for yourself.
Yes there are other infectious diseases that can attack the brain. Meningitis, tick borne encephalitis and Herpes can cause brain inflammation. But we do not go out to be deliberately infected with Meningitis, Herpes and tick-borne encephalitis!
20% is a very high proportion and this is why they are setting up these “Long Covid” facilities. What we do not know is whether there may be manifestations in years to come, if there is some dormant effect.
The head of NHS England, Sir Simon Stevens, said there were “tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands” of patients affected with “long Covid” symptoms.
People with relatively mild coronavirus infections as well as those who have been treated in intensive care can have persistent health problems for months.
The most common symptom of long Covid is crippling fatigue.
But breathlessness, joint pain, anxiety, brain fog and many other symptoms have also been reported.
And some estimates suggest one in 10 (10%) of those infected with the virus could be affected.
So, for 575,679 postitive cases identified in the UK, 57,567 could be affected
but, as we know*, 80% of those infected with COVID-19 display no symptoms and many are not tested.
Perhaps, then, infections could be at least double, say 1,000,000, so 100,000 could be affected with “long Covid” symptoms.
At the current rate of estimated infections (20,000+ per day according to ONS), there could, in fact have been 1,000,000 infections by the New Year and 4,000,000 infections by April unless the government gets a grip.
Annie, poor man, that sounds very unpleasant, but in all fairness, if people who are suffering don’t speak up and tell the doctors, the doctors don’t know they are still not well.
The medical people might be very interested in learning more about the after effects too, though I do agree a lot of them put just about anything down to ‘It’s your age!’
I am convinced we are not going to get rid of this virus for a long time yet.
Mups we ladies know how stubborn men can be when it comes to avoiding the docs. It’s near to an allergy. He’s a great guy. Caught it in a homeless shelter he was helping in. Someone sneezed right behind him.
I was about to ask if he’d been rated as ‘vulnerable’ and was staying at home and not going out at all.
In all fairness, it’s not entirely unexpected he caught Covid if he was doing volunteer work. And given his age … not worth the risk.
I wish him well … this Long Covid sounds awful.
Sadly, unless a vaccine is found rather swiftly I think the government will eventually be forced into the position of opting for herd immunity whether they like it or not … whether we like it or not … as the Treasury coffers must be crammed with I.O.U notes by now.
Soon there’s going to be increasing bad feeling between various sectors of society, either via geographical lockdowns or patchy furlough and financial support.
Wait until the riots start on the streets. I sincerely hope I’m wrong about that but can see it coming.
The devastation from this is going to be appalling for everyone, of every age. Whether financial, medical or future prospects in general.
You are right but the important thing is to ensure that the mortality rate is suppressed by not overwhelming the hospital system and having an orderly, staged transfer to herd immunity.
As stated elsewhere the 1918 flu pandemic took something like five years to stabilise with many waves and become the annual flu until 1958 when Asian Flu took over.
The trouble with not overwhelming the hospital system is, people are waiting for surgery, others are waiting for early cancer diagnosis or cancer treatment … others are trying to help the system in their own way by not going to their local GP … and so there’s a massive traffic jam forming.
All to protect the NHS from been overwhelmed.
It makes you wonder how things would have unfolded if, instead of propping up workers to the tune of billions of pounds that money had, instead, been pumped into expanding medical facilities to ensure they could cope better.
There is little support available for the individual who finds they have caught the virus, with the general advice been to stay at home and only seek medical aid if you can’t cope.
It’s not really comparable with the 1918 influenza pandemic for a few very pertinent reasons.
Over 50 million people died, … and there was only 1.8 billion souls on the planet then. A third of the worlds population, 500 million, became infected with it . 1% to 3% of the worlds population died.
Whereas now … just over a million have died, out of a world population of nearly 8 billion. Very small in comparison.
This is nothing compared to 1918 … except then ordinary people weren’t jetting around the world on holidays and casually spreading germs.
And in 1918 the medical profession was in it’s infancy compared to todays advances and developments.
Doesn’t seem to have done us much good does it.
I doubt an orderly staged transfer to herd immunity is going to be a viable option.
I imagine at some point it will be more like getting shoved out of a plane and hoping your parachute inflates before you hit the ground.
Morti it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at the system when you have a pandemic. People have been afraid to go into hospitals to have treatment.
Thanks Omah…
However!
There are an awful lot of: Could’s, If’s and Estimates in them thar links…
Didn’t some government advisor or official, forecast back in April that this virus is so virulent that their could be half a million deaths in the UK by September, with people dying in the streets…:shock:
