Covid is supposedly a respiratory tract infection, so who'd be expecting it to only show up in the gut? It seems they still don't know whether that is in fact the explanation.
That's the thing with SARS-CoV-2.
It's primarily transmitted by aerosols, but it has also been shown to be transmitted via smearing. It's primarily a respiratory tract infection, but it has also been shown to have intestinal, cardiovascular and neurological impact as well as persistence in these tissues [1].
And yet, despite 7 millions of people dead and dozens of millions of people suffering from long covid, there's almost no prevention mechanisms in force anywhere on this planet, even vaccine development and rollout have all but ground to a halt. It's like we learned nothing at all from the pandemic, our politicians just wanted to make it go away by pretending it went away.
Sadly the politicians are trying to wave that one away as well...
Approximately 1% of the population die per year.
You think that's a big number, but it's not. People die.
Yeah, but generally, your standard flu doesn't end the careers of about 6% of athletes who manage to catch it [1]. Covid is worse than the flu.
> People die.
Old people, yes. Young, healthy people in the midst of their careers? No. That's quite the misconception that has always stuck with covid, particularly as politicians focused on protecting primarily the elderly - the reality is, of all the US covid deaths, a quarter were people below pension age [2].
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/https-wwwdwcom-en-life-with-long-covid...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...