|
|
|
|
|
|
by Wintamute
1929 days ago
|
|
|
I'm just going to throw this out there as a discussion point - consider for a moment what an unusually high number of people are catching the same disease at the same time. Not just feeling unwell with some sort of unspecified cold or flu, but all being confirmed tested positive with something specific. 30 million in the US and counting. How many people amongst that 30 million would go on to experience any number of nebulous, chronic symptoms of one kind of another normally this year in the absence of Covid? In my assessment, a great many would. If not millions, then hundreds of thousands. Experiencing health problems, or odd symptoms that come and go can be scary, but it's a normal part of life. But throw in a label "long covid", support groups and a heightened sense of threat during a pandemic and you have a recipe for a confused social response. Now, post viral syndrome is certainly real. Inflammation due to infection causes real and debilitating symptoms. But is there any evidence to suggest that SARS-COV-2 is uniquely able to cause long term health problems? Or is it the case that it causes unexceptional levels of post viral syndrome and inflammatory damage, but the unusal thing is so many people all catching the same virus at the same time with a very low level of natural immunity in the population, therefore a relativelyt high rate of serious infection (relative to other endemic viruses)? |
|
|
I do suppose some research is warranted though. It seems different viruses seem to cause different types of autoimmune responses, and it would be interesting to see what COVID can cause. Plus more research needs to be done on the link between viruses and autoimmune diseases in general.