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The hidden COVID tidal wave you dont see on the graphs
Every day I come across one graph or another showing the numbers of new cases, rolling cases, hospitalizations, and/or deaths caused by COVID. /thread
Every day I come across one graph or another showing the numbers of new cases, rolling cases, hospitalizations, and/or deaths caused by COVID. /thread
I also frequently see increasing numbers of reports and articles talking about people like me who are COVID “long-haulers” but despite the increasing awareness we are invisible on these daily graphs. And it irks me every day that this false dichotomy of COVID is perpetuated. /
These graphs tell a story and that story is that you either get COVID and recover or you die from it. This is clearly not the case, and increasing numbers of suffers are being poorly served by this.
The lack of representation on these graphs also leads to unintentional bias as its easy for funding agencies, government officials, policy makers etc to overlook something that isn’t displayed. Why is this important?
Estimates suggest somewhere between 10-30% of people who have had COVID develop long term complications.Many of these long term suffers, in fact I’d guess the majority based on informal polling I’ve done in a long-hauler group I belong to, suffer from post-viral fatigue.
Increasing numbers of these suffers will qualify as having Myalgic encephalomyelitis ( https://www.meaction.net/learn/what-is-me/; https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Primer_for_doctors_and_researchers) in the coming months, which is condition that can be lifelong.
Because we aren’t going away our number keep climbing and there is a coming tidal wave of long-term suffers of post-COVID related issues. In fact, our numbers are growing at an unprecedented rate.
Standard practice for so long was unfortunately to dismiss people with such chronic conditions, something perpetuated by the graphs that continue to ignore our existence, or tell them it's all in their head.
The coming numbers though are not something that can just be ignored, and are truly big enough that they could place significant burden on healthcare systems and economies. Never mind the personal tragedies they represent.
Just think, there have been a reported ~64 M COVID cases to date in the world. We know this number though is a underestimate due to under testing, particularly early on, so numbers are probably closer to 80-100M cases or more.
At a conservative rate this represents ~10M or more suffers, or potential suffers, of long term complications. Again many of us with these conditions are not getting better, and may have ME or other conditions for the rest of our lives.
Here in Canada there have been over 378k cases of COVID reported, with again many many more unreported, suggesting there are 40-50k who are or will be long-term sufferers. This is no surprise to those of us on “long-hauler” Facebook support groups.
We need to start recognizing the potential impact of this and not just overlooking those with long-COVID.
We need to be on the graphs.
#MEAction #longCOVID #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #LongHaulers #CountLongCovid #COVID19
@susiegoulding9
http://meaction.net/donate
We need to be on the graphs.
#MEAction #longCOVID #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #LongHaulers #CountLongCovid #COVID19
@susiegoulding9
http://meaction.net/donate
