When covid came along, the consensus among politicians seemed to be that we had to prioritise the economy, and never mind if it made millions of people sick.
How's that working out for the economy?
#BenefitCuts #SicknessBenefits #DisabilityBenefits #LongTermSickness #Covid19 #LongCovid
Today is #LongCovidAwarenessDay.
Tomorrow marks 5 years since I got sick. As a patient, you often need to stay focused in the present, adapting your days and life accordingly, but it does happen that you reflect on how different life looks now compared to then. On days like this, it feels like a good opportunity to share a bit and truly show how this virus affects people, especially to raise awareness about long COVID/post-COVID. So here are some info in bullet points:
• As a freelance musician, it was uncommon for me to be home for more than some weeks at a time – Now it can take weeks before I even get outside my door.
• I used to travel around the world with my double bass – Now it’s myself that I roll around (wheelchair indoors, electric wheelchair outdoors).
• Throughout my life, I have worked in care and taking care of people – Now I am the one who needs home-care and assistance.
• I used to be quite an extreme omnivore (as some can attest to🙃) – Now I can count the foods/ingredients I can tolerate on both hands.
• Before I got sick, I was classified as overweight according to BMI – Now I struggle to stay just above the underweight line.
• Mobility aids, vasodilator medication, home care, and senior discounts were probably not on my "bucket list" to check off before I turned 40 – But I managed to check them all off.
• I did have some medications before I got COVID, but now I have 15(!) different medications to help me stay relatively stable from symptoms related to my heart, lungs/airways, digestive issues, to counteract allergic reactions, and to assist with mental and physical stamina.
• I rarely needed to rest to get through the days – Now entire days are dedicated to resting and maintaining a routine to manage some simple tasks, things that were previously taken for granted and not even considered strenuous.
• It didn’t go many days without me playing the double bass – After trying a bit in the first half of the year I got sick, I can now count on one hand how many times I’ve even plucked a few notes on it since then.
• Playing concerts and attending colleagues' concerts was a big part of my life, both professionally and socially – The number of concerts I’ve attended in the last 5 years can also be counted on one hand.
• I used to experiment a bit with sinewaves and psychoacoustics – Now it’s the tinnitus in my head that provides the sinewaves.
• I used to find it relatively hard to motivate myself to exercise regularly – Now I would do anything just for my body to respond normally to even the smallest, simplest movement exercises (For those who don’t know, I tried various kinds of "training" in the first 3 years, but despite adjustments and very light exercises while lying down, I eventually had to realize that it just makes me worse).
"You have to be healthy to be able to endure being sick," was a phrase I had heard before I got sick, but I didn’t really understand its meaning until I experienced how you have to fight for everything (And I had no direct "illusions" about how healthcare works, due to experience both professionally and through family).
I want to reiterate that this text is mainly to show how different the worlds then and now are. I am "used" to how my situation looks and live accordingly. I often describe my situation as "fairly stable at a very low level."
I also want to add that I am truly not alone. Fresh statistics from the swedish polling institute SIFO today show that over 280,000 people are estimated to have post-COVID in Sweden. Since it is an umbrella diagnosis, the disease picture varies for many. But the idea that it’s just a bit of "lingering symptoms" is really not true, and I know (unfortunately) several people who have significantly worsened recently, 5 years into their illness, and who have had to be hospitalized lately.
We need to take this more seriously!
Do you feel like you want to do something for us with Post-COVID?
If you live in Sweden, Please consider donating to the Swedish COVID Association (Svenska Covidföreningen), which does an absolutely ENORMOUS job.
Swish: 123 217 81 35
If you live somewhere else, find relevant patient organisations and advocacys in your are to connect with and support.
Do you feel you can do more? Email a political decision-maker, try to influence in various ways. Spread information and knowledge! Etc., etc.
Thank you to those who took the time to read this post! 🙏♥️
#postcovid
#longcovidawarerness
#longcovid
#disabillity
#longtermsickness
@longcovid
And if the government is really concerned about ill health keeping people off work, how about making covid vaccine boosters available on the NHS for people of working age?
And generally stop pretending that covid isn't a thing any more?
#Covid19 #CovidIsNotOver #LongCovid #LongTermSickness #CovidBoosters
I'm not convinced that #Starmer understands what "long term sickness" actually means.
Once again, we see that politicians' "tough decisions" are only tough for the disadvantaged, never for the privileged classes.
"The number of people saying they are inactive due to #longTermSickness is now 2.8 million – an increase of more than 200,000 in the past year and of 700,000 since the #pandemic started in 2020."
Record #LongTermSickness bodes ill for #UK #EconomicGrowth
Years of #austerity, followed by #Covid19, have left #Britain with an unhealthy #workers and #businesses struggling to recruit, but the road to recovery, of all kinds, will be long
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/17/record-long-term-sickness-bodes-ill-for-uk-economic-growth
#ToryPoliciesInAction #Health #IdeologyBeforeHealth
#IdeologyBeforeEconomy
One of the hidden costs of #longtermsickness & the crisis in #socialcare is the toll it takes on in-work #carers trying to balance #work & care, with many employers not knowing how extensive the issue is.
#workingfromhome has helped #workers (where they are able) better balance caring with be 'present' for work.
While, as FT notes today, the first step to helping such employees navigate this situation, is to know about it, how many will trust their bosses not to uses such info against them?
Unsurprisingly, as #JeremyHunt thinks absence from the labour market due to #longtermsickness is the major underlying cause of shortages of #workers, the #Tories are looking to reform work capability assessments so as to 'encourage' more of the long term sick back into work;
they think this is helping people who aspire to get back to work to find appropriate work, critics see this as a vindictive targeting of the vulnerable.
Given the #Tories moral record, I'll leave you to decide which?
Q. what do #mentalhealth related #school absences & #longtermsickness have in common?
Both (in part) suggest our society is dysfunctional for an increasing proportion of our population.
Certainly there are immediate causes (from exam related stress to long #waitinglists), but what both trends reveal is a system that puts (further) pressure on the absentees & sees them as the problem, not the system itself.
Rather we need to see our social structures & practices as the underlying cause(s)!
Adam Jacobs 🇺🇦
Johan Moir (Friendica)
Corrosive Dream
SubtleBlade ⚔️
Emeritus Prof Christopher May