Here’s What Happened When I Told Congress The Black And Ugly Truth About Long COVID

"This author is educating the public on the importance of including Black people in research on long-haul COVID-19.


Had it been any day before March 22, 2020, I probably would have said something more intricate and pristine. My words would have been shiny and flattering. I would have smiled more. I may have even told one of the top three stories I keep in my mind’s chamber to charm strangers; the kind of story that starts with a challenge but ends in happiness, joy and redemption.

But it was 402 days later  —  a year after I became deathly ill with long-haul COVID-19, a medical condition that causes coronavirus symptoms to persist months after the initial viral infection.

I had lost my vision, money, and most of all, my beloved teaching career. I didn’t have any fancy epithets to describe the current state of my health after I had suffered for so long.

All I had was me.

Being asked to testify before Congress during the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s hearing on long COVID was in fact an honor ― one I didn’t take for granted. It’s not every day that a Black woman from Baltimore with a short fade and sassy mouth gets to speak before political officials with enough power and privilege to fund almost anything deemed important in our nation. Currently, there are only 54 Black congressional representatives.

By the optics, I had no business being there."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/long-covid-black-americans-congress_n_609dc8eee4b014bd0ca9d380

ETA: Should have added source originally, in case anybody wants to share
https://twitter.com/user/status/1393567481130889221

 

A Virus could not possibly care less about the melanin level in one’s skin. While some are perseverating on the irrelevant, the virus is adapting to find faster ways to replicate and enter human cells.

 

It is revelant for reasons she touches on in the article.

 

Yeah, she's talking about disparities in healthcare outcomes, etc. It's relevant here, too, as we know from the stats. The reasons are usually multiple (e.g., if diabetes is a risk factor for worse COVID outcomes, then groups who are more likely to get diabetes are going to have worse outcomes; likewise, we know that some South Asian groups are not taking up the vaccine as quickly as others).

It's less about the virus caring about skin colour and more about the way genetics, social factors and culture can exacerbate particular things. This is probably what a biopsychosocial approach to healthcare is supposed to look like, actually, rather than blaming everything on a nebulous mind-body connection. It's supposed to look at the whole person.

 

I genuinely think this is what most people think it is, including most physicians. And this is what it should be, it would actually be useful. Which is why so many are puzzled over any objections to it, it's so generically good and common sense. A good example is how the Dutch used to be some of the shortest and are now the tallest Europeans because food availability and quality improved, and also because of, you know, fewer continental wars. Now that is society influencing the body. That's real and important.

And yet... literally the opposite. So it's considered good because of what it could be, even though it has nothing to do with how it actually is, which is mostly bad and generically awful.

Evaluating an entire paradigm based on what it could be, irrelevant of how it actually is. What could possibly go wrong? Besides everything. But it's sooooooo inspiring to think of how it could be if it were otherwise than what it is.