Endemic Covid Means Widespread Disability
Some die, but far more are diminished for life.
Covid kills, but not everyone. Those who seek to minimize it talk about the relatively low death rate as if everyone who catches the disease and doesn’t die is barely inconvenienced. The more time passes, the more it becomes clear that that which does not kill you can easily leave you diminished thereafter.
The coronavirus is tricky. At first it was imagined to be simply a respiratory infection, before we came to understand that through ACE2 receptors, the virus could attack various organ systems, expressing itself differently in different cases. Then we observed that it could also impact immune systems directly, leading in some cases to a dangerous cytokine storm which turned the body’s immune system against itself. That changed the game of predicting who was at greatest risk, since factors like age played no role in predicting who might be succeptible. In year three of the pandemic, ever more long term impacts that can plague survivors of an infection are becoming clear. Even mild cases can have serious long term effects which aren’t immediately apparent, like a booby trap set for you to stumble into later.
As various governments surrender to the disease, eliminating public health measures to just let it rip through the population, we can…
