Alan Levinovitz

So this has been documented.

Again, I talked about this in the wire piece.

So yeah, I think it's really important for people to realize that there are some people who are just incredibly

sick.

I mean, one of the main people I showcased in the piece was anonymized because he was afraid of having his insurance taken away from him.

Another thing that long COVID patients face.

Larson was, was so sick that, that even while he was talking to me, he was recovering.

So before he couldn't talk at all, but he had to, he had to, he had to, he could only talk for, for maybe like 45 minutes at a time.

It got better and better actually as we were going, but you know, he's still very, very sick.

Um,

Yeah, it's horrible.

I hope to raise awareness of that.

And while people in the long COVID community already know this, I also take comfort that hearing from someone like you, hey, whoa, I didn't realize how sick people could get from these conditions.

Then I've done something right in the article as well, raising awareness of just how debilitating these conditions can be for some people.

It's just, it's so obviously not made up.

And the other thing, again, I just, I cannot keep emphasizing this enough.

It is not the product of false beliefs.

I don't know which analogies to use because they are all imperfect.

But here again, I think the addiction analogy can be helpful.

You're not addicted to whatever the substance is that you're addicted to because you believe you need it.