My loyal reader will know all about my levels of expertise with COVID-19. That is to say, I have very little. It’s why I rely on the expertise of virologists and epidemiologists who know a lot about COVID-19. And, because I still have a curious, if not particularly well developed intellectual, brain I try to read and learn about stuff I don’t know much about. Which leads me to COVID lung.
The pictures at the head of this piece were posted by an actual expert, who explains the effects on the lungs of people who have had the virus. Not just those who died, or even nearly died, but also those who didn’t have too many problems or were asymptomatic: it appears they have all suffered permanent lung damage. This finding should affect the way in which we all think about COVID-19.
It’s relevant because by mid-February, Boris Johnson will be under huge pressure from the headbangers on his back benches to ease all restrictions. You see, by then most people who regarded as vulnerable will have had their vaccines, albeit only the first shots. Infections, hospitalisations and deaths will be falling and Johnson, who just wants to be popular, will, I fear, open everything up, albeit slowly and unsurely.
The fear is that when we open up, the virus will run riot, but hopefully it won’t kill quite so many people. I mean, it will kill people but not so many people. But many people may suffer permanent lung damage, even if they appear to feel nothing at the time.
Johnson has never locked down hard enough and even when he did, it was after a period of dithering. He opened things up far too quickly as well, especially last summer giving us free money to go out and eat.
This virus isn’t going away and it will never go away. The experts suggest we will treat it like the flu and have vaccine jabs every year. Younger and healthier people may catch the virus but most won’t need to go in hospital and they won’t die. But they – we – may be storing up health problems for the future.
I hope we lock down even harder to massively suppress the virus and don’t open up a thing until it’s completely under control. Many will suffer and many will die of the virus because of how it destroys our lungs. This could be the so called post COVID future. It won’t be as bad as the COVID present, but it will be much worse than the world before COVID.
