Long Covid in the media and social media 2023

This thread has been split from the 2022 thread.

Seems like China is going to dismiss Long Covid as biopsychosocial. The recipe has been perfected for decades, all it takes is widespread indifference.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01...it-transitions-to-living-with-covid/101817236

On December 9, China's leading health expert, Zhong Nanshan, said long COVID symptoms such as fatigue were a "subjective feeling" and rarely had long-term impacts.

Professor Zhong, who is regarded with the same level of authority in China as Anthony Fauci in the United States, has been the face of China's health authorities since 2020.

He claimed many long COVID cases were caused by "the mental stress caused by COVID infection" rather than the virus itself, and said he believed the impacts could be changed by time.​

I don't think anyone will be bothered much by how it's impossible to reconcile this 'mental stress' with asymptomatic infections and how it's so mild that it's basically the common cold anyway. As usual. Medicine is extremely political where facts are clearly negotiable.

 

Sigh. Some people were banking on China taking LC seriously. That seems unlikely at least for now.

 

Unfortunately it is looking like China has shifted to political face saving such that we see in the UK and some other countries with a wish to present the battle with the pandemic as won. China did amazingly well containing the virus as did some other countries such as New Zealand, however New Zealand did a better job of building up some level of immunity with a strong vaccination programme. Unfortunately China seems to have used less effective vaccinations and achieved less reach with those vaccinations, so when they stopped strong containment they were almost back at square one re immunity levels.

Admitting the full impact of Long Covid means admitting we will be living with the consequences of the pandemic for fifty years plus, even if we manage to contain the rate of new infections.

 

Failure to support long Covid sufferers could add billions to benefits bill, Rishi Sunak warned

Possible sign-up wall, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sunak-long-covid-benefits-work-b2251905.html

 

Not feeling hugely enthusiastic about this stuff from Labour, especially given their history.

I remember Ashworth being linked to Wessely, but can't think of the details now. Possible it was merely something like this, but I thought it was more:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1377202612936790021

 

Poorly researched based upon the quoted cost of 689pm, as this doesn't include rent, and probably other stuff.

Not realising that many people have to pay rent.........as not all pwLC own their own country estates, many don't even own property on Mayfair, or have any staff to take up the slack

 

“Leaving workers on the scrap heap” is not helpful rhetoric from Ashworth, not when all the touted cures are spurious. Not helpful at all.

I fear that @Esther12 is right to mistrust his associations. It would have been nice if someone had got to him (or to Keir) for a quiet word before every single lobbyist in the land switched their attention to the shadow cabinet.

 

I am still baffled at the idea that no one can do anything unless the health minister gets heavily involved. Or something like that.

There is not a single thing that healthcare services or the medical profession can do that is impaired, limited or obstructed by the lack of direct involvement by elected politicians, if they ever choose to do anything. Other than a massive dedicated effort on the precedent of AIDS, of course. Which is needed but even then, it's not as if the very large healthcare industry needs authorization for any of this, those decisions are all made by people with medical degrees and feature zero involvement, or I'm not sure what else they expect, from a health minister to do.

Do people simply need to be ordered around? Are they saying they need someone to just order people to do their job instead of not doing it? Excuses excuses excuses for everything. It's always too hard, or mysterious, or someone else's responsibility to break through the paralysis, but every one of those attempts is met with aggressive pushback or widespread apathy. And bad research that forever leaves the picture incomplete, "mysterious", so so mysterious.

For sure the complete lack of leadership is showing, but it's the lack of motivation at solving this problem that ends up in failure anyway. Even when politicians get involved, such as giving over a billion dollars to research this at the NIH, the professionals are mostly botching it and avoiding the uncomfortable truths. They're even saying they're confused about what to do because they don't know how to work with patients, so much for lessons learned from the AIDS crisis.

This is a political issue but it's internal medical politics, not government. Government can help, but they can only do so when they are properly advised and informed by experts, and the opposite is obviously happening. Especially as everyone in a prominent position in medicine or public health has played a role in the policy of mass reinfection.

What cowardice to rely on public support to do something when the public is misinformed precisely so that nothing is done.

 

Can someone expand on this? I am not hugely familiar and this stuff with Ashworth seems really worrying.

 

I think that it was under Labour that the DWP made the decision to part fund the PACE study, and was it Tony Blair or Gordon Brown as Prime Minister who was cited in the Newsletter sent to all PACE subjects saying what a great study it was and how fantastic GET/CBT are? Of course no introduction of bias or prejudging the outcome.

[added -
Also though I forget details and timing, was in part the Blair/Brown government that enabled the BPS approach to to gain a foothold in the benefit system and introduce the idea that CBT or similar was all that was needed to get people back to work and that this was hindered by paying people benefits.]

 

On the news today, in Sweden:

Minister positiv till kunskapscentrum för postcovid
https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/minister-positiv-till-kunskapscentrum-for-postcovid

 

UK GP publication:

2022 in review: Will long Covid help us understand the unexplainable?
https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/specia...g-covid-help-us-understand-the-unexplainable/

 

Doubt that's offered as a positive or helpful recommendation.

Spoiler: I look forward to the day when Wikipedia articles for these terms include something like —

"Following the discovery of BBB in 202x during the global COVID pandemic, it is now recognised that AAA syndrome is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (formerly also termed "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" and "Long COVID"). See Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (202x).

ME is a chronic immunological disease, with prominent neurological and cardiovascular symptoms, that affects some people following prior infection by herpesviruses and a subsequent immune challenge. It is more common in women and those with certain HLA subtypes, due to genetic differences affecting immunometabolic function. AAA syndrome was so termed, being erroneously attributed to psychological causation, due to the absence of advanced immunological investigative techniques at that time.

AAA syndrome is one of many examples where a psychosomatic explanation was widely accepted as fact, before a biological cause was subsequently discovered. Following multiple international Public Inquiries, the Galway Declaration was issued by the World Health Organisation, and all psychosomatic theories were abandoned, see Psychosomatic Medicine (Historical Medical Specialty)."

*Dates and biological specifics TBA.

 

I have both PTSD and ME. They're not even vaguely the same. And neurasthenia likely included many people we'd diagnose with ME, dysautonomia, or fibromyalgia today.

 

Here are some other posts on Pulse by the possibly pseudonymous Dr Haddock:

Dave Haddock16 March, 2022 3:57 pm
A truly radical RCGP would admit that the NHS is a failed experiment that needs to replaced by something a lot more pragmatic and a lot less ideological.


Dave Haddock13 January, 2022 1:38 pm
The good news is that the more dysfunctional the patient experience of NHS GP gets, the more opportunity for escaping the ghastly NHS into Private GP.

He would appear to be what in polite society - or on a well-moderated message board - we might call a “contrarian outlier”, even if privately we think he is a cockwomble. So it’s ideal for someone so out of step with his fellow practitioners to be the only below-the-line LC & ME psychosomaticiser on this article.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1610645938887876611

 

Gonna go on a limb and suggest this commenter has no clue about WWI trench warfare and how it essentially added up to endless infliction of concussive damage. Human brains don't do very well when subject to concussive blasts for weeks and months. I don't think it had much to do with PTSD, it clearly shows up very differently, even in outward behavior. In addition to how PTSD obviously has nothing to do with ME, that's just ignorant.

But ironic that it's true for neurasthenia, just exactly the opposite of what is meant. It's the story of this failure. The exact same, for the same reasons, using the same logical fallacies going back all the way to the 19th century. Failing for over a century and they still actually blame the people they are failing. Simply absurd.

Also notable from the Pulse article: it mentions a long-term plan from NHS England and we got news today that they aren't even doing that. What incredible dysfunction and failure of leadership and basic professionalism.

 

75 per cent of COVID ‘long haulers’ free of symptoms in 12 months: McMaster study

Full recovery is the likeliest outcome, even in severe cases says researcher

https://www.thestar.com/ths/news/hamilton-region/2023/01/04/mcmaster-long-covid-study.html