❦ “Feeling validated that life is ‘back to normal’ as you see all of those unmasked people around you in restaurants, shops and cinemas?

I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Those who recognise the risk and who would be masked up aren’t even there.

They are busy elsewhere staying healthy.

More than 400 million now have Long Covid; a disease from Covid that can impact any organ system, and is proven to cause damage to the brain, heart, lung, kidney, gut, immune and multiple other systems.

That’s one in 20 globally.

How come you don’t know anyone with it?

It’s one of three likely reasons…

1. They have been sick so long that they do what most chronically ill people do when they are asked, “How are you?”

They say, “I’m fine”.

2. They don’t recognise the relation of their recent heart attack/memory impairment/new diabetes to their Covid illness in the last year.

3. It’s because they aren’t at that restaurant, movie, theatre, work night out as they don’t fancy worsening their already awful situation with a further infection.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Even those who know someone with Long Covid will minimise it, as it doesn’t fit with the general narrative that Covid is over. It’s too much cognitive dissonance for most people to handle.

Easier to believe that everything’s OK, and it must “just be them being anxious”.

It’s not over.

I’ll let you in on another special secret; it’s not anxiety.

It’s a calm determination to maintain health, in the full knowledge of what Covid can do.”

© 2023 NHS Palliative Care Medicine Consultant.