Careful not to mix up definitions. "Long-term" in medicine does not mean "extended period of time." It more often means "requiring continuous monitoring or care over an extended period of time." COVID-19 patients are still actively monitored, especially now as we have meta-studies just released this month showing SARS-CoV-2 appears to have some preference to selectively target ACE2 (vasodilation). We don't have concrete alphas on any target yet, but we certainly have longitudinal studies in progress. It's been one year from the first cases appearing in Wuhan. We have traced and confirmed more than a dozen variants originating in post-Wuhan areas. The recent surge in new cases is owed almost exclusively to two variants with significantly higher transmissibility.

Last, I'd like to point out that while I agree this type of virus is relatively new to humans, and the -2 virus is very new, we do have a wealth of longitudinal knowledge from SARS and MERS cases to work with in conjunction with what we are discovering about SARS-CoV-2. So far, it is not the patients with respiratory illness that we need to be concerned about. It is the patients with zero respiratory symptoms, but high risk of other cardiovascular and autoimmune symptoms. I think we're more baffled by how this one virus can go from putting someone on a ventilator to putting someone at a significant risk of stroke in such a short period of time.

That said, I agree with you that these are apples and oranges. The brain-eating amoebas are a panic thing. COVID-19 is not something to shake a fist at. COVID-19 has been found in spinal fluid. Given SARS and MERS do not share this trait, we have a lot more reason to take -2 as a serious threat, regardless of its extremely high short-term survival rate.