Nearly 200 million Chinese are in some form of lockdown as the party congress looms. Travel into Beijing is being regulated. Zero covid will be celebrated at the congress, treated as a success despite its contribution to economic pressure within China. China will bill itself as one of the few countries to protect the public from widespread illness and death, and because there is so little covid, there is no long covid in China.
A large long covid study considered a list of symptoms and then compared people who had had covid to people who had not on each symptom. Thirty-eight percent of the people with covid had a long covid symptom between 30 days and one year after infection compared with 16 percent of the people who had not had covid. In other words, covid increased the chances of showing at least one long covid symptom by 22 percentage points. For patients aged 18 through 64, a covid diagnosis upped the risk of a long covid symptom by 21 percentage points. For patients over the age of 64, a covid diagnosis upped the risk by 27 percentage points. Having a mild case of covid only partially protected against long covid. Of people hospitalized for covid, 54 percent had a long covid symptom later. For people who had covid but were not hospitalized, 34 percent showed a sign of long covid. Women who survived covid had a 54 percent chance of showing signs of long covid compared to 37 percent of men. In terms of vaccination status, a recent study of US Veterans Affairs data showed that 32 percent of those who had been vaccinated but suffered a breakthrough infection developed a long covid symptom compared with 36 percent of unvaccinated veterans. No data was collected by race.
Long covid symptoms have a high correlation with four factors: high levels of virus RNA in blood, pre-existing type 2 diabetes, high levels of Epstein-Barr virus DNA in blood, and the presence of "autoantibodies" that attach a person's own body. More definitive research into long covid is clearly needed given that Harvard researchers estimate an eventual cost of $2.6 trillion or one-tenth of the annual gross domestic product.
My Mom's assisted living facility is giving bivalent boosters and flu shots next week at the same time it is doing away with all its covid restrictions that have gradually loosened over time. No longer must staff or visitors wear masks. No longer must visitors answer a series of covid-based questions in order to enter. Visitors must still check in and out at the front desk, but that's all. Needless to say, this does not please me at all. I shall continue to wear a mask there, just as I do in any indoor setting with people I do not know. As I told The Professor, I did not need to hear that news on a day when I'd written here about case numbers rising in Europe. The 20 self-testing kits I ordered arrived today; I still hope not to need them, but it pays to be ready.
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