In October 2020, Jeremy Smith got sick, but it wasn't serious. A nose that is not well-ventilated. A cough. Within a few days, the symptoms of a mild COVID-19 infection were gone.
He never really improved. He got worse. There is fatigue. Nerve pain. There are blood-pressure fluctuations. He's left unsure of where he's supposed to be or what he's supposed to be doing because of his brain. He can't return to his pre-infection job of helping surgeons in the operating room.
Smith has finally been diagnosed with long COVID, a condition in which remnants of the virus wreak havoc on a survivors' body. Millions of Americans like Smith are still struggling to get back to work, battling with bureaucrats and employers about their newfound disabilities, and trying to secure financial help as the fast- moving omicron variant is infecting a new, a year after the federal government formally began studying the impacts of long CO
The ongoing crisis has plagued workers, their families and employers across the country as they cope with a condition that is now formally recognized as a disability but remains vaguely understood, even as the CDC says people who have gotten sick can return to work within a week.
Smith said that he feels like he's 70 years old. We are alive, but not living. Most of our lab work and testing comes back clean, but we are sick and doctors tell us we are crazy.
There are resources for coronaviruses and COVID-19.
It's not clear how many Americans face consequences of long COVID. A recent study conducted in the United Kingdom found that 40% of people who tested positive for COVID-19 had at least one symptom for at least six months.
There are a number of symptoms for "long haulers" such as fatigue and anxiety, brain fog, joint or chest pain, unexplained changes in blood pressure, dizziness, and nausea.
"That's the biggest fear, that this will become the world's largest mass-disabling event," Smith said.
A procedure to examine brain swelling caused by Jeremy Smith's long COVID is about to begin.
Omicron is infecting millions.
The world is reporting about 20 million cases per week, or 33 cases every second, and although the omicron variant appears to be milder, many long COVID patients, including Smith, point out their infections were also mild.
"People with more chronic effects can't return to their usual function, that's what we're seeing," said Amitava Banerjee of the Institute of Health Informatics at University College in London, who runs a long COVID treatment clinic. It's a concern if you can't work from home. When you have to go in, what do you do?
Latino, Native, and Black Americans are being diagnosed with long COVID at a lower rate than whites, despite the fact that the Pandemic hit those groups harder. The United States' longstanding inequity in health care access is a reflection of that.
Part of the issue is that there's not enough research and data. This is going to last for a long time. People will have chronic symptoms for months even if the epidemic ends tomorrow.
A physical therapist works on a patient at IU Health North Hospital in Carmel, Indiana. He was 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 He was not sick enough to be hospitalized at the time of his acute infection, but he has had a number of health conditions since, many of them connected to what an IU Health doctor attributed to long COVID.
Health experts say long COVID poses a significant risk to frontline essential employees, such as hospital cleaning staff and meatpacking workers, because they are less likely to have good health insurance, paid sick time or savings accounts. According to labor experts, the U.S. labor force has 2.3 million fewer workers than it did before the economic downturn.
There are essential workers on the front lines.
Carri Chan is a professor at New York City's Columbia Business School, where she studies health care decisions, risk and operations. We need to rethink how we accommodate people who are suffering from this. There isn't an easy solution to the inequalities that are growing.
Most of the people she sees are those with the time and money, according to Dr. Kathleen Bell, who runs a long COVID clinic in Texas.
Edward Williams is a resident at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, New York. The omicron variant wave has led to an increase in infections and deaths at US nursing homes.
"We know that a lot of people with English as a second language, gig workers, people without insurance, they are not able to come to see us," said Bell, who runs the COVID Recover program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Hospitals are swamped even for people who can get to safety-net hospitals.
Bell said she's heard from patients that many employers are unwilling to provide job accommodations even though the federal government recognizes long COVID as a diagnosis and sufferers are entitled to disability protection. She said that many employers don't want to deal with a vague diagnosis and hard to see symptoms.
Reassignment to a desk job and more frequent rest breaks are examples of accommodations. Workers who can't be accommodated can get short-term disability. It is possible for the federal government to pay more permanent disability compensation, but it requires more documentation. It is not available to people in the United States who do not have proper documentation.
Long Covid is now considered a disability.
A spokesman for the Social Security Administration said that long COVID can now be considered as part of a disability claim, but was unable to say how many people have applied. Under current federal rules, a person must have a medical condition or combination of conditions that prevent them from working for at least a year to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income.
A physical therapist works on a patient at IU Health North Hospital. He was 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 He was not sick enough to be hospitalized at the time of his acute infection, but he has had a number of health conditions since, many of them connected to what an IU Health doctor attributed to long COVID.
Bell said that one of the biggest problems they see is that employers say if you can't come back at 100% then you can't come back. You can't give them a great timeline of when you'll be better if you have long confession. If you break a leg, it will take between 6 and 12 weeks to heal. It's harder with long COVID. If you work in a grocery store, drive a bus, or are a dock loader, it's not easy to get a four-hour shift.
In Illinois, leaders of the Chicago-based Latino Policy Forum have been holding community forums with social workers to help connect people with medical care and advice on how to approach their employers. Sylvia Puente said that many Latinos have little in savings and work jobs without paid sick time. She said she was worried that families who were already living at the poverty line were being forced to work despite being sick.
She said that many Latino workers are just working sick because of concerns about being deported or being barred from U.S. citizenship for accepting government assistance.
People think they need to suffer in silence. She said that people think they work or don't eat.
The government guidance has put employers on familiar legal ground by giving long-haulers the same workplace protections as other disabilities, like deafness or blind, according to Kara Ariail, an employment law expert and partner at the national law firm Holland & Knight. She acknowledged that many employers are confused about what kind of documentation is needed to grant employees short-term disability leave.
She said that it's difficult to know the degrees of impairment, the degrees of improvement. Employers want to do the right thing, but they need information to do that. How can they respond effectively if they don't know there's a problem? Employers want to make their employees feel invested in their success and well-being.
Madison Sparacello was first diagnosed with COVID-19 in April 2020 and had long haul symptoms before she was re diagnosed in January 2021. She is working with doctors to recover.
Madison Sparacello got re-invade a year ago after she first got an infection in April 2020. An aspiring actress who had appeared in television shows, now struggles to work for more than an hour a day at a bingo parlor. She said she's thankful for the work she has, because her $800-a-month disability claim was denied, and she's now working with new doctors who understand her struggles.
She said that her world came crashing down from an illness that was only supposed to last two weeks but never left. It took a while, but I finally found some great doctors that can help.
A public-health researcher and co- founder of the long-hauler group Patient-Led Research Collaborative said that dismissing doctors remains a major barrier for workers trying to get a diagnosis. She said that an American capitalist system often writes off workers if they're no longer considered productive.
It's leading to a lot of gaslighting, to a lot of doctors throwing up their hands and saying 'this could be in your head' or just to push through the pain. "That's the worst thing you can do if you have long COVID, and I'm a long hauler," he said. It's a massive failure of society. People want to work. People want to help. If you have any additional need, it's not seen as being able to work in our society.
The epidemic is changing. Will omicron bring a new normal?
Smith, the Atlanta-based long COVID patient, said being unable to maintain his old work schedule of long hours on his feet or in front of a computer has undermined his self-worth. He said that he hides his illness from people because he doesn't want to argue about the validity of COVID.
He's spent $25,000 on treatments, including on HIV medication. He said he became a vegan to help his immune system. He says he is back to 80% of his former self, but still can't work consistently. He's banking on an experimental blood-cleansing treatment in Germany and has become dissatisfied with medical care in the United States.
He said that people in Atlanta don't wear masks because they don't want to sacrifice their freedom. They don't think my life matters. We are just dust in the wind.
Long COVID-19 patients struggle with diagnosis and return to work.
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