COVID is not done with us

It's been a while since I've thought too hard about COVID-19. It's not that long since I finally succumbed to it (early April, courtesy of an unavoidable 90th birthday bash), after successfully evading it for three years. Since then, I've joined the masses in not even wearing a mask, apart from in a few very high risk situations and in medical establishments. I'm not even up-to-date on booster shots (although I will get my sixth before the cold weather return). COVID is very much out of mind, for me and for most other folk, and feels rather like a relic from a previous era.

An article in the Globe and Mail this weekend, therefore, brought me up short and will hopefully serve as a bit of a wake-up call. Even if it is no longer a "global health emergency" as defined by the World Health Organization, it seems like COVID is very much still with us.

The article points out that, as confirmed by the Government of Canada Health Infobase website, 57 people died of COVID last week in Canada, and 2,261 hospital beds were occupied by COVID patients, including 95 in ICU. Worldwide, 4,000 people are dying every week from it, equivalent to over 200,000 a year. This may not compare to the situation at the height of the pandemic, when the weekly death toll was closer to 100,000, but it's still more than I thought, particularly as we should be in an early summer lull right now.

The other thing that the Globe article highlights is the continuing toll being taken by "long COVID" or"post COVID-19 syndrome" as it is more properly known these days, which exhibits a bewildering variety of symptoms and which can last for many months or even years.

The incidence of long COVID is higher than you might think, as much as 43% by some global estimates, although varying anywhere from 9% to 81% depending on sex, region and study population. This rate increases still further for those who were hospitalized by the virus to around 54%, and for those who were unvaccinated, the rate can rise to as much as 90%! Furthermore, the virus can exacerbate many pre-existing conditions like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, asthma, lung disease, even brain injuries, and it can trigger entirely new chronic problems, multi-organ effects or autoimmune conditions. (The article goes into much more detail on how all that works, much better than I can.) There seems to be no end to the damage it can wreak.

Anyway, the upshot is that COVID has not gone away, and that it is still a serious concern and not to be trifled with. So, live your life, but get your vaccines and boosters, wear a mask  when needed, watch for news about new waves, new developments. Don't just pretend it's not there. It's at least as big a problem as the flu. Yes, we're all done with COVID, but COVID is not done with us.