“Almost two million [in the UK] report Covid-19 symptoms persisting for more than four weeks; 807,000 for more than a year; and 403,000 for more than two years… For a substantial minority, ‘recovery’ currently means developing the ability to manage limited energy, continuing pain, cognitive limitations, and ongoing flare ups in what has become a long-term condition”.
That summary, quoted from the British Medical Journal, also notes that little is known about managing these conditions, let alone curing them, though research is under way and techniques have been “copied over” from other conditions.
Meanwhile, by 26 September the rate of hospitalisations with Covid in England had more than doubled from its low on 10 September. A further Covid surge, smaller or larger, is almost certain in the winter, and may be coupled with high rates of flu, since flu immunity has declined with low rates in the last two winters.
Covid rates are also rising in Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, and Taiwan, though on current counts not yet in other Northern Hemisphere countries. We call for:
• a sustained public-health testing-and-surveillance system
• good sick pay for all
• restore NHS funding and repeal privatisation
• requisition private hospitals to augment NHS resources
• bringing social care into the public sector with NHS-level pay and conditions for staff
• specialist public clinics for post-Covid conditions, more research, and recognition of the conditions as a “disability”
• workers’ control of workplace safety (especially ventilation)
• requisition Big Pharma, especially its patents and technical know-how, to speed vaccine production and delivery world-wide.