Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/20/long-covid-expert-all-infections-have-prolonged-consequences.html
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Contributed by Jennifer Sandlin
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Since I had Covid, I’ve actually noticed that I get sick less often. I haven’t had a single full blown cold in the past two years, and I used to get about two a year pre-Covid. But that could be change in behavior, just plain luck, or any other number of reasons.
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Maybe people in your neighborhood are washing their hands or at least have stopped coughing and sneezing into them. (Into your elbow people!)
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For what it’s worth, I also haven’t had a cold in several years but I haven’t had covid. I chalk it up to better hand washing and avoiding people since the start of the pandemic.
But I think you might have a bad time here implying that there’s even a possible silver lining to covid.
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Oh no, I definitely wasn’t implying there’s anything good about Covid. Just musing about my uselessly anecdotal personal experience.
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I’m wondering if another important vector is the massive rise in anti-vax people, which really got wheels in the COVID aftermath.
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I’d say that’s an extraordinary claim, that would require extraordinary evidence.
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So, I am not in any position to refute the claim, and I do worry that it might be true.
However, I did see an awful lot of otherwise smart medical professionals who weren’t infectious disease specialists, virologists, epidemiologists etc absolutely talking out their ass about Covid during the height of the pandemic.
So again, I can’t say this dude is wrong, but I can say he’s a physiotherapist/neurologist.
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I know people who keep getting covid, and they brush it off with, “it’s only as bad as a cold.” The problem is, we know those are only the obvious symptoms, and it’s a vascular infection that impacts the immune system. There are other, quite serious infections whose initial symptoms are cold-like, including, apparently, HIV. So it’s really weird to me that people who should know better just shrug it off. I guess the risk of immediate death when it first showed up has skewed people’s thinking about the dangers. Personally, I’ve never stopped wearing a mask in public. Not getting other viruses is a side benefit.
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I am now reading that people are getting sick more frequently than ever, yet, on the contrary, I, too, have been sick much, much less frequently, like I’ve had a “cold” once in the past four years, whereas before the Covid-19 pandemic, it was a semi-annual event. Same for my family. Probably handwashing and keeping a safe distance has helped avoid sickness. We all got the vaccine, so maybe that helped us, as well.
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I haven’t had a cold in the last couple years either, but it may partly be because now, when somebody is coughing or sneezing, they get treated like they are possibly carrying the plague, because they very well may be. I think schools and such are better about suggesting sick kids stay home. Also, this discussion is skewed because most of the people on this thread are likely alive. And the dead share no anecdotes. (COVID-19 had greater impact on life expectancy than previously known, but child mortality rates continued to decline during the pandemic | Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation)
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Two lines. That means I’m pregnant, right? Shit!
Please help, because I’m too foggy to make sense of these instructions. /s
Seriously this SUCKS! Four years my family managed to dodge this. And NOW we got slammed.
Damn Covid. 
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Me too. But I attribute it to changes in general behavior outside and personal hygiene since the pandemic. Being mindful of being in crowds and wearing masks on long flights.
Also not commuting every weekday reduces the chances of getting sick from mass transit, coworkers and recycled office air.
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