Can we please address this fact that scares a lot of us? We already know the death rate is low for groups that are not at risk but it seems even healthy people are suffering from "long COVID" with serious long term implications.
There is almost no evidence of either in mild-to-moderate cases of Covid-19 (i.e. the vast majority of cases). People who have been on ventilators, or hospitalized for extended periods due to severe illness are a different story, as ventilators themselves often cause lung damage. The scariest anecdotes that have been widely circulated online have come from ventilated or hospitalized patients with severe illness.
Beyond these anecdotes, stories of "long covid" thus far are predominantly based on anecdote and self-reporting of symptoms, and the symptom profiles that you hear are frequently vague and/or unverifiable ("brain fog") and in most cases, not significantly different than you might see with any respiratory virus.
For example, here is a report from the CDC that was widely reported as evidence that "35% of covid cases had long-term illness". However, "long-term" here, is defined as "three weeks", and "illness" was defined as a spectrum of mild symptoms that resemble any flu-like illness, such as fatigue, cough and congestion:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6930e1.htm
Even more specific studies have had serious problems. There have been a few reports of cardiac inflammation and other specific clinical signs in otherwise healthy people. To date, most of these have been debunked for statistical problems. For example, it was widely reported that Division I athletes were found to have heart inflammation after mild Covid-19 infections, which led the Big10 to start screening athletes with MRI before play. Subsequently, so few abnormalities have been found that doctors are now calling for the rule to be rescinded:
https://www.si.com/college/2020/10/28/big-ten-covid-protocol...
https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/cs_srgb/MTc2NDI1M...
In short, the science of "long-term covid" exceptionally poor, and I caution you that most of what you're reading online is rumor and speculation.
For the previous SARS pandemic I believe it was about half of every infected person who developed long term respiratory problems. This strain shares around 80% of its genome with the previous SARS-1 strain.
Governments seem more keen on burning an uncountable amount of money on dubious PCR testing instead of treating or at least debunking any concerns of long term issues.
Its obvious that MY government really has no clue what they are doing. They have given themselves absolute power in this state of emergency, they make decisions and then announe them before other parties have a chance to say anything about the material handed to them. First our government sold The state serum institute to a rediculous low price to some sheikh from Saudi Arabia, and now they pay BILLIONS every month to that very same company and take all the advice they give as unconditional fact.
But fact is they are a private company with a stake in government funded PCR testing.
You tell us an anecdote about how you are experiencing problems after you were sick in December.
I’m pretty sure you didn’t get tested for Corona in December but anyway I don’t see how that justifies scaremongering about ‘a lot of cases’ where people have longlasting damage. Again, if it is so pronounced and affects so many people it shouldn’t be hard to show.
My point is that governments do NOT want to address the ARDS concerns because it will mean millions of citizens will have to get early pensions, which will be a massive strain on welfare states. They'd rather not address this at all. My other point is that we have reached a point where PCR testing is utterly meaningless, it SOLELY benefits big pharma.
It makes no sense to keep on doing PCR testing, we should have done like china when shtf there and started doing symptom diagnostics instead since its way cheaper.
Also, if you need a respirator to breathe, you need it COVID or not. If you are sick, it doesn't really matter if its SARS-2, covid-20 or the flu. Stay home!