The long covid bandwagon goes round the bend [30/10/24]

THE long covid saga, often featured in these pages, has entered a new phase. Lest we had forgotten about long covid, the Long Covid SOS organisation is there to make sure we don’t.

The soporific proceedings of the Covid-19 Inquiry, having skipped over such things as the complete ineffectiveness of the vaccines and their life-threatening side effects, is on the verge of considering long Covid. And Long Covid SOS are going to make the best of it.

Last Friday, October 25, an unsolicited email arrived from Catarina Walsh (catarina@longcovidsos.org). Given that the information was ‘Embargoed until 00:01 Monday 28th’ Catarina had clearly not read my articles in TCW. The email was headed (their capitals) ‘LONG COVID SOS CALLS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH ACTION AS 60% AWARE OF THE IMPACT OF LONG COVID’. Frankly, given the publicity that long covid has been given I was surprised that the number was as low as 60 per cent. Catarina and her baying mob of alarmists at Long Covid SOS have not been doing their job.

The title of the email is, of course, a complete medical and epidemiological non-sequitur, and this was compounded by the following:

• 60 per cent of Britons know that ‘everybody, of any age, no matter how many times they have had Covid’ can get Long Covid;
• 55 per cent are aware that Long Covid ‘can limit day-to-day activities such as working, travelling, self-care, social activities’; 
• One in three people personally know someone with the condition;
• A quarter of Britons are concerned about Long Covid, while 4 per cent are currently suffering from it. Six per cent believe they may have the condition but aren’t sure;
• Various demographic groups show greater lack of awareness or scepticism towards the condition.

SOS, as we will refer to them from this point on, are not stupid. They understand most people will not read the above in detail. All the average reader will see is ‘long Covid’ and a bunch of numbers which, without delving into the details, will suggest to them that the situation regarding long covid is serious. Imagine the ‘Chinese whispers’ effect well down the line after a few chattering-class dinners where the message is conveyed verbally. Before long we will be hearing that 60 per cent of people have long covid, 55 per cent of those die and one in three are at risk. Something like that. However, a careful read of the above by anyone of modest intelligence will evoke the reaction ‘so what?’

So what if 60 per cent of Britons know that ‘everybody, of any age, no matter how many times they have had Covid’ can get long covid? It is likely that 60 per cent of Britons know that Jews, Gypsies and Roman Catholics were in mortal danger when Hitler was at the helm in Germany. That does not mean they are fascists.

‘One in three people personally know someone with the condition’ means that I, my family and all my colleagues must be in the majority. That said, I did meet someone recently who thought that they might have had long covid. But I once thought I had prostate cancer; turned out I didn’t.

The fourth bullet point could have come straight from the stage at Comedy Unleashed. ‘A quarter of Britons are concerned about Long Covid, while 4 per cent are currently suffering from it. Six per cent believe they may have the condition but aren’t sure.’ Surely 4 per cent kind of puts things in perspective, given that the differential diagnosis of long covid from any other post-viral syndrome, feeling a bit ‘icky’ or abject idleness is virtually impossible. I was also surprised, given the hysteria that organisations such as SOS whip up, that only 6 per cent believed they had it but were not sure.

As for the ‘various groups’ which show ‘scepticism’, I am proud to be a founding member. Further down the email it says: ‘Only 7 per cent of people believe Long Covid isn’t a real medical condition.’ Again, I must express surprise that it is as many as 7 per cent. I thought I was a member of a much more elite group.

Naturally, to pull at the proverbial heartstrings, there is a personal story from Jennie in Essex who claims her daughter Amie’s childhood has been ‘stolen’ by long covid. I have every sympathy for Jennie and her daughter if her daughter has some chronic and unexplained fatigue-inducing condition, but I would have thought it more likely that lockdown and social distancing stole her daughter’s childhood. Things got so bad for Jennie’s poor daughter that she was referred to a paediatrician who ‘finally’ told them that her condition ‘seemed to be pointing to Long Covid’. So, maybe not long covid then?

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