As I'm sure you've noticed, there is, lately, a certain level of hopefulness regarding the end of the pandemic - the new world. Even though everyone is getting the omicron variant, hospitalizations and deaths are, as a proportion of cases, a good deal lower. Never mind that huge number of cases means that even a smaller percentage of serious illness still translates into a larger absolute number of hospitalizations and deaths. Never mind that in the anti-vax-plagued US, deaths are higher than any point except last winter's surge, and a great deal higher than any other advanced nation. As we've seen in the last few posts, nations are making plans for putting the pandemic behind them.
The pandemic, dear reader, will never be behind us. Unless, of course, long COVID turns out to be temporary, which it has shown little sign of being. I'd like to do some math that I've done before: when we're comfortably settled in the new world, how many of us will not be comfortable?
As of right now, 384 million people worldwide have tested positive for COVID-19. Estimates of the prevalence of long COVID range from one third to 42%. Here's the math: let's use, oh, 35% as the proportion of those positive for COVID-19 who will have long COVID. Thirty five percent of 384 million people is *Googles math problem* one hundred thirty four million people. Oh, wait - of those 384 million who contracted COVID, 5,700,000 died. They won't get long COVID. That makes about 378,300,000 who survived, leaving around 132,405,000, worldwide, who will need long-term, substantial medical care indefinitely. In the US, the math brings us to around twenty six million who will need long-term treatment for long COVID.
That's a lot of medical care. Are we ready for it?
Sorry for the rambling post. When I hear about how we're about to emerge and get back to normal, I always think about the millions for whom the pandemic will never end.
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