One does not simply "recover" from a virus

This piqued my interest a few days ago, so for those who dismiss Covid as "simply a virus" and that we'll get over it ... here's some poignant facts:

Mumps after puberty can cause painfully swollen testicles in 25% of middle aged men
Mumps - Complications.

Measles (asides from drastic short term complications) can suppress immunity for the remainder of your life
What Parents Should Know About the Long-Term Effects of the Measles Vi

Chickenpox can cause painful shingles as you age
Shingles (herpes zoster).

Herpes can cause ongoing cold sores when under stress
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/cold-sore/symptoms-causes/syc-20371017#:~:text=Cold sores are caused by,as kissing or oral sex.

Ross River Fever can cause lifetime fatigue and depression
Ross River Fever: Symptoms, Treatment, Relapse & Long-Term Effects | Study.com.

Many viruses cause arthritis
Is My Joint Pain Caused by Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) or an Infection?.

... and even more known to cause cancer
7 viruses that cause cancer

Even the common cold can cause lifetime heart issues
Myocarditis - Symptoms and causes

And that's not even touching on those like HIV and Polio etc ... there is so much about Covid we don't understand, especially the long term effects

 

I’m pretty confident COVID-19 badly scarred alveolus and lung capillaries. Akin to TB. I’d assume there is a long term effect from this. TB scars last a lifetime and in bad cases could decrease lung carrying capacity.

 

Considering it's known to attack the lungs - heart - kidney - pancreas - and brain .. . goodness knows what the long term effects will be

 

Seems we are going over old ground which has been documented many times.

Here are the stats and impact on higher risk/deaths (March 2020), I will see if I can find more recent. Regardless, higher risk category has not changed

How deadly is the coronavirus?

Interesting though... did the world go into lockdown for any other virus? I wonder why we did ? considering we know so little about this virus?
Seems over the top reaction to shut down countries

 

Yep - to varying degrees - Spanish Flu - Polio - Ebola - SARS - MERS - Zika ... remembering that some of these aren't as infectious, also that the world was nowhere near as mobile in the early days either.

But the point is that any virus is not simply die - or - recover

 

Certainly any virus can cause future complications, but that is in a small minority of cases.

Long term effects, if any, for the majority of Covid-19 infections are still unknown.

 

We dont know? Medical experts cant even agree? How it impacts will vary regardless


Also did we lockdown for AIDS? or any of the above virus’ you mentioned
Sounds bizarre right?? Because it is

 

There were various lockdowns for Ebola, SARS, H1N1 and MERS. They just weren't global as it's spread wasn't as far and it wasn't as contagious nor as lethal for some of them. Asian and African countries implemented their pandemic plans for all of those.

Surely you remember the social distancing for Ebola where we did the Ebola Elbow instead of shaking hands?

 

Actually, apart from H1N1 (I think), the others were all far more lethal than C19 and this was one of the reasons they did not spread widely - they were too efficient at killing people. People who caught the disease showed symptoms very early on and died quickly - the virus didn't have much of a chance to reach R > 1 once we were aware of it and taking precautions.

Reasons for the global spread of C19 are that:

• it has a period where it is contagious but no symptoms are detectable in the carrier,
• not all carriers show symptoms at any time,
• it doesn't kill quickly.

 

exactly, I find it odd that in every country the view is that if the virus spreads, its "the politicians/governements fault" type attitude, especially here

Months ago, it was all about social distancing in public places,
little did we realise that the family interactions caused this recent jump,
we all thought the protests were going result in 1000s of cases
we still are unsure about masks

im actually surprised that they are confident in finding a cure, its almost like its a given

 

Not global lockdowns where economies are completely shut down. We have not seen this before

we have survived other viruses which were far deadlier....?

 

This gives more information on H1N1, there is far more to this

It effected younger age groups and they also found effective treatment relatively early.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-h1n1-flu-covid-pandemics-response.amp

 

With the earlier virii (spanish flu, polio), we did not have the same level of population mobility, plus the population was that bit smaller with lower density cities. For SARS, H1N1, MERS, as stated above, asian countries did implement restrictions, and they were more aggressive and died out quicker.

So you are correct, we did not completely shut down world wide, but some regions did, and the impact and presentation of those earlier virii were different.

With Polio, between 95-99 percent were asymptomatic, around 1 percent developed into paralytic polio, and less than 1 percent ended up being permanent paralysis. The world wide response was huge though - with wide spread inoculations even thought there were serious concerns over the side effects.

Cheers,
Inertia.

 

Interesting, and a twist, during polio pandemic, parents were worried about their children contracting polio, its reversed Today , children worrying about the elderly parents contracting coronavirus

 

Corona is certainly different from those other viruses eg AIDs or HIV

HIV is a jabber's disease ie you got to get jabbed by something like, I don't know, a needle by a tattoo artist or by a syringe for drug use.

Lot harder to get HIV than corona so different precautions needed.

 

The point of this thread is to educate that one simply does not "recover" from a virus ... long term effects can be debilitating and lifelong ... a virus, in some, form, remains in the body and can rear it's ugly head at any time in a manner that is not reflective of the original disease symptoms.

25% of blokes who had mumps after the age of 12 is a fair percentage ... and the middle age results (30-40 years later) looked incredibly painful!

There are a heck of a lot of people affected by the covid virus, who are blase about the whole thing as 80% get it mildly ... but who knows how that 80% will be compromised in years to come

 

That is because it is a 'flu' virus and we know a lot about the flu virus and how to make vaccines against it. Research into it has been underway for 100+ years. Covid is a virus that we have not previously researched at a serious level and have not tried to create a vaccine for.

I agree with @Lizzie that the long term effects of Covid appear to be very wide ranging and potentially debilitating. I also remember pre the polio vaccine where you saw many sufferers in the community and the legally required population wide chest x-rays in the fight against tb.

 

Who knows??
Studies are currently underway, However there are no conclusive findings on long term effects at this point in time .....on how it will impact. Its just way too early? Lots of antidotal evidence and speculation