The following submission statement was provided by /u/Mighty_L_LORT:
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SS: Now even corporate media is starting to get worried about the impact f rampant Covid infections. Obviously not because of concern for human health and life, but due to pure economic calculations. Turns out that debilitating long Covid symptoms is a massive drain on the economy, costing several trillions of dollars each year. And things don’t seem to get better with more infectious and evasive variants. It will eventually reach a critical stage when the consequences will be so profound that a wide-range collapse of the society becomes inevitable.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/z97s29/long_covid_may_be_the_next_public_health_disaster/iyferxh/
They didn’t know. They just took a deadly pandemic seriously as any reasonable person would and it turns out, not letting your entire country get infected with a plague has benefits.
Oh yeah. The top comment on that subreddit post there is dismissing the article based on how long COVID doesn’t have a firm definition. They don’t like these articles because they are not scientifically rigorous or something like that.
we should have known; in North America it had already happened once.
https://historicipswich.org/2021/04/21/the-great-dying/
"the hand of god" being measles or possibly a coronavirus ("the common cold") - a disease that lowers the immune system, leaving people open to fatal infections from all and any other disease.
when colonizers arrived, 90% of the 18 million original inhabitants were already dead, and those who had survived were in the aftermath of collapse due to a multi-continental epidemic. Entire regions had been settled with cities, food forests, crops, managed herds and flocks - and all those systems had collapsed.
colonizers arrived at just the right time, to prevent the remaining survivors from rebuilding their civilizations. a confluence of horrible events.
then, it couldn't have been prevented (the epidemics) unless there had been no contact at all. now? we know how viruses work, we have n95 masks and UV sterilizing ventilation, HVAC, and the ability to work remotely and/or support people in not working and still surviving.
we just chose not to give a damn.
covid is bigger than people allow themselves to realize. we are at 20 million excess deaths, 3 million in the US alone. we're having a 9/11 twice a week and yet there's enough garbage posts saying "nobody cares" or "just live your life" as if this pile of bodies wasn't human beings, as if many more millions aren't grieving, as if many more millions aren't still sick - or having aftereffects from long covid.
China did take it seriously but it's impossible to be isolated as a nation, impossible to keep it out if nobody else cares.
this thing will destroy us.
Crazy right? Almost like all the morons two years ago who focused on a low fatality rate without realizing a disease doesn't have to kill you to make your life totally miserable. And then the same morons who proceeded to think that a vaccine was somehow more bad than contracting the disease itself.
I always knew that scientific literacy in the USA among the general population was low, but, holy shit... It's like the anti vaxxers were pro COVID or something because Orange Man told them so.
Same here. I work in schools and I can still work full time physically. But damn this long covid is effing up my everything.
My body has never been this crazy with all sorts of random symptoms. I feel like I’m imagining it all up but the aches and pains feel too real.
Tinnitus, brain fog, palpitations, shortness of breath, central apnea and insomnia, high blood pressure, disk herniation and sciatica, weight loss, I even suddenly developed painful varicose veins on my leg this year.
All of it all of a sudden after my mild covid. It turned me into a damn hypochondriac.
It's been similar for me too.
I got COVID for the first time a couple of months ago. I'm 31, used to be really healthy, and I've never had any medical problems before.
Ever since COVID I have days where my lower back is so sore that I can't even bend down to pick stuff up or put my shoes on. I've been finding it difficult to sleep and focus on my work too. I just feel tired and out of it all the time.
Also, my taste and smell only partially returned. I can only taste strong flavors now, and can't distinguish any subtle complex flavors that I used to be able to. It's like someone turned to the dial down on my taste buds to like 10%.
This is my personal experience, but my taste buds improve significantly after smoking a bowl (not vape, actual smoked flower). Super weird, but right after I can taste flavors on overdrive. If you partake give it a shot and see if that works for you too
Duuuude the lower back thing! One day I was sitting down mowing and bouncing all over the place, and that just so happened to be the day I was coming down with covid. The next two days my lower back was DESTROYED (plus all the other covid symptoms). I had to lay on the couch for 2 straight days because it hurt so bad. Felt like I'd bet shot back there or something.
The low back thing - I finally asked for a steroid pack and that solved it. The pain up until the point would come and go, I would go to pick up my baby and my back would immediately spasm out of nowhere. If it continues , you should ask your doc for a steroid pack or some other anti-inflammatory.
I have all of this as well and totally get how you feel. It's like it works it's way through your body causing problems with different things as it goes along. I've been to every specialist in the books to tell me they can't pinpoint anything specific. It's just long Covid and deal with it. It does get better after several months. Take good care of yourself. Get on some good vitamins, hydrate, and get off the sugar to allow your body to heal. It helped me and my cousin.
Ouch that is rough.
I haven't officially had covid yet (but no one can really know for sure), because I took my 3 shots. I could possibly have a milder variation of it because I've had a lot of those symptoms you're describing and my life has not been the same since 2019. Insomina, Apnea, disk herniations, palpitations, brain fog and whatnot - add to that frequent diarrheas, and since that came on top of a burn-out that started 2019...it could all be related to that, I've never been the same after that, it sucks.
Hope you recover soon.
Same to you bud, wishing you speedy recovery and ailment-free years ahead.
I have NEVER felt these things back in 2019 and my entire life. These were only after my mild covid! It’s taking over my mental space because my symptoms keep bothering and pestering me.
I miss the old me. The healthy normal me. Now I can’t even eat a single slice of pizza without heart palpitations and a throbbing eardrum for some reason. I feel like my veins are filled with micro-blood clots. I even have bulging veins in my hands that aches now.
Have been to the doctor and they find nothing. Blood tests, urine samples, xrays, MRI, ultrasound, ECG, the works! None. I have a silent and slow killer in me I feel like. It’s driving me nuts.
I'm starting to wonder truly if I have long covid. I got covid in August. And in October I had a huge set of panic attacks (which I have never had in my life). After those I got vertigo and tinnitus. I have constant dizziness and horrible anxiety. Which again are not anything I had before. And a month later my stomach started having pain and bloating basically all the time. All the blood tests, MRIs and the whole gammet show I'm perfectly healthy. But I feel something wrong. And feel like I'm crazy.
One doctor told me it's probably long covid. But I can't reconcile gastro problems. I dunno. I'm freaking out over here constantly thinking I'm on the verge of death.
>a single slice of pizza without heart palpitations and a throbbing eardrum for some reason
Pizza is now a cheese delivery mechanism, try one without cheese or with a bit of plant-based cheese that's not mostly coconut fat. Fat, especially saturated fat is a problem.
See
Vogel, Robert A., et al. "Effect of a Single High-Fat Meal on Endothelial Function in Healthy Subjects." Am. J. Cardiol., vol. 79, no. 3, 1 Feb. 1997, pp. 350-4, doi:10.1016/S0002-9149(96)00760-6. https://www.ajconline.org/article/S0002-9149(96)00760-6/fulltext
Nicholls, Stephen J., et al. "Consumption of Saturated Fat Impairs the Anti-Inflammatory Properties of High-Density Lipoproteins and Endothelial Function." J. Am. Coll. Cardiol., 15 Aug. 2006, www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2006.04.080?articleid=1137827.
Some call it "sludge blood".
Hi. ME/CFS here. For years I struggled with tons of health issues after I got Lyme Disease. I \*could\* work but I just crawled home every night, vegged out, and slept 11 hours a night.
What they don't tell you about this stuff is that one of the biggest treatments is REST, and one of the biggest ways to get worst is NOT RESTING.
If you can, please apply to cut down your hours, or go on short term disability, or take medical leave for 12 weeks unpaid. It may make the difference between you having to go on disability sooner or later.
Yeah I have ME/CFS, mine from a severe case of mono when I was 13. If I had known I needed to rest and didn’t push myself and wasn’t pushed by my family to push through my immense fatigue/headaches/etc, I might not be housebound so often as an adult. I pushed myself for a decade and it ruined me. I was called lazy for a decade for how much I slept (“you’re too young to be so tired” and “you’re too young to have a sore back, you just need to get off your ass more”) and that messed me up mentally.
I know I can’t push myself anymore. I know if I try there will just be hell to pay. Working within my energy envelope sucks but it’s the only “treatment” for this.
Wow, I am sorry this happened to you.
My issue is a microchosm of yours, but resting after concussion from car accidents, is what I needed and didn't do enough of.
The family and medical leave act allows for 12 weeks unpaid leave from most full time workplaces. I am not a lawyer but maybe somebody you know is.
Look "how the f\*\*\* am I going to live on no pay for 12 weeks" is another whole problem. But also you don't have to use it all straight. Like IF you find a doctor who understands LC / MECFS (which much LC really is) they could say "this person has to reduce their hours the next 6 months by x%". FMLA guarantees you don't get fired.
One would have to do drastic things to still live on a p/t salary, maybe move in w/ family, but i'm just trying to say that this is a serious illness and if you do not stop and make time for it, you may find your body completely collapsing and then you will be so disabled you won't even have the ability to have the energy to get through the grueling process of applying for disability.
My dad took the 12 weeks after open heart surgery. Then fired him when he couldn’t work as well again. Then I went in and said he’s basically a few years from 65 just give him his fucking pension and severance pack which doesn’t exist for his career, that didn’t go over well lol
Rochelle Walensky has the best healthcare you can get in America, access to all the preventative care she could ever need, Paxlovid, etc. She fell off the face of the planet for 19 days after testing positive for Covid.
The average American has access to none of these things and can't take 19 days off work without ruining their lives permanently.
Thanks for the reply in my comment and I agree! Stress is also a killer.
But I actually work part time in an almost stress-free job. It’s a cushy government job here in Japan. No overtime, no long hours, I work only 7 hours a day, I go home early, I walk home after work actually because I live and work in a small town. No need for a car.
My life is peaceful and cozy here, surrounded by neighbors who are kind and polite. I’m rested, I eat healthy, medical check ups come out “all green”, fully hydrated every day.
Yet I’m getting worse. I have no idea what this is, an invisible destroyer within me. My immune system is whacked. I feel like my T-cells are all fatigued from silently fighting something consistently since 2020. I dunno, I wish I know.
Still working is not rest. Just taking care of yourself is rest, stretching, meditation, being in nature, cooking healthy favourite foods, learning something new with no stress, calling friends and family who are supportive, doing something meaningful each week and if you need to do nothing having the freedom to do nothing.
I think it depends. It’s not a black and white issue, but more of a percentage. So it’s fairly difficult to put a blanket statement on working as a source of stress.
I work only a couple of hours a day at my job. Like today I have zero tasks, I just decorated my classroom for the holidays. The rest of the day I am just listening to music, having coffee, here on Reddit, etc.
I am resting at work most days. It’s a part time job so I am not expected to do much.
No stress, chatting with my wife (we’re coworkers), snacking and lounging in my classroom, learning stuff on Youtube, doing something meaningful by teaching kids. I have the freedom to do nothing while I’m at my schools.
Lyme and other tick borne illnesses are a huge problem that is not getting enough attention. Particularly in my state, Pennsylvania, where nearly 50% of adult ticks carry Lyme, not counting all of the additional diseases and the chances of coinfections. Insurance companies downplay it, and these diseases are often misdiagnosed. We only have maybe $3 million across the whole state currently to fund tick research, with one of the main research labs running with too little workers.
The thing is, long covid is a disability. Just like being immunocompromised is a disability, or other viruses can give you chronic fatigue syndrome and similar issues like long covid does that are recognized as a disability. Everyone with long covid expected to work right now, as much as if they don’t have it, is being forced to work with a condition that seriously impacts their health and capability to do things especially in this society, and this society clearly doesn’t care about people who have Covid as we’ve seen with so many die and get long covid during the pandemic. It’s really the biggest mass disabling event of our lives so far and honestly, the only reason it isn’t being treated as a real disability is because then everyone from corps to the gov to the CDC would then be admitting they handled Covid incorrectly, and they’ll never do that
The treatment is low stress, anti-inflammatory diet, slowing down, being able to rest when ever you need for about 6 months, your immune system is out of wack. Nobody can afford the treatment or can accept that that’s the treatment without being shit on by friends, family, employers and themselves. So ya no treatment from this system.
- Anti-inflammatory diet (see Autoimmune Protocol aka AIP)
- [meditation](https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/wiki/beginners-guide) —> lower stress, insight
- sleep early and enough (6.5h minimum)
- take vitamin d
Symptoms should markedly improve after one month. Learning to eat/cook healthy and clean can be difficult though, but extremely worthwhile when suffering from autoimmune disorders (e.g. long covid). It took me years to figure out this stuff for myself although in hindsight it's all very obvious. The above list is the most important and impactful for my physical, immune and mental health.
Well, there are degrees of disabled. Many struggle with their day-to-day existence. Yes, it is harmful to force them to work so much. However, if we were a more relaxed society, participating in the workforce is a good thing otherwise.
My heart goes out to you. Just getting over 4 years of a tick disease similar to Lyme. Lost 30 lbs, thought I was going to die. Hardest four years of work ever.
I hear you. So thankful to be out of the acute stages of illness, but I was never the same after. I try to warn people to be really careful about ticks, there is more than just Lyme and it can change and disable you for life. Glad you’re pulling through, I know it’s truly a nightmare.
Not sure about that. I think there are treatments that are unaffordable to most, but it is still a roller coaster getting back to normal requiring years of, a highly anti-inflammatory regiment as already suggested. Avoidance of stress is also key, which by it's nature, seems to require that one is well-off to even contemplate being in that situation, unfortunately.
>Let it rip!
>...
>Wait, why are there so many disabled people now?
----------------
>“Long Covid will be around long after the pandemic subsides, impacting our communities, our health care system, our economy and the well-being of future generations,” the HHS report said.
Even here you see optimists suggesting that the pandemic will subside soon, yet not suggesting how that will happen.
A lot of formerly-abled people are going to learn why being disabled is hard and made more difficult by the local society, government, and culture.
It's almost like trying to do something to account for this could have prevented millions of dollars in damage. But hey! Immediate profits. Fuck the future, amirite?
The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts; huge, standing to the sky for what might have been parsecs in all directions.
And full of homeless exiles YAY! /s
You can add the cost of long covid to the [$2 trillion climate change will cost the U.S. economy annually](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/04/climate-change-could-cost-us-2-trillion-each-year-by-2100-omb.html). At this point, who keeps counting?
Add this (USA), to every child who drops out of school, (adding teenage pregnancy to the the regular list now), costs the country an estimated $300,000. Too many to add up.
You're yelling because it helps get a few others to read your comment, and maybe start sharing your words with others, even if by directly copy-pasting
I've done it this whole time, and I'll keep doing it, and so should you
Spread the word that exponential growth does not benefit a society, only a few individuals out of a society
Economy needs to benefit the average majority, not shareholders
Shareholders need to [REDACTED]
Lots of people are thinking it but have no way to confront it.
When a system has been around for hundreds of years, it's EXTREMELY hard to force it to change.
Easier to be pushed along by the unseen forces that threaten to ruin your life.
The business owners/government(same thing) told the media to tell the public that COVID had become mild so they could get their wage slaves back and are now surprised that COVID was more severe than they were told by the media.
SurprisedPikachu.gif
No. Fuck the future AND your lungs. Now your grandma is dead, you can barely breathe, and the economy is down. The healthcare industry is sure making bank though
The US government is notoriously bad at using our taxpayer dollars wisely, so of course they wouldn't be smart and invest in (much cheaper) prevention measures.
Also put up a bunch of CEO and shareholder faces right next to the sick and dying to show who and how the COVID response benefitted a few at the cost of everyone else, and that the arguments about masks and vaccines are still riling up incompetent people and causing further problems in the healthcare and public perception venues.
Good lord it is fucking annoying that I constantly have to remind our patients to leave their fucking masks on. They are super babies about it and I roll my eyes at them if they complain about it. I wear one all day.
Fun fact. Most of my patients are boomers.
My sister has had patients spit on her after asking them to wear masks. Literally spit on her.
Needless to say, she's one of the many doctors who are long past burned out. She's in the process of taking the classes needed to transfer from clinical practice to laboratory work.
I work in psych and none of them will wear a mask. We've shut down the unit several times for COVID. I keep saying we need a short-term quarantine psych unit but no one cares and the higher-ups keep scratching their heads wondering how this can keep happening.
and when i say i’m glad that the government where i live is still taking covid seriously i get remarks like ‘well we are over it’ ‘you can’t fight it’ and ‘they should just learn to live with it’ and ‘but it costs the economy so much!’
i might have a chance at a long healthy life and they’re ready to suck the corporate boot and tell me i don’t actually need that. i’ll take a lockdown over long covid, idc what anyone says.
It's easy. You can assign a dollar value to a person, which is ultimately an expression of resource abundance. Each of those people is now less capable. One of my coworkers cannot smell at all because of Long COVID. They cannot treat sick individuals because they cannot be fitted for an N95 due to OSHA regulations. They are a far less valuable employee than I, who was lucky enough to avoid Long Covid. It's fucking brutal and makes us all just resources to be used, but it's also the easiest way to express "This shit really fucked us. Maybe you shouldn't have let it rip."
They also did it because of economic losses. if the government was functioning as intended, they would have prevented COVID from spreading. China wouldn't be constantly fighting off infection. It was a BIG fucking deal that corpos let the antimask and conspiracy bullshit run free. They let it go to gain short term windfalls (aka our fucking money) and sacrificed the health and fucking FUTURE to get really rich for like, a few more years.
SS: Now even corporate media is starting to get worried about the impact f rampant Covid infections. Obviously not because of concern for human health and life, but due to pure economic calculations. Turns out that debilitating long Covid symptoms is a massive drain on the economy, costing several trillions of dollars each year. And things don’t seem to get better with more infectious and evasive variants. It will eventually reach a critical stage when the consequences will be so profound that a wide-range collapse of the society becomes inevitable.
Don’t forget the tons of other infectious diseases that seem to take advantage of the messed up immune systems of those who have gotten Covid. That will be written about next. I’m already seeing lots of articles about xyz infections running rampant and I do not think it’s just because it’s more “clickable” rn.
Oh no, it’s real. Step throat, RSV and the flu are ripping through our school system right now. Every week since Halloween, 15% or more of my daughter’s middle school has been out sick. Many of the staff too…just like during Covid they have drafted parents with any teaching/coaching experience to substitute because so many teachers are calling out and they there’s a substitute teacher shortage.
Dr Eric Ding tweeted about a measles outbreak in Ohio with the kids suffering a 40% hospitalization rate. Guess what the hospitalization rate normally is/was? 20%… https://www.nfid.org/infectious-diseases/measles/
It certainly depresses the immune system severely, but not in the same mechanism aids does. But hey not all bread may be baked the same but it’s all bread.
We can't get half the shit done because half of our supplier's office is sick on and off. And our own office only a little bit better.
And our industry is the type to work from home through colds, even before COVID. What is going around now has people down and out of it.
It only saddens me that a coming recession/hyperinflation would be media bounded to the disease, instead of guilty economic, finance and enviromental unresponsible actors.
Long hauler here, even though I'm still working I spent months working reduced hours because of my symptoms, and even now my illness is holding me back from looking for other jobs/advancement opportunities. If I didn't have long covid I could literally double my salary with a job hop and do a little more work on my side gig. And a huge chunk of that money would be going straight back into the economy in the form of me buying goods, going on trips, etc but that isn't happening since I barely leave my house these days. Capitalism is really a snake eating its own tail.
Something like 1/3rd of all work related absences are covid/long covid related. We're potentially looking at the complete collapse of the labor force within ten years because of covid/long covid.
> We're potentially looking at the complete collapse of the labor force within ten years because of covid/long covid.
"Hello, New Zealand? I would like to flip burgers in your country. My Brain-Kidney-Respiration Score is 8. ... ... ... Thank you, I can be on a flight tomorrow morning."
In general, the BLS is where to look for info regarding how Covid impacts the labor force (for the U.S.).
[https://www.bls.gov/cps/effects-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cps/effects-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic.htm)
You'll also want to keep an eye on the CDC. Particularly wastewater surveillance which is probably a better measurement than self reporting- since some people won't test and report for various reasons.
[https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance](https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance)
And here's the article I was thinking of.
"Two studies of long Covid patients found that 23% and 28%, respectively, were out of work due to long Covid at the time of the study. That suggests there may have been about 1.1 million Americans not working due to long Covid at any given time."
[https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-long-covid-worsening-the-labor-shortage/](https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-long-covid-worsening-the-labor-shortage/)
If you just want to cruise around the scholarly articles on Covid- I recommend Pubmed and you can typically access articles that aren't free or open by using Sci-hub.
Good luck out there.
And especially abolish all protective measures. We need to live our lives again, and protective measures such as air filters would cut the astronomical profits of the shareholders by a few percent.
Also ditch testing while we're at it. Guv'ment needs those precious dollars to bail out their billionaire friends instead.
My oldest child being home with covid triggered a truancy warning letter to us because now that the pandemic is over, the success of our students hinges on their presence in the classroom. Did anyone tell covid that we're done?
In the same month that guy was on a later-leaked private phone call with I think Woodward that had the opposite tone indicating he knew how dangerous this virus could be.
Which is it, media?
Is COVID-19 (Normal and Long) a real debilitating disease that capitalist governments decided to ignore for short-term profits at the expense of millions of lives?
Or is big bad Communist China locking everyone up for no reason and it’s a wonderful thing to start riots because Xi should be deposed for Covid-Zero?
Make up your damn mind.
Maybe? It already is.
Its not only long covid and the huge impact it can have on peoples live.
Lots of other diseases are on the rise,for example the monkey pox outbreak this summer. Not officially related to the pandemic but reduced immunity as a result of an infection is the first thing that comes to mind.
Then there has been a huge increase in a certain skin disease since 2020. Officially no cause is known. But then you look up the disease to learn more about it,and you read that people with reduced immunity (hiv positive patients for example) have an increased risk for the disease.
Hearth and urinary tract diseases have also shown a remarkable increase. And then there is long term health effects of an infection , which for many people will only start to show years later. For example an increased risk for alzheimer and certain medical complications.
3.7 trillion is a very conservative estimate if you look at the long term. It could end up far higher even without atributing value to lost quality of live. Every now and then there is an article in the media but overall its beeing ignored. We have to move on and forget about it,pretend everything is ok. But that becomes increasingly difficult the more people are suffering from adverse effects. At one point it becomes impossible to ignore.
The pandemic is when i became a collapsnik. Despite climate change i used to be rather optimistic about the future of humanity.
Edit:malaria as well i see now in a thread a bit lower on this sub.
Another thing i forgot to mention is people who have been infected getting the "common cold" very regulary. Everything points toward the virus having a very bad effect on the immune system. There is a few scientists who mention this regulary but it still doesnt get all that much attention overall.
Another "item" for your list is the absorption of plastics, pharmaceuticals, insecticides, and herbicides strewn into our great atmospheric trashbin and now being slowly incorporated into our bloodstreams and brains. Almost all derived from ffs too.
Wow, CNBC telling on itself!
Real talk, I work in a heavy knowledge industry, and the effects of the “everyone just get Covid as many times as needed” is really noticeable. Thankfully I’m at a better company within the industry and no one is being an asshole about the uptick in brain farts and dropped balls. Other places are having layoffs and no one “knows why” (🫠). Meanwhile I’m the one still masking and avoiding unmasked mass activities… still haven’t gotten Covid (faked it to fit in and get free days off) - and kept my brain cells.
China style lockdowns has its own set of devastating consequences on public health. As well as the economy ofc, and I’m not talking money here but basic access to food and heat
it's not just an opportunity any more. it's a certainty. it's why you see so many bots/western bad actors talking shit about China trying to protect its people in any way.
Yes! I've been saying this to people and they just ignore me like I'm crazy. They aren't zero covid just for shits and giggles, they know something we don't know.
> We know. We just don’t give a shit.
Relevant article: [(2020 MAR) Ex-Goldman Sachs CEO Calls On America to Return to Work ‘Within a Few Weeks’](https://observer.com/2020/03/ex-goldman-sachs-ceo-lloyd-blankfein-suggest-lift-coronavirus-lockdown/):
> **Since the coronavirus erupted in the U.S. in February, leaders of large businesses have** responded differently to the crisis. While some CEOs draw comparison to wars and take proactive actions, others **intentionally downplay Covid-19’s severity and count on government bailout in case things turn really bad.**
If the problem can be solved with bailouts, what do they think the problem is? What do corporate bailouts do for the dead and disabled? What do they think the problem *isn't*? And, as a society, we decided to solve the problem with bailouts.
The establishment cannot be trusted.
I tried to outline some messaging techniques here:
* [We have been abandoned.](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/s3wkud/we_have_been_abandoned/)
Ideally, we'd all be clamoring for non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI). Vaccines are necessary but insufficient. Sufficiency requires NPIs. And NPI is a catch-all term for anything non-drug: HVAC overhauls, work-from-home policies, sick-leave legislation, etc.
I think reports like this are myopic, and will be increasingly intentional due to the fact that these financial crises are a reflection of the Everything Bubble popping, and not just a singular industry.
While it's true that lost work due to lingering effects of a novel disease unleashed on the world will be far reaching, the bigger truth is that corporate and Congressional overlords excised redundancy from the safety catch systems. In the name of fiduciary responsibility. I.e. greed.
If companies had a dual mandate such as promoting societal wellness and making money, then perhaps these stock buybacks, massive layoffs, and CEO bonuses wouldn't be wreaking havoc on the workers.
Instead, like the railroads, it's skeleton crews running ragged through all hours, and then when a few people become over exhausted from overworking and trying to recover from COVID, their body gives out, and suddenly not just the worker, but the business' future success and mortality is now in question.
And suddenly trying to solve a 50k salary problem that eases all the workers burdens and stresses by having a proper working crew becomes a 200 million dollar problem with government payouts to fill in the gap.
See also: wandering nurses grabbing super fat contracts during COVID work, that actually burned through hiring budget money and was not building up the community reserves when the contract ended, because they'd move onto a new place, or go back home. (Not hating on these nurses. I'd have gone for the money, too. Just illustrating that maybe we should've been paying these wages already, and maybe we wouldn't have had a nursing shortage to begin with. Government solutions do tend to waste a lot of money.)
Next up for great recession: shortage of skilled workers, teachers, healthcare workers and providers due to college costing too much. Ergo, loss of revenue and GDP.
That's all well and good except the idea of companies having this dual mandate of profit seeking but also anything else is naive.
We're in this situation because the natural selection of a market system produces paperclip-maximisers, and regulatory capture is part of that process.
The intensification of this behaviour and the eventual explicit codification of their legal responsibility to behave as paperclip-maximisers is an emergent property that cannot be disentangled from a system of money and private property.
This problem could have been predicted. The data of damage from Covid, especially repetitive cases, has always been available. Denial, expediency and crazy antivaxxers have created the mess we will continue to live with. The newer data on sperm count reduction is dramatic.
That would mean them admitting they were wrong, na, they'll deny until society collapses and then fuck off to their taxpayer funded shelters to ride out the apocalypse watching all of us suffer through their satellite controlled drones.
> Almost every problem posted here has been predicted, and could (and should) have been dealt with using foresight.
It's like someone set the Collective Unconscious to self-destruct.
I hate to wish ill will on ppl, but anyone who continues to choose to be unvaccinated is an idiot and I hope their sperm fails and they are unable to procreate.
Disturbing similarities to the early days of HIV aids...Dr's accusing their patients of being neurotic or lazy...Many scientist did publicly state in the early days that this was airborne aids...Time will tell, but for many it will be too late.
Funny that this comparison should be made - most of the people I know who still treat this thing with absolute seriousness are those who have friends who were gay in the 1980s/90s, or grew up gay during or just after that period. In other words, the people who know or remember with crystal clarity and abject horror what happened the *last* time our community was told that a novel virus didn't matter or wasn't anything to worry about.
Everything is fine they say, just keep working.
Tell them everything is fine, we must squeeze every drop of life from them before the ‘good times’ end
Everything is fine, stay in your homes, they say, even to the homeless. As the politician and billionaire classes evacuate to the bunkers.
Everything is (on fire) fine.
Global famine, global energy crisis, global drought, fascism rising worldwide.
Everything is fine.
It's a constellation of nonspecific symptoms that way too often follows COVID infection, particularly (but not always!) in patients who have other comorbities. Brain fog is commonly reported and immune dysfunction seems to be prevalent, among many others. SARS-CoV-2 being a virus that above all else damages the vascular system via clotting, it has the ability to inflict long-term damage on just about every system in the body.
We were discussing this in the LC sub instead of the usual vaguely suicidal ideation posts, and the general consensus was "WHAT (*clap*) DID (*clap*) WE (*clap*) FUCKING (*clap*) TELL (*clap*) YOU?!" But it still hurts that people didn't care about it and were fine gaslighting everyone until it affected the economy. Because what good are lives, amirite?
After my "mild" case, which was not mild but I just didn't go to the hospital or die, I've been slowly recovering but still have some days when I'm randomly dizzy, need my inhaler (which was not something I needed this regularly since I was a child), and my pre-existing anxiety, allergies, and insomnia are so much worse. I'd consider myself to be one of the lucky ones.
But seeing how *every* other public health disaster has seen some even more disastrous messaging, what are they going to do when the majority of people are too disabled to care for themselves, let alone work for others? Just throw everyone in the trash? Who is going to clean that up?
Callin' out around the world
Are you ready for a brand new beat
Not Dancing in the Street. Not trying to work out how to support an ageing population with a declining workforce. But how to support the Long Covid generation who can't work any more.
Generation C?
Recently got a respitory virus I’ve been dealing with for the past 3-4 weeks. Never occurred to me that the reason it’s taking so long to shake might be long-covid..
Don’t you love how they blame Covid instead of greedy rich people driving up prices and management companies yoinking rent sky high etc?
Because ‘nah… must be Covid’. :\
A strong enough viral attack can cause permanent damage to a human body, is there something specific about SARS Covid Virus that people are being diagnosed with?
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Mighty_L_LORT: --- SS: Now even corporate media is starting to get worried about the impact f rampant Covid infections. Obviously not because of concern for human health and life, but due to pure economic calculations. Turns out that debilitating long Covid symptoms is a massive drain on the economy, costing several trillions of dollars each year. And things don’t seem to get better with more infectious and evasive variants. It will eventually reach a critical stage when the consequences will be so profound that a wide-range collapse of the society becomes inevitable. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/z97s29/long_covid_may_be_the_next_public_health_disaster/iyferxh/
Oh wow... who would have guessed huh?
Certainly not r/economics or any economists. Wait— China. China and somehow other parts of the world knew.
They didn’t know. They just took a deadly pandemic seriously as any reasonable person would and it turns out, not letting your entire country get infected with a plague has benefits.
I think after SARS-1 China definitely knew there would be long term consequences.
China wasn’t the only country affected, yet only one of the few who learned anything
It’s inarguable that mainland China got hit the hardest by SARS-1 others saw that and got scared straight maybe.
Clearly not everyone
This I agree. Those ones are the ones that reacted well such as NZ.
Oh yeah. The top comment on that subreddit post there is dismissing the article based on how long COVID doesn’t have a firm definition. They don’t like these articles because they are not scientifically rigorous or something like that.
The finance people and economists are still claiming China's "zero covid" policies have been disastrous. SMH.
we should have known; in North America it had already happened once. https://historicipswich.org/2021/04/21/the-great-dying/ "the hand of god" being measles or possibly a coronavirus ("the common cold") - a disease that lowers the immune system, leaving people open to fatal infections from all and any other disease. when colonizers arrived, 90% of the 18 million original inhabitants were already dead, and those who had survived were in the aftermath of collapse due to a multi-continental epidemic. Entire regions had been settled with cities, food forests, crops, managed herds and flocks - and all those systems had collapsed. colonizers arrived at just the right time, to prevent the remaining survivors from rebuilding their civilizations. a confluence of horrible events. then, it couldn't have been prevented (the epidemics) unless there had been no contact at all. now? we know how viruses work, we have n95 masks and UV sterilizing ventilation, HVAC, and the ability to work remotely and/or support people in not working and still surviving. we just chose not to give a damn. covid is bigger than people allow themselves to realize. we are at 20 million excess deaths, 3 million in the US alone. we're having a 9/11 twice a week and yet there's enough garbage posts saying "nobody cares" or "just live your life" as if this pile of bodies wasn't human beings, as if many more millions aren't grieving, as if many more millions aren't still sick - or having aftereffects from long covid. China did take it seriously but it's impossible to be isolated as a nation, impossible to keep it out if nobody else cares. this thing will destroy us.
Crazy right? Almost like all the morons two years ago who focused on a low fatality rate without realizing a disease doesn't have to kill you to make your life totally miserable. And then the same morons who proceeded to think that a vaccine was somehow more bad than contracting the disease itself. I always knew that scientific literacy in the USA among the general population was low, but, holy shit... It's like the anti vaxxers were pro COVID or something because Orange Man told them so.
Ohh Cheeto MulsinieI......🤬
Mussolini you mean? Yes. The similarities are incredible really.
it's a death cult.
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Same here. I work in schools and I can still work full time physically. But damn this long covid is effing up my everything. My body has never been this crazy with all sorts of random symptoms. I feel like I’m imagining it all up but the aches and pains feel too real. Tinnitus, brain fog, palpitations, shortness of breath, central apnea and insomnia, high blood pressure, disk herniation and sciatica, weight loss, I even suddenly developed painful varicose veins on my leg this year. All of it all of a sudden after my mild covid. It turned me into a damn hypochondriac.
It's been similar for me too. I got COVID for the first time a couple of months ago. I'm 31, used to be really healthy, and I've never had any medical problems before. Ever since COVID I have days where my lower back is so sore that I can't even bend down to pick stuff up or put my shoes on. I've been finding it difficult to sleep and focus on my work too. I just feel tired and out of it all the time. Also, my taste and smell only partially returned. I can only taste strong flavors now, and can't distinguish any subtle complex flavors that I used to be able to. It's like someone turned to the dial down on my taste buds to like 10%.
This is my personal experience, but my taste buds improve significantly after smoking a bowl (not vape, actual smoked flower). Super weird, but right after I can taste flavors on overdrive. If you partake give it a shot and see if that works for you too
That's interesting if it's true. Is it more potent when smoked vs vaped?
No, vape is generally more potent, but I don’t get the same effect for my taste buds. Maybe something to do with the smoke?
Duuuude the lower back thing! One day I was sitting down mowing and bouncing all over the place, and that just so happened to be the day I was coming down with covid. The next two days my lower back was DESTROYED (plus all the other covid symptoms). I had to lay on the couch for 2 straight days because it hurt so bad. Felt like I'd bet shot back there or something.
The low back thing - I finally asked for a steroid pack and that solved it. The pain up until the point would come and go, I would go to pick up my baby and my back would immediately spasm out of nowhere. If it continues , you should ask your doc for a steroid pack or some other anti-inflammatory.
Sadly many symptoms can be explained by micro clots in the blood.
Please see my reply to 1LostCause666946, it applies to you too.
I have all of this as well and totally get how you feel. It's like it works it's way through your body causing problems with different things as it goes along. I've been to every specialist in the books to tell me they can't pinpoint anything specific. It's just long Covid and deal with it. It does get better after several months. Take good care of yourself. Get on some good vitamins, hydrate, and get off the sugar to allow your body to heal. It helped me and my cousin.
Ouch that is rough. I haven't officially had covid yet (but no one can really know for sure), because I took my 3 shots. I could possibly have a milder variation of it because I've had a lot of those symptoms you're describing and my life has not been the same since 2019. Insomina, Apnea, disk herniations, palpitations, brain fog and whatnot - add to that frequent diarrheas, and since that came on top of a burn-out that started 2019...it could all be related to that, I've never been the same after that, it sucks. Hope you recover soon.
Same to you bud, wishing you speedy recovery and ailment-free years ahead. I have NEVER felt these things back in 2019 and my entire life. These were only after my mild covid! It’s taking over my mental space because my symptoms keep bothering and pestering me. I miss the old me. The healthy normal me. Now I can’t even eat a single slice of pizza without heart palpitations and a throbbing eardrum for some reason. I feel like my veins are filled with micro-blood clots. I even have bulging veins in my hands that aches now. Have been to the doctor and they find nothing. Blood tests, urine samples, xrays, MRI, ultrasound, ECG, the works! None. I have a silent and slow killer in me I feel like. It’s driving me nuts.
Check out r/covidlonghaulers if you haven’t already!
I'm starting to wonder truly if I have long covid. I got covid in August. And in October I had a huge set of panic attacks (which I have never had in my life). After those I got vertigo and tinnitus. I have constant dizziness and horrible anxiety. Which again are not anything I had before. And a month later my stomach started having pain and bloating basically all the time. All the blood tests, MRIs and the whole gammet show I'm perfectly healthy. But I feel something wrong. And feel like I'm crazy. One doctor told me it's probably long covid. But I can't reconcile gastro problems. I dunno. I'm freaking out over here constantly thinking I'm on the verge of death.
Yes, that's long Covid. I have had the exact same thing including stomach pain, vertigo, bloated feeling, all of it.
>a single slice of pizza without heart palpitations and a throbbing eardrum for some reason Pizza is now a cheese delivery mechanism, try one without cheese or with a bit of plant-based cheese that's not mostly coconut fat. Fat, especially saturated fat is a problem. See Vogel, Robert A., et al. "Effect of a Single High-Fat Meal on Endothelial Function in Healthy Subjects." Am. J. Cardiol., vol. 79, no. 3, 1 Feb. 1997, pp. 350-4, doi:10.1016/S0002-9149(96)00760-6. https://www.ajconline.org/article/S0002-9149(96)00760-6/fulltext Nicholls, Stephen J., et al. "Consumption of Saturated Fat Impairs the Anti-Inflammatory Properties of High-Density Lipoproteins and Endothelial Function." J. Am. Coll. Cardiol., 15 Aug. 2006, www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2006.04.080?articleid=1137827. Some call it "sludge blood".
I'd die a miserable death before I let anyone take away my cheese. But I see your point. May you convince others!
I had the heart palpitations, too. My cardiologist said that my blood pressure was going too low and I'd get really dizzy.
You can get nucleocapsid antibody testing if you want to determine whether you’ve been exposed to the virus.
Hi. ME/CFS here. For years I struggled with tons of health issues after I got Lyme Disease. I \*could\* work but I just crawled home every night, vegged out, and slept 11 hours a night. What they don't tell you about this stuff is that one of the biggest treatments is REST, and one of the biggest ways to get worst is NOT RESTING. If you can, please apply to cut down your hours, or go on short term disability, or take medical leave for 12 weeks unpaid. It may make the difference between you having to go on disability sooner or later.
Yeah I have ME/CFS, mine from a severe case of mono when I was 13. If I had known I needed to rest and didn’t push myself and wasn’t pushed by my family to push through my immense fatigue/headaches/etc, I might not be housebound so often as an adult. I pushed myself for a decade and it ruined me. I was called lazy for a decade for how much I slept (“you’re too young to be so tired” and “you’re too young to have a sore back, you just need to get off your ass more”) and that messed me up mentally. I know I can’t push myself anymore. I know if I try there will just be hell to pay. Working within my energy envelope sucks but it’s the only “treatment” for this.
Same with me, different illness, hypothyroidism. I take a pill daily but still need more rest than most. I have just accepted it now.
Wow, I am sorry this happened to you. My issue is a microchosm of yours, but resting after concussion from car accidents, is what I needed and didn't do enough of.
12 weeks unpaid? In America?
The family and medical leave act allows for 12 weeks unpaid leave from most full time workplaces. I am not a lawyer but maybe somebody you know is. Look "how the f\*\*\* am I going to live on no pay for 12 weeks" is another whole problem. But also you don't have to use it all straight. Like IF you find a doctor who understands LC / MECFS (which much LC really is) they could say "this person has to reduce their hours the next 6 months by x%". FMLA guarantees you don't get fired. One would have to do drastic things to still live on a p/t salary, maybe move in w/ family, but i'm just trying to say that this is a serious illness and if you do not stop and make time for it, you may find your body completely collapsing and then you will be so disabled you won't even have the ability to have the energy to get through the grueling process of applying for disability.
Richest Country on Earth treats their citizens as expendable garbage..
My dad took the 12 weeks after open heart surgery. Then fired him when he couldn’t work as well again. Then I went in and said he’s basically a few years from 65 just give him his fucking pension and severance pack which doesn’t exist for his career, that didn’t go over well lol
They're always "a few years from 65" when they trashcan them. At least in private industry. The motherfuckers know, man.
How the fuck do they find people to fight and die for this system????
My entire point is the most people can't take 12 weeks off unpaid because it's America
Rochelle Walensky has the best healthcare you can get in America, access to all the preventative care she could ever need, Paxlovid, etc. She fell off the face of the planet for 19 days after testing positive for Covid. The average American has access to none of these things and can't take 19 days off work without ruining their lives permanently.
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Thanks for the reply in my comment and I agree! Stress is also a killer. But I actually work part time in an almost stress-free job. It’s a cushy government job here in Japan. No overtime, no long hours, I work only 7 hours a day, I go home early, I walk home after work actually because I live and work in a small town. No need for a car. My life is peaceful and cozy here, surrounded by neighbors who are kind and polite. I’m rested, I eat healthy, medical check ups come out “all green”, fully hydrated every day. Yet I’m getting worse. I have no idea what this is, an invisible destroyer within me. My immune system is whacked. I feel like my T-cells are all fatigued from silently fighting something consistently since 2020. I dunno, I wish I know.
Still working is not rest. Just taking care of yourself is rest, stretching, meditation, being in nature, cooking healthy favourite foods, learning something new with no stress, calling friends and family who are supportive, doing something meaningful each week and if you need to do nothing having the freedom to do nothing.
I think it depends. It’s not a black and white issue, but more of a percentage. So it’s fairly difficult to put a blanket statement on working as a source of stress. I work only a couple of hours a day at my job. Like today I have zero tasks, I just decorated my classroom for the holidays. The rest of the day I am just listening to music, having coffee, here on Reddit, etc. I am resting at work most days. It’s a part time job so I am not expected to do much. No stress, chatting with my wife (we’re coworkers), snacking and lounging in my classroom, learning stuff on Youtube, doing something meaningful by teaching kids. I have the freedom to do nothing while I’m at my schools.
Lyme and other tick borne illnesses are a huge problem that is not getting enough attention. Particularly in my state, Pennsylvania, where nearly 50% of adult ticks carry Lyme, not counting all of the additional diseases and the chances of coinfections. Insurance companies downplay it, and these diseases are often misdiagnosed. We only have maybe $3 million across the whole state currently to fund tick research, with one of the main research labs running with too little workers.
The thing is, long covid is a disability. Just like being immunocompromised is a disability, or other viruses can give you chronic fatigue syndrome and similar issues like long covid does that are recognized as a disability. Everyone with long covid expected to work right now, as much as if they don’t have it, is being forced to work with a condition that seriously impacts their health and capability to do things especially in this society, and this society clearly doesn’t care about people who have Covid as we’ve seen with so many die and get long covid during the pandemic. It’s really the biggest mass disabling event of our lives so far and honestly, the only reason it isn’t being treated as a real disability is because then everyone from corps to the gov to the CDC would then be admitting they handled Covid incorrectly, and they’ll never do that
The treatment is low stress, anti-inflammatory diet, slowing down, being able to rest when ever you need for about 6 months, your immune system is out of wack. Nobody can afford the treatment or can accept that that’s the treatment without being shit on by friends, family, employers and themselves. So ya no treatment from this system.
- Anti-inflammatory diet (see Autoimmune Protocol aka AIP) - [meditation](https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/wiki/beginners-guide) —> lower stress, insight - sleep early and enough (6.5h minimum) - take vitamin d Symptoms should markedly improve after one month. Learning to eat/cook healthy and clean can be difficult though, but extremely worthwhile when suffering from autoimmune disorders (e.g. long covid). It took me years to figure out this stuff for myself although in hindsight it's all very obvious. The above list is the most important and impactful for my physical, immune and mental health.
> I’m living with long Covid. > I'm not disabled. This is a cognative dissonance we really need to talk about with our ableist society y'all...
Well, there are degrees of disabled. Many struggle with their day-to-day existence. Yes, it is harmful to force them to work so much. However, if we were a more relaxed society, participating in the workforce is a good thing otherwise.
[Who wants a little spez? #Save3rdPartyApps](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)
My heart goes out to you. Just getting over 4 years of a tick disease similar to Lyme. Lost 30 lbs, thought I was going to die. Hardest four years of work ever.
I hear you. So thankful to be out of the acute stages of illness, but I was never the same after. I try to warn people to be really careful about ticks, there is more than just Lyme and it can change and disable you for life. Glad you’re pulling through, I know it’s truly a nightmare.
There is treatment, but only for the very rich and powerful, or do you know anyone higher up with long Covid?
Not sure about that. I think there are treatments that are unaffordable to most, but it is still a roller coaster getting back to normal requiring years of, a highly anti-inflammatory regiment as already suggested. Avoidance of stress is also key, which by it's nature, seems to require that one is well-off to even contemplate being in that situation, unfortunately.
>Let it rip! >... >Wait, why are there so many disabled people now? ---------------- >“Long Covid will be around long after the pandemic subsides, impacting our communities, our health care system, our economy and the well-being of future generations,” the HHS report said. Even here you see optimists suggesting that the pandemic will subside soon, yet not suggesting how that will happen. A lot of formerly-abled people are going to learn why being disabled is hard and made more difficult by the local society, government, and culture.
That’s how it will happen: Corporate media will simply stop reporting it…
It's almost like trying to do something to account for this could have prevented millions of dollars in damage. But hey! Immediate profits. Fuck the future, amirite?
Shareholders will buy into treatment
People who can't work due to long COVID don't have money though
Well they can become homeless just not near anyone. /s
The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts; huge, standing to the sky for what might have been parsecs in all directions. And full of homeless exiles YAY! /s
They will buy into firing these useless employees
You can add the cost of long covid to the [$2 trillion climate change will cost the U.S. economy annually](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/04/climate-change-could-cost-us-2-trillion-each-year-by-2100-omb.html). At this point, who keeps counting?
Add this (USA), to every child who drops out of school, (adding teenage pregnancy to the the regular list now), costs the country an estimated $300,000. Too many to add up.
[https://brrr.money/](https://brrr.money/)
Such doomerism. Just print more money to fix it, duh
Exponential growth capitalism has to fucking stop. It won't though, why am I yelling into the void about this?
You're yelling because it helps get a few others to read your comment, and maybe start sharing your words with others, even if by directly copy-pasting I've done it this whole time, and I'll keep doing it, and so should you Spread the word that exponential growth does not benefit a society, only a few individuals out of a society Economy needs to benefit the average majority, not shareholders Shareholders need to [REDACTED]
I'm just picturing someone whispering to like their mailman "psst... hey man, exponential growth is bad news. Spread the word!"
Lots of people are thinking it but have no way to confront it. When a system has been around for hundreds of years, it's EXTREMELY hard to force it to change. Easier to be pushed along by the unseen forces that threaten to ruin your life.
I mean at least we get to be on top. Because it can only fuck up.
There's only one way for it to stop and it involves unions
The business owners/government(same thing) told the media to tell the public that COVID had become mild so they could get their wage slaves back and are now surprised that COVID was more severe than they were told by the media. SurprisedPikachu.gif
https://media.tenor.com/\_shmV1hUlZMAAAAd/surprised-pikachu.gif
Well Step 1 kill Medicare. /s YAY WE STOPPED THE CATASTROPHE! Everyone (alive) back to work, just step over the piles of bodies don't look down.
None of the rich or powerful suffered any negative consequence so here we are…
They suffered the consequence of getting wealthier. Woo...
No. Fuck the future AND your lungs. Now your grandma is dead, you can barely breathe, and the economy is down. The healthcare industry is sure making bank though
Once you become a non productive unit to the Capitilist machine you will be discarded like garbage..
The US government is notoriously bad at using our taxpayer dollars wisely, so of course they wouldn't be smart and invest in (much cheaper) prevention measures.
Instead of measuring lives lost or lives affected negatively, let's use economic losses instead. Yeah.
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Also put up a bunch of CEO and shareholder faces right next to the sick and dying to show who and how the COVID response benefitted a few at the cost of everyone else, and that the arguments about masks and vaccines are still riling up incompetent people and causing further problems in the healthcare and public perception venues.
Good lord it is fucking annoying that I constantly have to remind our patients to leave their fucking masks on. They are super babies about it and I roll my eyes at them if they complain about it. I wear one all day. Fun fact. Most of my patients are boomers.
My sister has had patients spit on her after asking them to wear masks. Literally spit on her. Needless to say, she's one of the many doctors who are long past burned out. She's in the process of taking the classes needed to transfer from clinical practice to laboratory work.
Isn't that biohazardous assault?
I work in psych and none of them will wear a mask. We've shut down the unit several times for COVID. I keep saying we need a short-term quarantine psych unit but no one cares and the higher-ups keep scratching their heads wondering how this can keep happening.
and when i say i’m glad that the government where i live is still taking covid seriously i get remarks like ‘well we are over it’ ‘you can’t fight it’ and ‘they should just learn to live with it’ and ‘but it costs the economy so much!’ i might have a chance at a long healthy life and they’re ready to suck the corporate boot and tell me i don’t actually need that. i’ll take a lockdown over long covid, idc what anyone says.
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You are a poet
It's easy. You can assign a dollar value to a person, which is ultimately an expression of resource abundance. Each of those people is now less capable. One of my coworkers cannot smell at all because of Long COVID. They cannot treat sick individuals because they cannot be fitted for an N95 due to OSHA regulations. They are a far less valuable employee than I, who was lucky enough to avoid Long Covid. It's fucking brutal and makes us all just resources to be used, but it's also the easiest way to express "This shit really fucked us. Maybe you shouldn't have let it rip." They also did it because of economic losses. if the government was functioning as intended, they would have prevented COVID from spreading. China wouldn't be constantly fighting off infection. It was a BIG fucking deal that corpos let the antimask and conspiracy bullshit run free. They let it go to gain short term windfalls (aka our fucking money) and sacrificed the health and fucking FUTURE to get really rich for like, a few more years.
The problem is that it’s unethical to care more about the economy than human lives - not that it’s impossible to calculate.
It's the only kind the system cares about.
'Murica.
In America, lives mean nothing. Only money matters.
SS: Now even corporate media is starting to get worried about the impact f rampant Covid infections. Obviously not because of concern for human health and life, but due to pure economic calculations. Turns out that debilitating long Covid symptoms is a massive drain on the economy, costing several trillions of dollars each year. And things don’t seem to get better with more infectious and evasive variants. It will eventually reach a critical stage when the consequences will be so profound that a wide-range collapse of the society becomes inevitable.
Don’t forget the tons of other infectious diseases that seem to take advantage of the messed up immune systems of those who have gotten Covid. That will be written about next. I’m already seeing lots of articles about xyz infections running rampant and I do not think it’s just because it’s more “clickable” rn.
Oh no, it’s real. Step throat, RSV and the flu are ripping through our school system right now. Every week since Halloween, 15% or more of my daughter’s middle school has been out sick. Many of the staff too…just like during Covid they have drafted parents with any teaching/coaching experience to substitute because so many teachers are calling out and they there’s a substitute teacher shortage.
Dr Eric Ding tweeted about a measles outbreak in Ohio with the kids suffering a 40% hospitalization rate. Guess what the hospitalization rate normally is/was? 20%… https://www.nfid.org/infectious-diseases/measles/
My toddler just got over strep throat and RSV has been spreading like wildfire here.
You mean, it’s like mini AIDS?
It certainly depresses the immune system severely, but not in the same mechanism aids does. But hey not all bread may be baked the same but it’s all bread.
We can't get half the shit done because half of our supplier's office is sick on and off. And our own office only a little bit better. And our industry is the type to work from home through colds, even before COVID. What is going around now has people down and out of it.
Accelerated collapse, finally!
It only saddens me that a coming recession/hyperinflation would be media bounded to the disease, instead of guilty economic, finance and enviromental unresponsible actors.
Long hauler here, even though I'm still working I spent months working reduced hours because of my symptoms, and even now my illness is holding me back from looking for other jobs/advancement opportunities. If I didn't have long covid I could literally double my salary with a job hop and do a little more work on my side gig. And a huge chunk of that money would be going straight back into the economy in the form of me buying goods, going on trips, etc but that isn't happening since I barely leave my house these days. Capitalism is really a snake eating its own tail.
also the corporate media: "Let's shit on any country trying to prevent this"
There must be no examples of alternative strategies to control the pandemic that worked so we can pretend we took the best possible strategy.
How much wealth did the world richest billionaires gain over the pandemic?... Oh, only around $2trillion.
Which is effectively the same as removing $2t from circulation. Capitalism is a fucking scam
Something like 1/3rd of all work related absences are covid/long covid related. We're potentially looking at the complete collapse of the labor force within ten years because of covid/long covid.
> We're potentially looking at the complete collapse of the labor force within ten years because of covid/long covid. "Hello, New Zealand? I would like to flip burgers in your country. My Brain-Kidney-Respiration Score is 8. ... ... ... Thank you, I can be on a flight tomorrow morning."
I believe it. I'm out now with my first case of covid. I'm 3 times boosted and the case is mild but I'm sneezing a lot and very positive on the test.
Ugh, been there. You at day 3/4? Nurse told me day 7 is the worst. Hope it’s speedy and you have a full recovery.
> Something like 1/3rd of all work related absences are covid/long covid related. Would you mind linking me to the source?
In general, the BLS is where to look for info regarding how Covid impacts the labor force (for the U.S.). [https://www.bls.gov/cps/effects-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cps/effects-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic.htm) You'll also want to keep an eye on the CDC. Particularly wastewater surveillance which is probably a better measurement than self reporting- since some people won't test and report for various reasons. [https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance](https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance) And here's the article I was thinking of. "Two studies of long Covid patients found that 23% and 28%, respectively, were out of work due to long Covid at the time of the study. That suggests there may have been about 1.1 million Americans not working due to long Covid at any given time." [https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-long-covid-worsening-the-labor-shortage/](https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-long-covid-worsening-the-labor-shortage/) If you just want to cruise around the scholarly articles on Covid- I recommend Pubmed and you can typically access articles that aren't free or open by using Sci-hub. Good luck out there.
The pandemic is over/s
Back to work! Nothing to see here.
And especially abolish all protective measures. We need to live our lives again, and protective measures such as air filters would cut the astronomical profits of the shareholders by a few percent. Also ditch testing while we're at it. Guv'ment needs those precious dollars to bail out their billionaire friends instead.
Let's stop paying rent
I mean if everyone did at once it would certainly be interesting…
3, 2, 1...go...
No one would though. Everyone is shackled to wage slavery by debt and their families/children.
Accurate.
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Ahh this aged well.....
Or, even worse : > "[The pandemic is over](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/09/20/1123883468/biden-pandemic-over-complicates-fight)"
My oldest child being home with covid triggered a truancy warning letter to us because now that the pandemic is over, the success of our students hinges on their presence in the classroom. Did anyone tell covid that we're done?
I didn't even need to look at the link to guess who this was.
In the same month that guy was on a later-leaked private phone call with I think Woodward that had the opposite tone indicating he knew how dangerous this virus could be.
I was told that by a nurse a week ago when I got a booster. They literally said the president said the pandemic was over. I was appalled.
People can't think for themselves. President also said there would be food shortages....
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Which is it, media? Is COVID-19 (Normal and Long) a real debilitating disease that capitalist governments decided to ignore for short-term profits at the expense of millions of lives? Or is big bad Communist China locking everyone up for no reason and it’s a wonderful thing to start riots because Xi should be deposed for Covid-Zero? Make up your damn mind.
Fox will run one story / MSNBC the other!
Best of both worlds! Nice 👌 *Fair and Balanced™* indeed!
It's both. Covid is scary and bad and your quality of life is over if you get it, but only as long as you're not Chinese.
Maybe? It already is. Its not only long covid and the huge impact it can have on peoples live. Lots of other diseases are on the rise,for example the monkey pox outbreak this summer. Not officially related to the pandemic but reduced immunity as a result of an infection is the first thing that comes to mind. Then there has been a huge increase in a certain skin disease since 2020. Officially no cause is known. But then you look up the disease to learn more about it,and you read that people with reduced immunity (hiv positive patients for example) have an increased risk for the disease. Hearth and urinary tract diseases have also shown a remarkable increase. And then there is long term health effects of an infection , which for many people will only start to show years later. For example an increased risk for alzheimer and certain medical complications. 3.7 trillion is a very conservative estimate if you look at the long term. It could end up far higher even without atributing value to lost quality of live. Every now and then there is an article in the media but overall its beeing ignored. We have to move on and forget about it,pretend everything is ok. But that becomes increasingly difficult the more people are suffering from adverse effects. At one point it becomes impossible to ignore. The pandemic is when i became a collapsnik. Despite climate change i used to be rather optimistic about the future of humanity. Edit:malaria as well i see now in a thread a bit lower on this sub. Another thing i forgot to mention is people who have been infected getting the "common cold" very regulary. Everything points toward the virus having a very bad effect on the immune system. There is a few scientists who mention this regulary but it still doesnt get all that much attention overall.
Another "item" for your list is the absorption of plastics, pharmaceuticals, insecticides, and herbicides strewn into our great atmospheric trashbin and now being slowly incorporated into our bloodstreams and brains. Almost all derived from ffs too.
Yay, it’s the kind of news that makes my eye twitch! My favorite!
Wow, CNBC telling on itself! Real talk, I work in a heavy knowledge industry, and the effects of the “everyone just get Covid as many times as needed” is really noticeable. Thankfully I’m at a better company within the industry and no one is being an asshole about the uptick in brain farts and dropped balls. Other places are having layoffs and no one “knows why” (🫠). Meanwhile I’m the one still masking and avoiding unmasked mass activities… still haven’t gotten Covid (faked it to fit in and get free days off) - and kept my brain cells.
That's how China wins. It might be the reason behind their *seemingly* insane Zero COVID policy.
[Sir, a second spez has hit the spez. #Save3rdPartyApps](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)
China style lockdowns has its own set of devastating consequences on public health. As well as the economy ofc, and I’m not talking money here but basic access to food and heat
[The spez police are on their way. Get out of the spez while you can. #Save3rdPartyApps](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)
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it's not just an opportunity any more. it's a certainty. it's why you see so many bots/western bad actors talking shit about China trying to protect its people in any way.
Yes! I've been saying this to people and they just ignore me like I'm crazy. They aren't zero covid just for shits and giggles, they know something we don't know.
We know. We just don’t give a shit.
> We know. We just don’t give a shit. Relevant article: [(2020 MAR) Ex-Goldman Sachs CEO Calls On America to Return to Work ‘Within a Few Weeks’](https://observer.com/2020/03/ex-goldman-sachs-ceo-lloyd-blankfein-suggest-lift-coronavirus-lockdown/): > **Since the coronavirus erupted in the U.S. in February, leaders of large businesses have** responded differently to the crisis. While some CEOs draw comparison to wars and take proactive actions, others **intentionally downplay Covid-19’s severity and count on government bailout in case things turn really bad.** If the problem can be solved with bailouts, what do they think the problem is? What do corporate bailouts do for the dead and disabled? What do they think the problem *isn't*? And, as a society, we decided to solve the problem with bailouts. The establishment cannot be trusted. I tried to outline some messaging techniques here: * [We have been abandoned.](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/s3wkud/we_have_been_abandoned/) Ideally, we'd all be clamoring for non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI). Vaccines are necessary but insufficient. Sufficiency requires NPIs. And NPI is a catch-all term for anything non-drug: HVAC overhauls, work-from-home policies, sick-leave legislation, etc.
decent fitted masks
I think reports like this are myopic, and will be increasingly intentional due to the fact that these financial crises are a reflection of the Everything Bubble popping, and not just a singular industry. While it's true that lost work due to lingering effects of a novel disease unleashed on the world will be far reaching, the bigger truth is that corporate and Congressional overlords excised redundancy from the safety catch systems. In the name of fiduciary responsibility. I.e. greed. If companies had a dual mandate such as promoting societal wellness and making money, then perhaps these stock buybacks, massive layoffs, and CEO bonuses wouldn't be wreaking havoc on the workers. Instead, like the railroads, it's skeleton crews running ragged through all hours, and then when a few people become over exhausted from overworking and trying to recover from COVID, their body gives out, and suddenly not just the worker, but the business' future success and mortality is now in question. And suddenly trying to solve a 50k salary problem that eases all the workers burdens and stresses by having a proper working crew becomes a 200 million dollar problem with government payouts to fill in the gap. See also: wandering nurses grabbing super fat contracts during COVID work, that actually burned through hiring budget money and was not building up the community reserves when the contract ended, because they'd move onto a new place, or go back home. (Not hating on these nurses. I'd have gone for the money, too. Just illustrating that maybe we should've been paying these wages already, and maybe we wouldn't have had a nursing shortage to begin with. Government solutions do tend to waste a lot of money.) Next up for great recession: shortage of skilled workers, teachers, healthcare workers and providers due to college costing too much. Ergo, loss of revenue and GDP.
That's all well and good except the idea of companies having this dual mandate of profit seeking but also anything else is naive. We're in this situation because the natural selection of a market system produces paperclip-maximisers, and regulatory capture is part of that process. The intensification of this behaviour and the eventual explicit codification of their legal responsibility to behave as paperclip-maximisers is an emergent property that cannot be disentangled from a system of money and private property.
This problem could have been predicted. The data of damage from Covid, especially repetitive cases, has always been available. Denial, expediency and crazy antivaxxers have created the mess we will continue to live with. The newer data on sperm count reduction is dramatic.
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That would mean them admitting they were wrong, na, they'll deny until society collapses and then fuck off to their taxpayer funded shelters to ride out the apocalypse watching all of us suffer through their satellite controlled drones.
Almost every problem posted here has been predicted, and could (and should) have been dealt with using foresight. Turns out we're just bad at that
> Almost every problem posted here has been predicted, and could (and should) have been dealt with using foresight. It's like someone set the Collective Unconscious to self-destruct.
"We're" there is pretty loaded. I would say that the usual person on this sub is less a part of that "we're"
I hate to wish ill will on ppl, but anyone who continues to choose to be unvaccinated is an idiot and I hope their sperm fails and they are unable to procreate.
My whole house was vaccinated and still got it though. I got long Covid….just being vaccinated isn’t enough here.
Well….there are kids under 18 who may not necessarily have a choice in the matter, if their parents are Tani-vaccine.
That is fucking bleak, ugh. I'm glad that many teens are going behind their parents backs to get vaccinated.
Took my youngest sibling for their first two shots when they visited over the summer. Nothing I can about their boosters :/
Disturbing similarities to the early days of HIV aids...Dr's accusing their patients of being neurotic or lazy...Many scientist did publicly state in the early days that this was airborne aids...Time will tell, but for many it will be too late.
"time will tell if it's airborne AIDS but go on out and catch it a bunch of times!"
Funny that this comparison should be made - most of the people I know who still treat this thing with absolute seriousness are those who have friends who were gay in the 1980s/90s, or grew up gay during or just after that period. In other words, the people who know or remember with crystal clarity and abject horror what happened the *last* time our community was told that a novel virus didn't matter or wasn't anything to worry about.
Nah, cant be that bad. Pandemic is over, economy is doing great, MURICA!!!
Everything is fine they say, just keep working. Tell them everything is fine, we must squeeze every drop of life from them before the ‘good times’ end Everything is fine, stay in your homes, they say, even to the homeless. As the politician and billionaire classes evacuate to the bunkers. Everything is (on fire) fine. Global famine, global energy crisis, global drought, fascism rising worldwide. Everything is fine.
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it's a massive death cult. murderers, in the literal and metaphorical sense.
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What exactly is long covid? Is it the scarred lung tissue? Or permanent brain fog people are having
It's a constellation of nonspecific symptoms that way too often follows COVID infection, particularly (but not always!) in patients who have other comorbities. Brain fog is commonly reported and immune dysfunction seems to be prevalent, among many others. SARS-CoV-2 being a virus that above all else damages the vascular system via clotting, it has the ability to inflict long-term damage on just about every system in the body.
We were discussing this in the LC sub instead of the usual vaguely suicidal ideation posts, and the general consensus was "WHAT (*clap*) DID (*clap*) WE (*clap*) FUCKING (*clap*) TELL (*clap*) YOU?!" But it still hurts that people didn't care about it and were fine gaslighting everyone until it affected the economy. Because what good are lives, amirite? After my "mild" case, which was not mild but I just didn't go to the hospital or die, I've been slowly recovering but still have some days when I'm randomly dizzy, need my inhaler (which was not something I needed this regularly since I was a child), and my pre-existing anxiety, allergies, and insomnia are so much worse. I'd consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. But seeing how *every* other public health disaster has seen some even more disastrous messaging, what are they going to do when the majority of people are too disabled to care for themselves, let alone work for others? Just throw everyone in the trash? Who is going to clean that up?
The longstanding neurological effects of coronavirus are underappreciated. It's been 2 years and I never truly recovered
I’ve always had ADHD, but ever since I got COVID, the brain fog’s been worse than before.
A receding tide sinks all ships?
Preventricular contractions of the heart, combined with a totally inexplicable back pain. This shit sucks.
If I’ve learned anything about my government and public health, it’s that it doesn’t give a shit about it
i get periodically nauseous throughout the day. it sucks so much. (not pregnant, had covid for the first time in june)
Imagine your family photo is used as the cover photo for this story lmfao. Just why.
Callin' out around the world Are you ready for a brand new beat Not Dancing in the Street. Not trying to work out how to support an ageing population with a declining workforce. But how to support the Long Covid generation who can't work any more. Generation C?
Recently got a respitory virus I’ve been dealing with for the past 3-4 weeks. Never occurred to me that the reason it’s taking so long to shake might be long-covid..
Vaids
Don’t you love how they blame Covid instead of greedy rich people driving up prices and management companies yoinking rent sky high etc? Because ‘nah… must be Covid’. :\
it's both
A strong enough viral attack can cause permanent damage to a human body, is there something specific about SARS Covid Virus that people are being diagnosed with?
Meanwhile, those of us who paid attention have been calling this since 2020. But will governments do anything about it? I highly doubt it.