Long Covid in the media and social media 2022

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BMJ - Helen Salisbury: Living under the long shadow of covid

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While we cross our fingers and hope that the next wave isn’t already on its way (and with decreased surveillance, we may not get much warning), “long covid” consultations have overtaken acute ones. I don’t know how many patients on my list have prolonged symptoms after covid infection: I speak to some regularly and have referred them to the local long covid clinic, but there will be more I don’t know about, who have simply reduced their activity and are battling on, assuming that nothing much can be done. I’m also seeing patients with non-specific symptoms such as fatigue, headache, and “brain fog” who ask me, “Is this because I had covid?” The only honest answer is that I don’t know, but there seems to be a lot of it about.
 
John Mac said:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10846665/Long-Covid-Dont-fall-quick-fix-cures.html
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The LC clinics are literally promoting quackery en masse. The patients understand this and it is bringing discredit to the entire profession. It's beyond hypocritical for medical and public health institutions to warn long haulers about quackery when most of the clinics are built on quackery and literally promote harmful denial-based treatments. Treatments that don't even work, that were coercively bullied into practice despite no evidence.

This is how you completely destroy trust in expertise and institutions. And the institutions are completely oblivious to this, even those whose job it is to do this. They are unable to assess themselves, even those whose job it is to assess things. Like the SMC literally being a major source of pseudoscience disinformation. It's not credible to warn people of mistakes while committing those mistakes. It riles up the "CHEATER" center of the brain that makes people completely distrust everything they will say in the future.

And now we have professionals cherry-picking a useless study that tells them what they want to hear while they admonish people against cherry-picking studies that tell people what they want to hear. It's maddening to see how dysfunctional the entire system is, hardly any different than an opulent aristocracy mocking the poor for being dumb and useless.
 
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BBC still completely suppressing any talk of ME. At this point it's obviously a top-down directive. I wonder how much of this is simply bowing to what the SMC are telling them, since the Guardian is also doing the same.
 
rvallee said:
BBC still completely suppressing any talk of ME. At this point it's obviously a top-down directive. I wonder how much of this is simply bowing to what the SMC are telling them, since the Guardian is also doing the same.
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Do you mean in the context of Long Covid in the post above yours? I think it's much more likely that they are simply reporting what a parent, consultant and politician said. There's no reason why the BBC should initiate the introduction of ME into the report if none of their interviewees did.
Do you have any evidence that the SMC is instructing the media not to mention ME when reporting on LongCovid?
 
rvallee said:
BBC still completely suppressing any talk of ME. At this point it's obviously a top-down directive. I wonder how much of this is simply bowing to what the SMC are telling them, since the Guardian is also doing the same.
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Without proof this is just wild speculation. Do you have any reference to back up these claims?
 
Trish said:
Do you mean in the context of Long Covid in the post above yours? I think it's much more likely that they are simply reporting what a parent, consultant and politician said. There's no reason why the BBC should initiate the introduction of ME into the report if none of their interviewees did.
Do you have any evidence that the SMC is instructing the media not to mention ME when reporting on LongCovid?
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I mean in general, most articles of LC in UK media avoid any mention of ME, none have covered the APPG report and Javid's announcement. Other than The Times, I see nothing.
 
Andy said:
Without proof this is just wild speculation. Do you have any reference to back up these claims?
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Yes that's what I'm asking, it's hard to understand the general suppression of those news without at least some coordination. SMC is just the usual suspect as they did exactly that for many years and as Fox is showing, they are still actively vilifying everything about us.

Otherwise it's one hell of a coincidence that literally all news about us are simply kept out of major news media at a time when they become more relevant by the day. Other than The Times, of course, because of the personal importance to the editor.
 
This is not organic, it's strategic messaging.

As the pandemic ebbs, long-haul Covid still drains patients and confounds doctors
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/29/long-covid-causes-how-many-treatment

It's not a completely terrible article, but it continues the pretense that this is all brand new and attributes remission/recovery to diet, meditation and yoga:
Caffee, the physical therapist, tried to recover by making dietary changes, meditating and doing restorative yoga.

It worked.

At the end of summer 2021, she was able to gradually return to work and exercise. She is now back working full-time and feels “90 to 95% better”, she said.
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"It worked". What's it? Yoga, meditation and dietary changes. Hey would look at that, things being "tried" right now.

Almost every article from major UK news organizations ignores the context that most reporting by now acknowledges, that this isn't new, and presents it the same way: mild, manageable, not a big deal. Some exceptions. Very few.

The Guardian spent a lot of ink denying and dismissing the whole issue of chronic illness, it would be an embarrassment to admit they were wrong all along, being complicit at worst, gullible at best. So they keep pretending, keep suppressing newsworthy reporting. Maybe it's all fully organic and everyone does it for their own reason.

I just don't buy it. Given the actual media campaign that has been waged against the ME community for the last 2 decades. Means, motive, precedent. And a very recently published rehashing of most of those lies.
 
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