Some thoughts from a guy who's tracked more than 2,500 studies on #COVID19's chronic impact:
- I naively thought this would be a short-term project and that once the long-term risks were clear, people would take COVID seriously.
- I didn't expect risks of Long COVID to accumulate with each infection as they do. I thought LC might decline over time.
- It's depressing to see how quickly we knew of COVID's chronic harm--early studies were published in 2020/21, and we ignored them.
1/3
- I thought we might learn of COVID's impact on cancer risks more quickly, but this takes a lot of time and study to understand.
- I had no idea when I started of the breadth of harm COVID might cause. My spreadsheet has tabs for cardiovascular, brain/neuro, cancer, immune, pregnancy, and other. I could've had tabs for pulmonary, fatigue, cognitive issues, psych issues, and reproductive system risks and filled those with dozens of studies. (They are all in the "other" category.)
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- I never thought I'd need a tab for pediatric studies, but there are several dozen of those that have been published. (Studies of COVID in kids are scattered in other tabs.)
- Reading this many studies makes it easier to be COVID cautious, but it's still not easy. I see my friends doing things I want to do and going places I want to go. They don't understand the risks they're accepting, but it sure looks like fun to pretend everything is normal.
Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12VbMkvqUF9eSggJsdsFEjKs5x0ABxQJi5tvfzJIDd3U/edit?usp=sharing
Back in the 1800s, English people used to send their babies to baby farms. Not having to nurse helped the mother recover faster, so she could return to her usual chores, and besides it wasn't acceptable for the husband to ask for sex until the baby was weaned. So let's wean it right away, so much more convenient!
And 'baby farming' was a way poorer women, in the country, could make money doing feminine work. So it was fine.
The babies almost all died. There was no formula, and giving them bread-in-water was much cheaper than hiring wet-nurses.
Babies with their mothers died sometimes, but baby farms had a sky-high death rate.
Everyone knew. Everyone pretended they didn't know. It would be so inconvenient to keep babies at home. They just said, "How tragic."
That cured me of believing people when they talk about "protecting children".
@3TomatoesShort @LoganFive @augieray well, I know about the risks. But I can't keep constantly reading about them (also my therapist advised against it), because I can't really avoid them. I have to send the kids to school (no home schooling options in Germany). They will get infected there.
It's like reading about horrible traffic accidents all day while your kids need to learn how to navigate traffic and ride their bikes anyway. Parents need to compartmentalize in order to keep sane.
Augie Ray
Logan Five Thousand
WearyBonnie
Kathmandu
Miss Megaphon