News about Long Covid including its relationship to ME/CFS 2020 to 2021

The wheel has suffered from over invention for so long ....

 

I have no idea why medical unions are blamed here for something that 100% of institutions are failing at. I mean, sure, technically medical unions have a unique responsibility here but it's not to their members but are the duties of the profession, which they are 100% failing at and don't seem the least bit concerned with.


Unions guilty of a 'moral failure' in poor support for staff with long covid
https://www.hsj.co.uk/expert-briefi...ort-for-staff-with-long-covid/7031271.article

Few people outside of here understand why this physician chose to remain anonymous:

An HSJ reader commenting on the story quite rightly pointed out that many other NHS and care staff have developed long covid and are continuing to suffer. Described to me by a doctor this week as an ‘occupational disease’, it is continuing to cause huge, and in some cases, permanent, health problems for many people.

I have been approached by multiple NHS workers over recent weeks who have described the dreadful impact long covid has had on their health and also their working lives.

One, a doctor working in an NHS trust who wished to remain anonymous, described how they have been signed off work for 18 months and are still really unwell and not sure when they will be able to return.

“My lungs have been badly affected by covid so I still need prescribed oxygen, plus I also developed heart, gastric, neurological and chronic fatigue problems,” they said.

The doctor described how after encountering a lack of support from their trust they turned to three unions for support, but were told they would not be supported as long covid is considered a “pre-existing issue”.​

Just for themselves, though. Screw the rest, I guess, not their problem or anything like that:

He added the BMA is pushing for long-covid to be classed as an occupation disease and lobbying for a compensation scheme.
...
According to the ONS, over 100,000 NHS staff are thought to be suffering from long covid. This issue is not going away, and NHS Employers and unions have a duty to support staff and help them return to work. The service has a pragmatic, as well as a moral, duty to support those with long covid, it can ill afford to lose any staff at this time of unprecedented pressure. ​

This is how people discover that a "moral duty" doesn't mean jack squat, not even in medicine. Or even a duty, which is a very flexible term filled to the brim with terms and conditions.

 

The awful video where TC interpreted PEM as health anxiety in l9ng covid has been taken down

https://twitter.com/user/status/1459632130582097922

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1459791139431661575

 

If covid is here to stay, the long covid is until we solve it, that and other post viral conditions.

In February the JCVI said that the likely endpoint for the vaccine programme was endemicity (.26 in the minutes, screenshot attached) and that preventing severe disease is the goal.

I get the impression that the medical profession don't consider severe fatigue to be severe disease and JCVI probably mean they want want prevent hospitalisation but have not put a thought thought preventing long term morbidity. Maybe they should start specifying that so that it's undeniable.

 

Such a sad thread .
Nothing learned at all.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1459900989276884995

 

Understanding Long COVID: The Unseen Public Health Crisis
November 19 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/event/understanding-long-covid-the-unseen-public-health-crisis/

Many familiar names:

Introduction

Michelle Williams, Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Angelopoulos Professor in Public Health and International Development, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Kennedy School (@HarvardChanDean)


Panelists

Hannah Davis, Founder, Patient-Led Research Collaborative (@ahandvanish)

Wes Ely, Co-Director, Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship Center, Vanderbilt University (@WesElyMD)

Gary Gibbons, Director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Kavita Patel, Nonresident Fellow, Brookings Institution (@kavitapmd)

Steven Phillips, Vice President, Science and Strategy, COVID Collaborative
Moderator

Fiona Lowenstein, Journalist and Speaker; Founder, Body Politic (@fi_lowenstein)​

 

Would be interesting if someone looked into this. Of course this was predictable but since it's a private industry it all happens with extra secrecy.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1460372756160147459

 

It's a genuine fact that the word has been so thoroughly distorted of all meaning that it's effectively useless going forward. It's not something that can be improved, it would take too long and be too confusing, not even counting how many would simply refuse to adapt. The psychiatrists who cried fatigue keep crying it but since they call everything fatigue it doesn't mean anything anymore and the wolf has just eaten millions of lives while no one was looking.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1460697070608732169

 

I'm not sure where to ask this question, so if this isn't the right place, please feel free to move. My husband has just been diagnosed with Long Covid. But she asked him should she refer him to the ME/CFS clinic or the long covid clinic. She suggested the CFS clinic would give him more tests and a chance to get better whereas the Covid clinic is just about managing the condition. He said because he can already 'manage' it, the CFS clinic is fine as he wants to get better. Does it matter which he is referred to does anyone know? Sounds a bit fishy as if he has long covid, would expect him to be transferred to long covid clinic? Thanks.

 

I thought that. Now sent request through stating preference of covid clinic so hopefully he can check that out first and then to a ME/CFS clinic if needed, if GP permits. Thanks.

 

Thanks, Trish. This is our thinking too, so have asked for a referral to the Long Covid clinic. He had an odd spirometry test experience in that he was told to breathe in through the machine, normally and rapidly with just a thin white nylon filter separating the machine and the mouthpiece and was a bit concerned about the hygiene of this. Nurse didn't let him take in a full breath either so not clear on how this is supposed to measure lung capacity. I can't find any reference to patients being asked to breathe in through the machine? Is this normal? Also, the ear thermometer wasn't cleaned before hand or after and was just put back in the holster!