Alan Levinovitz

that in any of these chronic illness cases, parents are deliberately making their children ill for attention or to keep their kids around the house.

I mean, it's just like a monstrous accusation to make.

And I would be... I can't even imagine how I would feel if someone said that to me.

I would lose my mind.

Yeah, well, okay, so it's worth pointing out.

There's a huge spectrum

of what is even defined as long COVID.

And I talk about this in the piece as well, because we have no biomarkers for it.

That is to say, biomarkers that are unique to this condition.

So it can range from, I believe that this ongoing slight lack of taste that I have, or I believe that this ongoing slightly elevated level of fatigue that I have is due to my COVID infection.

That is one version of long COVID.

All the way over to

I'm in bed.

I can't move.

I'm in the dark because I cannot tolerate light.

And I have headphones on because I cannot tolerate sound.

And I have an IV for my food because I can't chew without experiencing immense crushing pain.

So yeah, I talked to a dozen people who are in that situation.

It's terrifying.

This exists, that same situation exists for other what are called post-acute infectious syndromes.