Originally published at: After backlash, LA Times quietly changes headline claiming Covid brain fog is a "mercy" | Boing Boing
…
5 Likes
WTF?
I have had brain fog as a symptom of CFS, and I would not call it a mercy or a vacation. It was a nightmare, my mind betraying me at every opportunity.
Mild brain fog is now my warning sign that I need to stop right now, no excuses.
21 Likes
Yeah, this whole thing is shitty and fucked up. Would they say to someone dying of cancer - “well, sure you’re dying but have you considered that you won’t have to live through global warming anymore…”
I wish I could say I don’t know what is wrong with some people, but I most certainly do know - they are assholes with no empathy.
13 Likes
Huh, based on the original title, I was expecting some extremely dark humor in the article, but… really not. It is a bit of dark humor, but they also seem somewhat serious about it, that the world is falling apart and they got sick, but also a bit grateful that their illness made it impossible to fully process - and be overwhelmed - by what was going on. I suspect there’s also some serious denial, writing during the height of their illness and assuming they’ll be all better soon, not thinking about what that brain fog means for their cognitive function going forward and their ability to work, for example.
To be fair, the article (which briefly expresses the sentiment) was written by the person suffering brainfog, but it’s still more than a bit weird.
7 Likes
Doesn’t excuse shit, though. They are projecting their own experiences on everyone else with this and that’s not very cool.
12 Likes
“Man hospitalized in a coma after car wreck, but with everything everywhere happening at once, it’s a mercy.”
Seriously - WTF. How many editors did that make it pass??
On a serious note - how does vaccination protect against long Covid effects
3 Likes
That’s a serious accusation to make on the basis of the summary of the author’s personal experience as a COVID victim. I’m willing to trust that unlike our right-wing counterparts, you actually read the article before you accused the author and/or summarizers of being evil sociopaths.
Personally, I found the perspective to be interesting (if sad), but as I read it, neither the article nor the summary contained an expectation that such an experience would be universal.
So I’d classify the summary as a misstep (“do better” seems appropriate), but certainly not warranting such severe personal attacks.
1 Like
I assume you read the article. For a personal exploration of the illness, did you find the summary inaccurate?
From what I’ve read, it makes long COVID less likely as there’s a relatively strong correlation between illness severity and long COVID, and the vaccine decreases severity.
Of course, it’s always worth pointing out that the reduction is a probability. A few weeks ago, I lost my coworker who sat behind me. He was triple vaxxed, wore a mask at his desk and had no risk factors that he was aware of. But his number came up (it’s about 1/10,000 chance of death at age 50 last I read).
Anyway, just a reminder that if we’re not letting COVID dictate our life, don’t ignore it either. If you can, get a pulse-oximeter before you get sick, so even if you’re not feeling panicky, you know when to call the hospital.
2 Likes
Misstep or otherwise (and one that is receiving widespread criticism on more than one social platform at this time), why would LAT allow its publication? It’s not as if all of the paper’s editors also suffer from brain-fog and thought best to let this thing out into the world.
5 Likes
Yeah. I’m the biggest asshole on the planet. sure. 
But yeah, guy was acting like an asshole. The solution to not being called an asshole, is to NOT be an asshole and assume that one’s own experiences are the ONLY experiences that matter. That mind set very much betrays a lack of basic empathy for others. As @the_borderer noted above, not everyone LIKES feeling like shit all the time simply because it allows (ie gives them an excuse, frankly) them to ignore world events. It’s a high level of privilege to be able to do so, as I’m sure MANY people struggling with long-haul covid are dealing with OTHER aspects of this current shit storm we’re all experiencing. Not everyone has the ability to just ignore things that are directly impacting their lives. So YES, he’s being an asshole. 
The problems we’re facing collective demand that we’re all engaged as much as possible in finding a solution. And the people who are just trying to find excuses to not do that are being unempathetic assholes.
3 Likes
It’s not “an accusation”; it’s an opinion, one which I happen to share.
The fact that the article’s title was changed goes to show that many other people also held similar perspectives.
‘The asshole is strong’ with a helluva lot of folks these days, the author of the aforementioned article included.
5 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
