it was only when i returned to work (after using more than a week of health leave for the first time in my life) that i learned my experience was not unique. colleagues began to relay countless stories of their friends and family who, like me, were hit very hard by covid despite being fit, healthy and vaccinated.
the more i recovered, the more resentful i felt. why is no one talking about the very real possibility that covid will leave you in the grey area — somewhere in the vast space between mild symptoms and death? somewhere that may not quite put you in the hospital, but leave you feeling like a rundown, under-oxygenated shell of your former self, weeks or months after recovering?
for one thing, there is nowhere to report it. those desperate enough to spend the day in an overburdened emergency room may ultimately be logged in hospitalization data — which seems to be the only criterion for a noteworthy case. otherwise, mum’s the word. in this context of a novel, rapidly mutating disease, where the long-term effects are as unknown as the rate of people who experience them, why would the most extreme cases be the only ones worth hearing about?
reports on covid deaths and hospitalizations are important, to be sure. but for every person who seeks hospital care, there are others who, for a variety of reasons, opt to wait it out at home. in the absence of those numbers, i’d settle for some public acknowledgement that they exist.