Originally published at: The low-down on the potentially devastating effects of long COVID | Boing Boing
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One of the things I’ve been trying to follow is why COVID-19 specifically is worse, or causes more long-term effects, than past coronaviruses.
It’s been very challenging as there’s an enormous amount of opinion presented as fact and very little clinical study or even peer-reviewed information on the topic. To my barely-scientific brain, it would follow that all viruses in the coronavirus family would have these detrimental impact but this one is oddly stronger. Is that a coincidence? Is that the thing we should be protecting (vaccines, medicines, etc) against?
The other complication is that our world has become so much faster, so much an “I want it now” place that proper research isn’t given the time it needs. When COVID-19 appeared on the scene, there were still dozens of active studies of the H1N1 virus from 2009, which is a type of coronavirus, and not a lot of answers.
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I have read that some people who have long-COVID have responded positively to the vaccine Why Vaccines May Be Helping Some With Long COVID > News > Yale Medicine even when given after the fact. I wonder if some of the new vaccines that are due to be released may help out?
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A lot of that has to do with it being a novel enough virus, not one that was endemic to the species. When the other coronaviruses first infected humans, thousands of years ago, they may well have had a similar impact. Also, virulence of viruses vary based on genetics.
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