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Long Haul COVID Should Raise Alarm Bells for the Unvaccinated —  Major Risk of Enduring Health Problems

Prelude — personal experience

Reader know that I am no fan of the COVID vaccines for myself, already having auto-immune and other Long-Haul COVID symptoms from my April 2020 infection, many of which have improved, but I remain at about 10% physically. And I should have immunity as good or better than the vaccine, but no one can prove or disprove that without a double-blind study which involves deliberate exposure to COVID, which will never be done.

My wife and one of my daughters have been vaccinated (Pfizer)—no issues either of the two injections, and no side effects so far. Two of my daughters have not been vaccinated, one for specific medical reasons (we deem it unwise as no data is available), and the other is young and very fit and healthy (seemingly at nil risk,we await better data, but maybe emerging data on LHC will change that reasoning).

As for myself with Long-Haul COVID—I’ve lost my life as I knew it for 13 months now, and I do not know if I will ever get my superpowers back. So yeah, I’d consider the vaccine were I my normal self, riding my double centuries and ascending peaks as usual. But these days, 3 or 4 days of the week, I am too weak for even a 1/3-of-baseline bike ride. Fortunately, the brain fog and related problems are largely gone—last year was terrible. I am losing a lot with no sign of ever getting it back. That is the context I wish to share for those considering vaccination.

I not going to engage in false-hopes about a COVID vaccine magically undoing physical damage, or reversing auto-immune symptoms, etc. I admit that it’s possible a vaccine could help if there were a hidden reservoir of COVID still in my body—but I await double-blind studies on the matter. It is also possible that the vaccine could “reset” the immune system and therefore have benefits for LHC patients. But I have been damaged badly by allopathic medicine twice in my life (incompetence, both times), and I will not risk being damaged again by generic feckless medical advice based on averages (no person is an average). My own internist confirms the risks of vaccination are real with auto-immune patients. So my decision stands at “not getting vaccinated until data exists”.

My take on COVID vaccines

This is not offered as yeah/nay advice, but rather how to rationally approach things. I have no opinion whatsoever to offer readers on their personal situations or choices in this matter. Vaccinate or not, both are valid choices.

Whether to get the COVID vaccine should come down to risk assessment for your own personal situation. That might be impossible for some, requiring a lot of knowledge and critical thinking skills, and with no access to honest doctors* and/or those who fear retribution from their peers.

COVID risks are for (most) people NOT about the risk of death, but about semi-permanent and perhaps lifelong damage following infection, even asymptotic infection. That is, Long-Haul COVID is the key thing to consider, not the risk of death.

On that basis, barring personal medical considerations, getting vacinnated (probably Pfizer) for those 25 and older seems to be the smart move.

For healthy young people under 25, the risk/reward was dubious until now, but *if* the Long-Haul COVID claims below ("25%") are even partly true**, then even young people 18-25 should probably get the vaccine (children remain a big red flag however, as their systems are not mature).

The Flimsy Evidence Behind the CDC’s Push to Vaccinate Children

* most doctors will go with the official recommendation without any consideration. “Get the vacinnation — full stop” ==> a mindless idiot lacking any credible argument.

** By “partly true”, the 25% figure sounds like a bullshit number (by happenstance, lots of people get sick randomly, too), but it might be 5-10%, perhaps even 15%. We’ll never know.

WSJ: As Vaccines Do Their Work, Focus Moves to Long Covid

by Denise Roland, July 23 2021. Emphasis added.

As vaccines blunt the threat of severe illness and death from Covid-19, millions of people remain at risk of developing an array of less serious but potentially debilitating long-term symptoms of the disease that scientists call long Covid.

Many of the most vulnerable are among younger unvaccinated people who are unprotected against the rapidly spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus, now responsible for more than 80% of America’s growing caseload.

Long Covid—a term referring to symptoms that linger for weeks or months beyond infection—affects between 10% and 30% of people who catch the virus, including those with mild or asymptomatic infections, according to experts. In some cases, symptoms persist for more than a year.

“Even if it’s not as striking as people dying, you ignore it at your peril,” said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London. “In terms of healthcare burden or healthcare cost, we’re on track for this being as big a problem to us as rheumatoid arthritis, the biggest autoimmune disease in the world.”
...

Long Covid has raised alarm bells for its tendency to strike the young in a way that severe illness and death haven’t. The Imperial study found that among those aged 18 to 24, about 30% of those who had knowingly caught Covid-19 reported at least one symptom lasting 12 weeks or longer.

...Researchers suspect that long Covid likely comprises several overlapping conditions, with different causes, and several large studies are under way to try to pin some of those down. Among the leading theories are that the virus triggers some kind of autoimmune condition, that it causes lasting physical damage to various organs, and that the virus lingers in the body long after infection.

...

WIND: sorely lacking are multiple (or at least one) double-blind study on what happens to LHC patients who get the vaccination—does it help, and what issues arise? Lacking that, I won’t be getting vaccinated.

Good luck seeing the allopathic medicine establishment solve this one—it will quickly become about expensive patentable bandaid drugs that don’t cure anything. When it’s going to have to involve nutrition, in which most MDs have nil training.

See also: The Flimsy Evidence Behind the CDC’s Push to Vaccinate Children

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