* Tribune…
Estimates suggest 10% to 30% of people who get COVID-19 will develop long COVID-19, according to Dr. Jerry Krishnan, University of Illinois Chicago associate vice chancellor for population health sciences and professor of medicine and public health.
“The CDC estimates that about 33 million Americans tested positive for COVID-19, which means 3 to 10 million Americans likely have or have had long COVID,” Krishnan said. […]
In December, Congress provided $1.15 billion in funding over four years to the National Institutes of Health to support research into the prolonged health consequences of long COVID-19. The initiative called RECOVER, or Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery, is designed to learn whether differences in long COVID-19 risk are due to different virus variants, host response (ability to fight the virus infection and to heal after the infection is cleared) and the social determinants of health.
UIC has been selected to lead an Illinois-based team for the U.S. RECOVER consortium. Krishnan is a part of the team spearheading the efforts to bring health centers, community-based organizations and faith-based organizations in Chicago, Peoria, Rockford and Urbana together to form a network of state resources for a directory that can be available to people with long COVID-19.
* Daily Herald…
Long-haulers can develop an array of neurological and physiological symptoms after their recovery from the virus that doctors are just now beginning to piece together. But getting treatment often has been difficult for some because of that spectrum of problems.
“I want to go to a place where they all know me and what I’m dealing with,” Atwell said. “It needs to not be so disjointed.”
Edward-Elmhurst Health is one of several suburban health care systems that are creating one-stop clinics for long-haul COVID-19 patients. […]
Northwestern Medicine in Chicago opened one of the region’s first long-hauler clinics in the area in January and is now treating more than 1,500 patients in several suburban locations in its network, including Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Delnor Hospital in Geneva and Lake Forest Hospital.
* Related…
* Long Covid: rogue antibody discovery raises hope of blood test: “It’s hard to escape a prediction that 100,000 new infections a day equates to 10,000 to 20,000 long Covid cases a day, especially in young people. That’s a lot of damage to a lot of lives. And it’s hard to see that we’d have the healthcare provision to deal with it on that scale,” said Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial. “All of us working on this could not be more alarmed.”
* New Long-Haul COVID Clinics Treat Mysterious and Ongoing Symptoms - Coordinating care among different specialties could help patients with many problems and no proved therapies
* Long COVID life lessons on symptoms, treatment, and recovery
* Utah long-hauler clinic seeing ‘COVID toes,’ brittle teeth, ringing in ears
* Meet 3 Black Women Fighting for Long COVID Recognition
- Three Dimensional Checkers - Tuesday, Jul 13, 21 @ 1:35 pm:
I wonder how Social Security and the state disability supports are adjusting. Social Security disability I believe was already underfunded, and COVID long haul will definitely exacerbate that problem.
- SWIL_Voter - Tuesday, Jul 13, 21 @ 1:47 pm:
Had been led to believe “long haul” meant psychosomatic, so I’m not sure what all qualifies under that term. Obviously lung damage isn’t a psychosomatic symptom, but also don’t know if loss of taste is a long haul symptom. I still have lots of taste and smell problems and had COVID late December/early January
- Perrid - Tuesday, Jul 13, 21 @ 2:48 pm:
Lots of different definitions of what Long Covid is. Prof. Tim Specter from the ZOE COVID Symptom Tracker App/Study says 2-3% of people experience symptoms that have an impact on daily functions for 12 weeks. So you’re still very fatigued or having trouble catching your breath, etc., after 3 months.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jul 13, 21 @ 2:51 pm:
===Prof. Tim Specter===
The diet author and twin studies dude?
- thoughts matter - Tuesday, Jul 13, 21 @ 4:40 pm:
One proven affect for some long haul Covid patients is brain shrinkage, confirmed by MRIs. That’s not psychosomatic.
Brain shrinkage can indicate vascular dementia. We sre already on the cusp of a dementia tsunami. If you know someone with dementia, you know it can be up to 20 years of heartache and life changing care for family members.
- Suburban Mom - Tuesday, Jul 13, 21 @ 8:31 pm:
===Had been led to believe “long haul” meant psychosomatic===
Good Lord, no. I have a close friend with long-haul Covid. She swam two miles a day before Covid; now she can barely walk around the block. Her heart keeps malfunctioning. She was not hospitalized with Covid, but she’s been hospitalized twice since “recovering,” both times when she stood up and her heart stopped. She has significantly messed up electrical signals in her heart now, and doctors don’t know when or if she will recover. Her heart races or slows for no reason. She has two children under ten. At one point her heart was bad enough that she made out a power of attorney. This isn’t even talking about the problems with her breathing, and other body system damage.
She actually gets seen at the Northwestern clinic, and they are great, but they don’t have a lot of answers.
- ESR - Tuesday, Jul 13, 21 @ 8:46 pm:
“I wonder how Social Security and the state disability supports are adjusting. Social Security disability I believe was already underfunded, and COVID long haul will definitely exacerbate that problem.”
In short, if you file don’t expect your allegation of COVID sequela to prevail unless it has caused a secondary condition that is of listing level severity. It’s not quite that simple, but generally speaking if you’re under 50, alleged symptoms secondary to COVID won’t cut it.