New Scientist - Long Covid: We have ignored post-viral syndromes for too long, 2021, Le Page et al

L

Londinium

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Very good leader in this week's New Scientist, which has Long Covid as a cover story. Behind a paywall so only posting excerpts:

IN JUNE last year, we first reported in detail on the “strange and debilitating” coronavirus symptoms that were crippling some people’s health for months after infection. Long covid, as we now know it, is indeed strange and mysterious in many ways, as we report on page 10.

But it isn’t surprising. Post-viral syndromes, which often involve extreme, lasting fatigue and other symptoms, are common after many infections. About 1 in 10 people infected with SARS-CoV-2 seem to get lasting symptoms, a similar proportion to those infected with Epstein-Barr virus, one of the most common human viruses. The SARS virus, another coronavirus, left as many as 30 per cent of survivors meeting diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as CFS/ME, four years later.
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For now, there are no treatments, in part because we are decades behind where we could be due to a lack of interest and investment in researching post-viral syndromes and CFS/ME.

This must change, and we now need a similar effort for treatments of long covid and other post-viral syndromes that we have seen in the race for a vaccine. In the meantime, people with long covid symptoms must be taken seriously, and given the financial and social support they need to allow them to get better.
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Feature article is here: https://www.newscientist.com/articl...it-how-long-will-it-last-and-can-we-treat-it/

Clinics are now much better at identifying what type of long covid a person has, says Strain. “Long covid isn’t one disease,” he says. Working out who has what is crucial for the right rehabilitation. For example, graded exercise therapy helps those with pneumonia-like impacts, but can be harmful for those with the CFS/ME-like condition, says Strain.
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Some forms of long covid have parallels with CFS/ME, in which people experience debilitating fatigue and other symptoms such as muscle pains and difficulties concentrating. As with long covid, the mechanism behind it is unclear, there is no consensus on treatment and those affected can face scepticism about there being anything wrong.

Some people hope that because long covid is now being reported by medical professionals, the idea of post-viral fatigue has gained respect. “Clearly, there’s a lot about viruses that we don’t understand,” says Tyson. “Also there’s a lot of funding for research and development of services [for long covid], that has resources spilling over for ME.”
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For anyone who is interested, libraries have a free service where you can access magazines (and books) including New Scientist, using an app called libby. You just need your library card number, though contacting your local library and asking about it might be best.

I get books through my local housebound library service and they set this up for me.
 
Mithriel said:
For anyone who is interested, libraries have a free service where you can access magazines (and books) including New Scientist, using an app called libby. You just need your library card number, though contacting your local library and asking about it might be best.

I get books through my local housebound library service and they set this up for me.
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Wow, free access to New scientist, thank you - that's a great tip.
 
Sounds sensible from the extracts. Good to see something as measured as this in New Scientist.

Not sure where Strain gets this from:
For example, graded exercise therapy helps those with pneumonia-like impacts, but can be harmful for those with the CFS/ME-like condition, says Strain.

What evidence is there that graded exercises help 'pneumonia-like impacts' I wonder? None, we can be sure.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
Sounds sensible from the extracts. Good to see something as measured as this in New Scientist.

Not sure where Strain gets this from:
For example, graded exercise therapy helps those with pneumonia-like impacts, but can be harmful for those with the CFS/ME-like condition, says Strain.

What evidence is there that graded exercises help 'pneumonia-like impacts' I wonder? None, we can be sure.
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He probably means breathing exercises, for which the evidence also looks weak but it's big business so it must business on. It's a big problem to use such a generic term, it can be used to apply to anything from light stretching all the way to military drill school. Zero nuance or specificity in what it means. And the ambiguity is of course massively exploited.

Fundamentally it seems to be the imperative to do something for the sake of doing something. Even if it's useless, almost especially if it's useless, because then how could it do harm if it truly does nothing? Because people have to get back to work, otherwise they are useless, a drain on society. So something must be done, even if it's completely useless. And after some time, it just becomes tradition, this is what we do, not because it's useful, but because it's what we've been doing for a while.
 
Mithriel said:
For anyone who is interested, libraries have a free service where you can access magazines (and books) including New Scientist, using an app called libby. You just need your library card number, though contacting your local library and asking about it might be best.

I get books through my local housebound library service and they set this up for me.
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Definitely - and not just Libby. My local council's library service also offers access - remotely, just with a library number - to Borrowbox (e-books), PressReader (newspapers & other publications) as well as Infoweb Newsbank (an archive of tens of millions of news articles dating back decades).
 
Kalliope said:
There's also a good segment about Long Covid in the New Scientist Weekly's latest podcast episode. Emphasising pacing, to believe the patients, that for now there's not really much to do, but don't do GET.
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It's worth a listen. My impression is that these journalists didn't go very deep, but it feels like quite a step forward for journalists not to have to spend weeks unravelling the politics and science of an ME/CFS-like illness and yet still come to pretty decent conclusions.

Good to hear about a UK Long Covid clinic that seems, for the most part to be getting things right. Interesting though to hear that GET is being used for those whose main symptoms are breathlessness rather than fatigue. Perhaps it is appropriate for people with subsiding lung inflammation? 'Long Covid' covers such a range of damage and 'GET' can be so many things, that I guess a form of GET can be applied somewhat safely somewhere. Whether it really makes a difference to outcomes is another question.

Edit - and whether such an application really warrants the label 'GET' (with all its inference of overcoming a fear of movement) as opposed to bog standard 'physical rehabilitation' is another question.
 
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Mithriel said:
For anyone who is interested, libraries have a free service where you can access magazines (and books) including New Scientist, using an app called libby. You just need your library card number, though contacting your local library and asking about it might be best.

I get books through my local housebound library service and they set this up for me.
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Typically, I have stopped being able to access magazines through my Kindle Fire because of some change they have made. Books are OK.

There are work rounds my husband worked out.

I can still get magazines through my mobile phone by downloading the app and choosing from there. Then it is on my shelf as they call it so I can read it from any device.

Another way is to open your browser and log in on libbyapp.com and get the magazine from there.

So round the houses but I can still read on my Fire
 
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