I just sent off a donation for someone to get medical care. They have really bad long covid symptoms. A lot of people are suffering to various degrees. The estimates vary. I’ve seen numbers as low as 1 in 13 and as high as 1 in 5. At any rate, it’s a lot of people.
Symptoms vary. Some sound fairly minor, like losing one’s sense of taste. That doesn’t sound so bad until you eat a gas station yogurt with fuzzy mold. Then for some people they get a sense of taste again, but it’s not normal. For example everything might taste like gasoline. As you can imagine it’s really hard to eat enough to stay healthy.
The person I’m donating to has problems so debilitating that they have no life at all. There is a treatment that might help but it’s only available in a few countries. The US isn’t one of them. That’s an issue. No doubt this person is not alone.
Numbers are hard to nail down, but there are a lot of US citizens that can no longer work. If they are “lucky” they might get some sort of disability payment. I know from harsh experience that nothing messes up retirement planning like an unplanned medical retirement. The sudden drop in income creates a lot of hardship when someone’s too sick and weak to deal with it. A lot of people don’t even get that.
Long covid is something that will have to be dealt with. There’s a lot on the line for individuals and the nation. There has to be more research and better treatments. Problems aren’t going to go away by themselves. While Go Fund Me campaigns can help a few, it’s not a national health policy.
-Sixbears
Disabilities, permanent or other, ring very close to home for me. I deal on a daily basis with my permanently disabled wife through every aspect of the health care and insurance system. It is not a pretty thing to go through or observe. Fortunately she worked long enough to have her medical expenses covered, but it took quite awhile for all that to kick in. That was a little over twenty years ago. I can feel for your friend. It sucks in a large ominous way.
ReplyDeleteIndeed it does. This person is only in her 30s. Her active life came to a sudden stop. I know how that feels. Then there's the issue that doctors don't have a firm handle on treatments yet. It's a mess.
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