When I think back to 2019/2020 and the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the mystery I remember most is the question of how COVID spreads. It makes sense from a practical standpoint. Knowing—or really not knowing how COVID spreads meant that we were dealing with an apparent threat without knowing how we would actually encounter said threat. So in that context, wiping down groceries made sense.
But of course, there’s the other question: what actually was the threat of COVID. At the time, the consequences were about the immense numbers of hospitalizations and deaths, which added to the sense of urgency around all of our mitigation efforts. But now, with years separating us from the origins of the pandemic, there are the longer term consequences that have become far more apparent, particularly around Long COVID.
For this episode of Tiny Matters, we dove into what we know and don’t know about Long COVID. We talked to a patient about her difficult experience navigating what was happening to her, a journalist who recently wrote a book about Long COVID, and a researcher with more insight into the conditions surrounding Long COVID. Learning about Long COVID means learning about chronic illness in general, so I’m glad we got to talk to people about the many complicated aspects of what it means to deal with conditions that can be so challenging to get good treatment for.
