Hi Everyone!
As always, we ask that in order to participate in the weekly megathread, one self-identifies as some form of disabled, which is broadly defined in the community sidebar:
"Disability" is an umbrella term which encompasses physical disabilities, emotional/psychiatric disabilities, neurodivergence, intellectual/developmental disabilities, sensory disabilities, invisible disabilities, and more. You do not have to have an official diagnosis to consider yourself disabled.
Alright, with that out of the way, let's talk about COVID-19, specifically the kind that messes with you for long time, possibly forever! <-- (so fun /s)
From the Wikipedia Page on Long COVID:
Long COVID or long-haul COVID is a group of health problems persisting or developing after an initial period of COVID-19 infection. Symptoms can last weeks, months or years and are often debilitating. The World Health Organization defines long COVID as starting three months after the initial COVID-19 infection, but other agencies define it as starting at four weeks after the initial infection.
Long COVID is characterized by a large number of symptoms that sometimes disappear and then reappear. Commonly reported symptoms of long COVID are fatigue, memory problems, shortness of breath, and sleep disorder. Several other symptoms, including headaches, mental health issues, initial loss of smell or taste, muscle weakness, fever, and cognitive dysfunction may also present. Symptoms often get worse after mental or physical effort, a process called post-exertional malaise. There is a large overlap in symptoms with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).
The causes of long COVID are not yet fully understood. Hypotheses include lasting damage to organs and blood vessels, problems with blood clotting, neurological dysfunction, persistent virus or a reactivation of latent viruses and autoimmunity. Diagnosis of long COVID is based on (suspected or confirmed) COVID-19 infection or symptoms—and by excluding alternative diagnoses.
As of 2024, the prevalence of long COVID is estimated to be about 6-7% in adults, and about 1% in children. Prevalence is less after vaccination. Risk factors are higher age, female sex, having asthma, and a more severe initial COVID-19 infection. As of 2023, there are no validated effective treatments. Management of long COVID depends on symptoms. Rest is recommended for fatigue and pacing for post-exertional malaise. People with severe symptoms or those who were in intensive care may require care from a team of specialists. Most people with symptoms at 4 weeks recover by 12 weeks. Recovery is slower (or plateaus) for those still ill at 12 weeks. For a subset of people, for instance those meeting the criteria for ME/CFS, symptoms are expected to be lifelong.
Globally, over 400 million people have experienced long COVID.
Mask up, love one another, and stay alive for one more week.
bleh
I keep having this experience on this site, where I'll get pulled out of reality by people talking about going to cafés and gigs and whatnot like it's 2019. I feel like it just makes me grieve for all the things and people we lost since 2020 all over again every time. But not in some deep, meaningful or insightful way, more in a I'm-on-the-receiving-end-of-a-"fuck-you-got-mine" kinda way. I'm reaching a point where I feel like I've got to ask ppl to put up CWs for their reckless and careless behaviour. But am I just going mad? Is this a reasonable thing to do? What would the CW even be? "cw: covid related reckless behaviour"
But also it just seems like a prime way to get into heated discussions over covid, because the same covid denial that makes them not acknowledge the recklessness of their behaviour in a cw, is the exact same covid denial that allows them to "go back to normal" in the first place. And I don't have the spoons rn to be unpacking other people's nasty covid brain worms.
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I get this a lot and pretty much it just makes me stop looking at the site for some amount of time until I feel like I can stomach it...and then stop again once I can't, on repeat. It's not very fun, it's extremely alienating, and I also don't know what to do about it. I have an extremely pessimistic viewpoint on anything to do with this virus anymore and I wish I didn't. I inhabit such a vastly different world than even other disability-oriented spaces who, in my experience, are also minimizers. If people would do even the bare minimum to inspire confidence I could deal, but like...they don't. At all. At any socio-political stratum. It's terrifying. I wish I had anything better to say.
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Yeaah, I'm glad I'm not the only person with this experience. Just everywhere I go I feel like going out of my mind about this shit. I'm also very pessimistic, between this and the overwhelming racism on this site... I guess a good start is to have dedicated spaces for us like minded folk to chat to get enough of a culture going so it can stand in contrast with the wider site culture. But on the other hand, that just feels like one more way for us marginalised people to finally step up to the task and end our own oppression once and for all, while the "allies" are continuing as "normal", waiting for the marginalised folks to snap them out of their haze and educate them.