Liberals who eye-roll at the enthusiasm for, say, ivermectin may do the same for the weirder experiments in treating chronic Covid symptoms. Meanwhile, among friends naturally inclined to skepticism, I can see the initial sympathy inspired by long Covid giving way to the doubtfulness that hangs around chronic fatigue syndrome, or fibromyalgia, or the chronic form of Lyme disease. Recent articles in The Atlantic and The New Yorker cover the emerging lines of debate, which pit patient advocates urgently seeking treatment against scientists following cautious research protocols. This created a sense of immediacy and urgency absent from other chronic-illness debates and a constituency for research and treatment among a population - doctors, especially - that’s often skeptical of difficult patients and mystery illnesses.īut already with long Covid you can see the usual structure of chronic-illness controversies reasserting itself.

But unlike other such conditions, which tend to creep up on society, long-haul Covid arrived suddenly, creating a large pool of sufferers in a short period of time and afflicting frontline medical workers and younger patients in large numbers. The long-term form of Covid-19 has something in common with other forms of chronic illness - strange and varied symptoms, lasting debilitation, no certain treatment.

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