Pandemics Don't Stop Causing Damage Even When The Disease Goes Away

[appalachiablue]

- Health care workers conducting rounds within an ICU filled with COVID-19 patients.
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- Daily Kos, Jan. 26, 2022. Ed. - An infectious disease places an enormous strain on the body. -

“Sequela” is a word that few Americans recognize today. Unfortunately, it’s a word that is much more likely to become familiar over the next few years… even decades. A sequela is a long-term pathological effect resulting from exposure to a disease. When the pandemic ends, the damage is not going to be over. There's often a tendency in the media- and in social media- to try to frame the damage of COVID-19 to an either-or situation. Someone gets sick for a few days, and they either recover and are fine, or they die and count among the ever-growing total deaths.

It’s that sort of all-or-nothing approach that allows people to say things like, “Well, the survival rate is 99.9%, so …” Add more nines to the end of that number, depending on how many right-wing news programs you watch. Nationally, the actual survival rate is something closer to 98.8%, but that’s not the point. Studies have already indicated that 43% of those who have had at least one symptomatic COVID-19 infection tend to have issues that persist over an extended period. For those who have required hospitalization, the number jumps to 57%. In the U.S. alone, that’s something over 15 million people who are now suffering protracted illness due to a single, nonlethal infection from COVID-19.

Those with these persistent symptoms aren’t really going through a never-ending infection with SARS-CoV-2. “Long COVID” is a sequela- long-term pathological effect resulting from exposure to COVID-19. For some of these 15 million, the damage is minor & transient. For others, it is debilitating & possibly lifelong. Many sequelae aren’t obvious. They may not show up for years. The long-term effects of an infection are difficult to predict. Mumps is a viral infection that’s mostly focused on the salivary glands. Main symptoms include pain on the sides of the face, difficulty swallowing, fever, headache, & fatigue. Mumps can also cause temporary or permanent hearing loss. The loss can subtle or severe. It can affect one ear. It can affect both.

The hearing loss can onset at the same time as other symptoms of the disease, or it may not appear until months after other symptoms have passed. Shingles may be one of the best-known sequela. Unusual in that it represents a continuous infection of the herpes zoster virus over a period of years or decades, shingles can even produce its own sequela in the form of postherpetic neuralgia: debilitating pain that persists for months or years after the typical shingles rash has disappeared. Highly infectious measles is primarily a viral infection of the respiratory system. It can also generate horrific damage to the central nervous system...

- More + Comments,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/1/26/2076936/-Pandemics-don-t-stop-causing-damage-even-when-the-disease-goes-away

[DBoon]

1. look at post-polio syndrome

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an infectious viral disease that can strike at any age and affects a person's nervous system. Post-polio syndrome (PPS) is a non-contagious condition that can affect polio survivors usually 15 to 40 years after recovery from polio. Only a polio survivor can develop PPS, it is not contagious.

Most often, polio survivors start to experience gradual new weakening in muscles that were previously affected by the polio infection. Some individuals experience only minor symptoms while others develop visible muscle weakness and atrophy. A person who was more acutely affected by polio and who attained a greater recovery may experience a more severe case of PPS.

Symptoms include:

slowly progressive muscle weakness
fatigue
a gradual decrease in the size of muscles (muscle atrophy)
loss of muscle function
pain from joint degeneration and increasing skeletal deformities such as curvature of the spine (scoliosis)

PPS is rarely life-threatening, but the symptoms can significantly interfere with an individual's ability to function independently. Respiratory muscle weakness, for instance, can result in trouble with proper breathing, affecting daytime functions and sleep. Weakness in swallowing muscles can result in aspiration of food and liquids into the lungs and lead to pneumonia.

https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Fact-Sheets/Post-Polio-Syndrome-Fact-Sheet

Are we going to find people disabled 15 to 40 years in the future from their exposure to Covid? Maybe someone who had a seemingly mild case of Covid in their 20s will have serious respiratory or neurological symptoms appear in middle age?

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. I am wondering about a post-COVID world.

The Trump Anti-vaxxer / Anti-socialist has to land somewhere, to continue to be a complete asshole and give his /her life meaning.

[dweller]

3. Is there a connection between shingles and mumps ?

Shingles is caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV), the same virus that causes chickenpox. After a person recovers from chickenpox, the virus stays dormant (inactive) in their body. The virus can reactivate later, causing shingles. Most people who develop shingles have only one episode during their lifetime.

Now mumps can cause it?
🤔


✌🏻

[dweller]

6. It's the way it's written

I’ve just misread

✌🏻

[appalachiablue]

7. No prob. I've l read of young people already

inquiring about the possibility of future health impacts from Covid infection, the sad reality with some viral pandemics. I'm due for the shingles shots, gotta do it, spring.

[llashram]

4. and dump caused this

with his ignorance and abject stupidity.