As Queen sang it: This is the real life.. no escape from reality

The term 'recovery' reminds me of the 'survivor' word - often used for leukaemia/cancer.

That survival, by (medical) definition means 'still alive after five years' Not necessarily happy, fit and well - merely alive!

Like you, coastiepostie, I am not happy with the definition of 'recovery' in relation to covid sufferers.

Our next door neighbour was seriously ill in hospital with Covid for three months, but is now finally home again.
I presume that means that she appears in the statistics as 'recovered".

In reality, she is far from recovered - she can still do almost nothing for herself (two weeks before discharge, she couldn't even hold the phone to her own ear when her family phoned her), and her OH is having to take a year off work to care for her.

Not my idea of recovered!

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

We should not forget that many long covid sufferers are young, previously healthy people. No-one should be taking risks with this virus. It is dicing with death.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Covid19 is a very nasty illness. I am able to keep myself safe but my family can't as they work in nursing and teaching and have children at school who could become infected. I worry about them as I have heard of long covid and what it can do.

coastiepostie wishing you well.

I wish you all the very best coastiepostie. May you make a steady improvement back to good health.

Thank you for taking the trouble to clearly set out all the help and information you could pass on, and I realise that the effort to do this must have taken a lot of your precious mental energy.

I hope that your post is taken to heart by all those who would rather put their own desires first before thinking things through.

Thank you.

Thank you Coastie for sharing your experience, it sounds horrific

Re Long Covid, no one knows how long those people will suffer the symptoms. It has already been months, it could be years. I have had M.E. for 31 years after my husband and I both caught a nasty virus with no name .... he got better, and I never did.

Whether 60,000 is a monority surely depends on how many people have had Covid? and we don't know that, since there was no testing initially. Whatever, it's certainly not a trivial number.

I believe the long-term symptoms may be related to a cytokine storm where the body goes into overdrive and causes inflammation?

About 60,000 people in the UK are suffering from Long-covid, we call ourselves longhaulers. I am no longer able to do the job I did before I contracted covid. I tried to go back to work and was unable to think: I lost memory both long and short-term

JenniferEccles I don't think you can call 60,000 "a minority".

coastiepostie I do hope you do make a complete recovery.

Just out of interest, do you have any views on how long this virus has been over here in the UK.
There was a news item a little while ago which has hardly been mentioned about a man who died at the end of January from pneumonia. They did some tests on remaining tissue from the post mortem and found that there was COVID in his lung tissue. His daughter had had a virus prior to Christmas and she says that he caught the illness from her.

This awful scaremongering is not at all helpful.

Do you really believe the whole medical profession is lying when they have stressed throughout this pandemic that the vast majority of people who catch the virus have very mild symptoms and make a complete recovery ?

Yes of course some very elderly frail people will sadly die just as they do with flu.

In addition, a very few will have problems for a few months after, but there again they are very much in the minority.

Threads like this are scaremongering at its worst.

My favourite book Izabella...it helps when times are tough..

Masks and social distancing when and if you have to go out, plus hand washing/sanitising. Otherwise at home, no mixing, no cuddles with DGC, that’s all we can do and we can only be responsible for our own behaviour. After that it’s in the lap of the gods.

Coastiepostie, well done!

I wonder if long covid is due to secondary infections with more familiar pathogens perhaps bacteria.

It's well known people who had acute viral illnesses need long times to convalesce.

Thanks for posting, coastiepostie, and I’m sorry that you’ve had personal experience of this.

Since the virus first appeared, I’ve been wondering about the post-viral situation to come. We have close family experience of hideous, life-changing post viral fatigue and pain over many years. It is a horrible thing, made more difficult by lack of support from unbelieving medics and the wider community.

I wish you, and everyone else affected by this, well.

Thank you, coastie, for giving us the unvarnished truth about Long Covid.
I wonder if the old myth about its being just a kind of flu has not worn itself out by now. Is it possible that, if the virus was tackled with antivirals as soon as it was diagnosed, it might be stopped in its tracks? I think that is what Trumps medics are trying to do. How many people, shortly after a positive test are treated with Remdesivir which is what Trump has received even before admission to hospital - if the reports are accurate.
The point that I'm making is that, now that the long-term effects of Covid are becoming all too well-known, should we not be taking the initial symptoms as a warning of what might be to come and begin anti-viral treatment from the start?

Thank you, Coastie, it sounds really horrific! Hope you are feeling better now.

coastie
Thank you for your very informative post. I read it last night just before I went to sleep and decided to defer responding until the morning. Unfortunately more information is emerging about ‘long Covid’ and it’s not good information. Of course we know that the greater majority who contract Covid19 will get over it in one to two weeks, and some won’t even know they’ve had it. However those who get it badly, and then proceed to Long Covid, will be affected for months, perhaps forever. We still don’t know enough about this disease and how people get on years later because it’s such a new disease. Please God we get a vaccine soon.

How are you faring now coastie? Keep us updated with your recovery.

annsixty, people everywhere will always convert/edit the facts to suit them. It's human nature, we're selfish.

They forget, ignore or deny anything that's inconvenient to their personal plans. You'd think the rules and guidelines were a pic'n'mix!

Dorsetcupcake61, spot on. The messages we get from the government are carefully selected, never the full, complete truth.

The last thing they want to recognise is the possibility of long Covid, frail and disabled survivors - not when the pension and disability benefit costs have just been reduced!

Thank you for pointing out the stark reality.
I don’t expect the mindless partying animals, out every Saturday night regardless to read and absorb it but I do live in hope that the University students who are doing pretty much the same have the intelligence to do so if it were part of their introduction to University life.
That is very snobbish and critical of me I realise but I happen to believe it is true.

Context: research recently found that droplet nuclei released by speaking loudly are of sufficient size and remain airborne long enough to be inhaled by others and trigger a new SARS-CoV2 infection - hence the continued requirement for masks and social distancing if anyone is in any doubt (Standnytski et al 2020). (Spelling may be incorrect - sorry)

(From a note I wrote the other day)

Lovely picture Izabella.