News from Australia

A long article by Hannah Sharland with lots of details. The article can be listened to as well.

quote:

A group of Australian scientists recently gas-lit an entire global community of more than 65 million sick people. Specifically, on Long Covid Awareness Day, Queensland state department researchers, spearheaded by its chief health officer, pushed a half-baked study to trivialise the devastating condition. However, the situation has direct implications for people living with ME/CFS in Australia.

In the long-standing context of the medical and media establishments’ disgusting abuse of chronically ill people in Australia – it’s plain to see how it could do this so easily.

In particular, an elitist and vested psychologising lobby has hijacked care and support for millions of people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS)- a similar post-viral disease. In Australia, as elsewhere, they have paved the way to punching down on long Covid patients. And if the experience of people living with ME/CFS is anything to go by, the abuse has only just begun.


https://www.thecanary.co/global/202...ering-me-cfs-in-australia-wrote-the-playbook/
 
Meanwhile in Victoria, the Herald Sun reports: Eight and nine-year-old Victorian kids, scores of teens, with long Covid amid frightening illness rise

Victoria is hurtling towards a generation of young people off work because of long Covid — some eligible for NDIS disability support pensions — with potentially devastating consequences for the state.

Archived

The Herald Sun can reveal children as young as eight are being diagnosed with the debilitating multi-organ illness, that the Victorian Department of Health says is striking down up to 10 per cent of those who have had Covid one or more times.
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La Trobe University disease expert Dr Sarah Annesley told the Herald Sun late last year it could take some Victorians “years” to recover from long Covid, while others may never fully regain their former strength.
“There are big impacts there, if they don’t recover, or take a long time to recover … some people will have this now forever. That’s like decades of having an illness,” she said.
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Geelong Long Covid Clinic director Dr Jenny Huang — who is also a GP at the region’s Banksia Medical Centre — told the Herald Sun this week she was increasingly diagnosing the syndrome in teenagers and had also “seen eight and nine-year-olds” with it.
“A lot of patients — I would say half and half — are 20 to 30ish, and then in the over 50s (age group),” Dr Huang said.
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It comes after Queensland’s top health official Dr John Gerrard controversially declared there was nothing “unique and exceptional” about Covid’s long term symptoms, with a new study he was lead author on calling for an end to use of the term.
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His comments were slammed by many other doctors and scientists, but supported by some in the medical community.
Dr Huang said long Covid was certainly real, and causing pain, disability and distress for many Victorians.
“It is important to recognise long Covid is a medical condition with pathophysiological processes going on,” she said.
“Every patient is unique … although the condition may share many similarities with other conditions like POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) and CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) it is important to highlight the need to care for these patients and not to downplay or dismiss their suffering from these complex medical conditions that have resulted.”
Dr Huang called for more evidence based research into long Covid and government funding and support for sufferers.
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Dr Annesley said new data published by the Victorian Agency for Health Information had revealed 14 per cent of people in the state who had suffered a Covid infection had gone on to develop the illness, significantly higher than the up to 10 per cent quoted by the government.
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A new Western Australian medical study shows 18.2 per cent of people had symptoms consistent with long Covid 90 days after infection with Omicron, with 38.7 per cent of those seeking medical care “two to three months after their acute (Covid) infection”.
The research results have caused shockwaves as Western Australia was a highly vaccinated population, not broadly exposed to Covid.
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Long COVID: Sufferers can take heart
Australian Journal of General Practice
https://www1.racgp.org.au/ajgp/2024/april/long-covid-sufferers-can-take-heart

Although the Australian Bureau of Statistics and other health agencies in Australia do not survey the prevalence of long COVID, it is estimated that it affects hundreds of thousands,2 presaging a parliamentary inquiry into long COVID4 and repeated SARS-CoV-2 infection,5 which reported to Federal Government in April 2023.6 The 566 submissions to the Inquiry, including those from states, territories, professional bodies and the public, largely concur with the view that long COVID presents health management and sociological challenges to Australian society (conspicuously, the Queensland Government has a somewhat different perspective, attributing long COVID to a predominantly nocebo effect7).
...
Long COVID is a heterogeneous disease with variable cardiac, pulmonary, haematological and neurological involvement in which investigation of patient-reported symptoms is frequently unremarkable. Long COVID’s overlap with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, postural orthopaedic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and other post-viral manifestations8 predisposes to a diagnosis by exclusion.9,10
...
Often unable to secure a diagnosis, patients are wont to seek multiple serial medical opinions, frequently being told their condition is due to anxiety or post-pandemic mental issues.8

The median duration of long COVID symptoms is five months, but 10% of patients still experience symptoms at 12 months.12 Fatigue, shortness of breath and difficulty concentrating are reported at least up to two years after SARS-CoV-2 infection.13 It is still too early to say whether some individuals with long COVID might never recover.
...
Those subscribing to long COVID digital support groups report months of frustration at not being listened to, finding the health system woefully inadequate, with few primary or secondary care professionals knowing enough to offer much. The outcome for some of those experiencing long COVID is self-prescribed medication using over-the-counter remedies and dietary changes16 based on potentially conflicting or misleading online information.17 Some speak of a substantial proportion of their income being used in this way.4

Meanwhile, jobs, careers, incomes, community involvements, friendships, relationships, hope for a recovery and mental health are being destroyed. Those experiencing long COVID report that the long COVID digital support group is the ‘… only place they feel safe to share, the only place they feel understood, accepted, [and] supported’.4

One in five of those experiencing long COVID in the UK stopped working and was not back to work six months after disease onset.18 In Australia, an estimated 240,000 of those with long COVID no longer work full time.4 Work absenteeism might significantly impact the nation’s economy, as in the UK.19 In the US, long COVID has been declared a national emergency.20
 
Average Victorian secondary student misses equivalent of three terms of school, new figures show
Paywalled: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/victor...w/news-story/cf10e73aaec6c055c4add9920a7bc3a5

"The Department blamed illness from COVID and the flu as the reasons behind the absences for both primary and secondary schools"

But then they cite several psychologists saying it's all mental illness caused by pandemic stress and/or whatever.
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rvallee said:
Long COVID: Sufferers can take heart
Australian Journal of General Practice
https://www1.racgp.org.au/ajgp/2024/april/long-covid-sufferers-can-take-heart

Although the Australian Bureau of Statistics and other health agencies in Australia do not survey the prevalence of long COVID, it is estimated that it affects hundreds of thousands,2 presaging a parliamentary inquiry into long COVID4 and repeated SARS-CoV-2 infection,5 which reported to Federal Government in April 2023.6 The 566 submissions to the Inquiry, including those from states, territories, professional bodies and the public, largely concur with the view that long COVID presents health management and sociological challenges to Australian society (conspicuously, the Queensland Government has a somewhat different perspective, attributing long COVID to a predominantly nocebo effect7).
...
Long COVID is a heterogeneous disease with variable cardiac, pulmonary, haematological and neurological involvement in which investigation of patient-reported symptoms is frequently unremarkable. Long COVID’s overlap with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, postural orthopaedic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and other post-viral manifestations8 predisposes to a diagnosis by exclusion.9,10
...
Often unable to secure a diagnosis, patients are wont to seek multiple serial medical opinions, frequently being told their condition is due to anxiety or post-pandemic mental issues.8

The median duration of long COVID symptoms is five months, but 10% of patients still experience symptoms at 12 months.12 Fatigue, shortness of breath and difficulty concentrating are reported at least up to two years after SARS-CoV-2 infection.13 It is still too early to say whether some individuals with long COVID might never recover.
...
Those subscribing to long COVID digital support groups report months of frustration at not being listened to, finding the health system woefully inadequate, with few primary or secondary care professionals knowing enough to offer much. The outcome for some of those experiencing long COVID is self-prescribed medication using over-the-counter remedies and dietary changes16 based on potentially conflicting or misleading online information.17 Some speak of a substantial proportion of their income being used in this way.4

Meanwhile, jobs, careers, incomes, community involvements, friendships, relationships, hope for a recovery and mental health are being destroyed. Those experiencing long COVID report that the long COVID digital support group is the ‘… only place they feel safe to share, the only place they feel understood, accepted, [and] supported’.4

One in five of those experiencing long COVID in the UK stopped working and was not back to work six months after disease onset.18 In Australia, an estimated 240,000 of those with long COVID no longer work full time.4 Work absenteeism might significantly impact the nation’s economy, as in the UK.19 In the US, long COVID has been declared a national emergency.20
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Maybe it's the brain fog, but I can't see anything at all in the article that justifies the headline.
 
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There is a severe patient in Australia who appears to be in distress. I don't think I've seen it mentioned yet, and she seems to be getting no help. I'm not sure what can be done here. Anyone has any ideas?
This article took a year to finish. I had no energy for anything but survival & am traumatised. Is this my life? Yes it is. It’s just a small part of much worse.
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Legitimately don’t know what to do anymore. I’ll keep asking for help until I’m dead and then I’ll be just another #SevereME patient that could have been saved but wasn’t because… … … … ? Somebody else will do it?
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https://twitter.com/user/status/1790826404067840225
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