COVID-19 — not TikTok — is disabling young women

“Sickfluencers” are symptoms of a mass disabling event

A young woman stands by a staircase with a backdrop of tree canopy. She wears a white, high quality mask and has long dark hair. She wears a teal sweatshirt and black pants. — Source: Charlotte May, Pexels

This commentary article was originally published in The Gauntlet, a Substack publication by Julia Doubleday. The Sick Times has republished it with permission.

Last week, The Telegraph published an article titled, “How having a disability became cool,” with the subhead, “Young women, nicknamed ‘sickfluencers’, are turning chronic illness into a lifestyle trend and entrenching a culture of economic inactivity.”

This article serves a political purpose.

It shores up the government narrative that rising rates of disability are being driven, not by the ongoing and unchecked spread of COVID-19, but by people just deciding they want to “identify as disabled.”

This claim is absurd on its face.

Let’s dive in.

People do not drop out of work in order to pursue the lucrative field of professional disability-check-collecting. Governments have a tried-and-true method of avoiding exactly this sort of thing: they force disabled people to live in abject poverty, which does the trick quite nicely.

Disabled people, quite simply, are not treated well. They aren’t treated well by governments. It’s not easy to get disability payouts, and even if one does, those payouts are paltry. They aren’t treated well by employers; disabled people are usually both micromanaged and underpromoted. They aren’t treated well by peers, who mix condescension with distaste with prejudice with presumption. In romantic relationships, disabled people are more prone to abuse.

There are quite simply no reasons to “fake” a disability, but there are many, many reasons, to “fake” being well, or better than one is.

Poppy Coburn disagrees, and she’s oh-so-unhappy about it:

POTS. ME. CF. ADHD. MDD. GAD. PMDD. EDS. FND. For a steadily growing group of British young women, these acronyms – and the conditions they represent – are fundamental to their lives. The country is sicker than it’s ever been before, and it’s not afraid of shouting about it. Disability is changing.

There’s almost — almost — nothing wrong with this paragraph other than the sneering tone of the author. “The country is sicker than it’s ever been before” — now why would that be? Six years after COVID-19 hit, four years after the virus has been allowed to run totally rampant without mitigation, the country is sicker than it’s ever been before, but we can’t come up with any reason why that would be other than “women be faking?”

Disability activists warned for years that this would be the outcome of allowing COVID-19 to spread unmitigated. Now that it’s time to pay the piper, the state and its media allies are working desperately to sever the connection between COVID-19 and its consequences.

Now that it’s time to pay the piper, the state and its media allies are working desperately to sever the connection between COVID-19 and its consequences.

Let’s examine a few of the acronyms named above. EDS [Ehlers-Danlos syndrome] is a connective tissue disorder that makes people higher risk for Long COVID. I have EDS, but prior to Long COVID, I didn’t think much of it. I also had underlying POTS [postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome], but again, it was mild compared to how severe it became once I contracted COVID-19 in November 2023.

My story is common. Many people — particularly women — had underlying issues like EDS and mild POTS, but lived normal lives until a SARS-CoV-2 infection surfaced those issues, collapsing the facade of “normalcy” they’d been able to build. My POTS became extremely severe. I also developed moderate-severe ME [myalgic encephalomyelitis], leaving me homebound and mostly bedbound, as well as a chronic migraine disorder.

Other people developed POTS and/or ME after being infected, or only identified their connective tissue disorder after developing Long COVID.

It’s very telling that POTS, ME, and EDS are all listed as common “sickfluencer” diagnoses. These are all associated with Long COVID and were considered relatively rare prior to COVID-19.

The data supports this.

A study from University of Toledo found, “From January 2018 to March 1, 2020 — the date researchers used as the cutoff for the pre-COVID era — the study found an estimate of 4.21 new [POTS] cases diagnosed per month. That rose to 22.66 new cases per month from March 2, 2020, to June 2024, representing a more than five-fold increase.”

A Journal of General Internal Medicine study found that ME/CFS cases are 15 times higher since the pandemic began, using data from the RECOVER initiative.

In terms of connective tissue disorders, risk goes the other way. It’s not COVID-19 leading to EDS but EDS leading to Long COVID. A BMJ Public Health study from 2024 found that “generalized joint hypermobility (GJH, a common marker of variant connective tissue) was significantly associated with non-recovery from COVID-19.”

It’s disturbing — though hardly surprising — that half a decade into the pandemic, people are so unaware of the myriad conditions COVID-19 can trigger and exacerbate. People are unaware that Long COVID is a well-documented illness which produces outcomes like ME, POTS, and autoimmune disease, as well as increasing the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots.

The blame for this widespread ignorance rests squarely on the shoulders of our governments and the press, both of whom continue to kick up dust storms of ambiguity around whether Long COVID is even an acknowledged illness in medical circles (it is), about whether it is psychosomatic (it is not), and about whether disability rates are really increasing (they are).

Crying “social contagion” has always been ironic considering that viral contagion is a real, well-established scientific phenomenon with tens of thousands of scientific papers demonstrating exactly how viruses, and, in particular, COVID-19, lead to post-viral conditions.

But, oddly, when weighing up the evidence for these two explanations (viral contagion vs. social contagion), while only one side can produce reams of peer-reviewed evidence demonstrably linking infectious disease to new-onset health problems, press outlets choose to embrace the absurd alternative: people are pretending because other people are pretending. No evidence, no papers, no problem. Just vibes, snark, and a great big dollop of motivated reasoning.

It should also be noted that the very thing Poppy is decrying young women for doing — “influencing” — can earn much-needed income, even a stable wage, depending on how successful and resonant the content is, and how consistently the creator can produce output.

For young disabled people who may no longer be able to work a full eight-hour day, stand on their feet at a service-industry restaurant or retail job, the flexibility and lack of oversight provided by “influencing” makes it an appealing source of income or supplementary income for a sick person struggling to make ends meet.

Disabled people have much higher self-employment rates than their peers. Despite being twice as likely to be unemployed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported that in 2025, disabled people were self-employed at a rate of 9.1% vs only 5.9% for abled people.

The reasons for this are apparent. Many disabled people cannot maintain a consistent work schedule. I myself am not employed in a full-time role, because my migraines and severe crashes mean that I cannot predict which days I’ll be available to work, or for how long. That’s why my current work is consulting through firms that give me assignments as I request them, and writing this Substack.

Most disabled people struggle mightily to maintain as much income as possible and avoid falling into the poverty of government-provided benefits. To do so, we often must be scrappy, resilient, creative, and adaptable. Content creation is just one avenue that young disabled women have taken to remain visible and stable as their physical bodies limit their professional horizons.

Most disabled people struggle mightily to maintain as much income as possible and avoid falling into the poverty of government-provided benefits. To do so, we often must be scrappy, resilient, creative, and adaptable.

Rather than seeing these women as inspiring, however, Poppy is angry at their temerity — remaining visible while disabled, and unashamed of it at that!

To many, [disability] is no longer an adversity to overcome, but a social identity akin to one’s sexuality, gender, or race; an immutable reality to be celebrated by the subject and accommodated by the rest of us.

Well, mostly yes. Would I consider my disabilities “adversities to overcome?” Many chronic illnesses may be manageable to some degree, but far from “curable” — so what does, for example, “overcoming migraines” mean in this context?

I certainly take all the medications prescribed for my migraines and now I have fewer migraines. Is that inspirational enough for Poppy? I cut out gluten, caffeine, and aspartame after identifying them as migraine triggers, thus allowing me to live with fewer migraines, is that not me working to overcome my disability? I’d venture to guess that Poppy’s only definition of “overcome” is simply “not being disabled anymore”, which isn’t any option for most disabled people- sorry to disappoint!

In truth, the only acceptable definition of “overcoming disability” to people like Poppy is, “stop talking about it, stop complaining, stop existing in a sick body, oh — and get back to work!” In other words: accept that you were never really disabled, overcome your mental weakness, and embrace your physical wellness. Poppy fundamentally misunderstands disability.

Disability status is indeed a social identity akin to sexuality, gender, or race, because it describes the way we must move through the world in relation to others, and how others discriminate against us. Poppy herself demonstrates how difficult it is to move through the world as a disabled person under the weight of others’ assumptions and poor comprehension of chronic illness. That’s why community serves as a sanctuary for many disabled people — so we can find support and safety where we will not be mocked, judged, derided and told to simply “overcome” our illnesses by ignorant ableists.

Disability is indeed a reality — although hardly an immutable one, as people become disabled each day. Disability is the only minority group you can join at any time, is a phrase oft-repeated in the community, and one you will likely join someday. Abled people are encouraged to think of themselves as only “temporarily abled.” I do not believe Poppy is at all able to conceptualize herself as a “future disabled person.” This is a shame because it is this inability which leads a person to advocate against one’s own future self-interests.

As to Poppy’s claim that disabled people ask we be celebrated and accommodated. Yes, yes we do. I certainly demand to be accommodated, as that is supposed to be the law. I can’t force anyone to celebrate me, but I do celebrate, every day, what I’ve been able to survive. Two years into being homebound, I celebrate the strength I did not know I had.

Next, Poppy nearly achieves a breakthrough, but manages to resist thinking critically at the last second:

One in four British people is now disabled, according to the Department for Work and Pensions’ Family Resources Survey. To put this figure in context, this is a higher rate of disability than witnessed in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The growth in those identifying as disabled does not reflect a sudden, shocking increase in the number of paraplegics. The twin driving factors are, instead: mental health disorders and chronic conditions. They can be hard to “prove” and harder to effectively treat, and are more likely to be experienced by young women.

Yes, Poppy has come dangerously close to doing her job — reporting!

Let me try my hand at it: One in four British people is now disabled. To put that figure in context, this is a higher rate of disability than witnessed in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The twin driving factors are mental health disorders and chronic conditions, two issues that are known to follow SARS-CoV-2 infections, and are difficult to effectively treat.

In my rewrite, I’ve stressed, like Poppy, that this is a very high amount of disability. I’ve then connected it to the most major public health story of the last century, something one might think would occur to anyone who wasn’t born in the last 24 hours.

Unlike Poppy, I’ve failed to imply that these disabilities are likely fake, that they’re somehow less important than the one “real” disability which is (for some reason) paraplegia, and I’ve also left out the misogyny toward young women (whom, I can only guess by the paragraph’s tone, are to be judged as unserious liars). I can’t think of any reason why someone would expect paraplegia to be rising at a shockingly high rate unless the entire nation took up horseback riding in the morning and motorcycle riding in the evening.

But since we all took up catching COVID-19 instead, this outcome — the outcome of autoimmune disorders, chronic illnesses like POTS and ME, and mental illnesses like ADHD and anxiety following a neuroinvasive infection — is much to be expected.

Of course, the science has long been clear that many chronic conditions disproportionately affect women for various hormonal, biological, and social factors including underfunding of research. Studies find that women make up 80% of autoimmune disease cases including lupus, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis. That does not mean these illnesses are not real.

There is incentive for the state to continue to try and pour cold water over the increasing public awareness of chronic illness and disability. This incentive is that the state does not wish to pay for all these disabled people.

The state wanted and continues to want to force people “back to work” without controlling COVID-19, but it does not want to pay for the damage COVID-19 inflicts on our bodies after doing so.

The state wanted and continues to want to force people “back to work” without controlling COVID-19, but it does not want to pay for the damage COVID-19 inflicts on our bodies after doing so.

To be clear: not every disability or chronic illness is caused by COVID-19. However, the runaway acceleration in the diagnoses of common post-COVID conditions like ME, POTS, and autoimmune diseases is absolutely caused by the ongoing failure to control unmitigated COVID-19. And it’s why there’s an apparent “trend” in these diagnoses.

Unwilling to bear the costs of its own failed policy, the state takes a “divide and conquer” approach, casting doubt on Long COVID patients and activists, silencing those who report direct harm from SARS-CoV-2 infections with mockery, propaganda, accusations, and denial.

Across the political spectrum, we’ve seen a ratcheting up of anti-disability rhetoric and policy, from the return of “r” slur, to the normalization of euthanasia. We are likely to see more legalization of assisted dying with fewer and fewer safeguards as the crisis of Long COVID worsens.

In the U.K., we’ve seen hysteria over increased disability payouts, we’ve seen the public increasingly accused of being “work shy,” and we’ve seen the Labour government make cuts to disability benefits. We can assume there is worse austerity ahead as this problem accelerates.

This week is a particularly poignant time to be making this point. Simon Wessely, today on the board of the NHS [National Health Service], was one of the doctors who wrote dismissively about “World Trade Center Syndrome.” Read his words here, written eight months after the towers fell, as people were reporting their new-onset health issues after working at Ground Zero.

the emergence of ‘World Trade Syndrome’, a vague collection of symptoms among the residents of Lower Manhattan, blamed on various ‘toxins’ released after the collapse of the Twin Towers, only makes sense in the context of a seemingly endless list of other mysterious symptoms and syndromes that are blamed on similar toxic disasters….

We medicalise the non-pathological – and this is instituted not just by the medical professions but by the consumers themselves. So the normal symptoms and malaise that are part of the human condition, exacerbated by encounters with adversity such those on and after 11 September, are now more likely to be medicalised.

Wesseley has also been a major figure behind the psychologization of ME/CFS and, of course, has held the line in psychologizing Long COVID.

His leap to psychologize post-September 11 illnesses in the months following the disaster speak to his motivations. Of course, very little could have been known at that time about the long-term effects of inhaling the toxic mix of dust, gasses, and smoke. But it was clear enough that governments had motivation to deny first responders’ claims. Wesseley is a man who sides with power, reflexively.

In the 25 years since, it has been firmly established that the illnesses reported were indeed linked to the toxic smoke at Ground Zero and, today, over 9,000 deaths are attributed to breathing the air there. This is more than three times as many people as were killed in the initial attacks. Days ago, Mayor Zohran Mamdani released 170,000 pages of municipal records pertaining to air quality following the attacks.

“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” he stated.

It’s critical that we observe how power moves to protect itself, and how it lashes out at vulnerable victims as they attempt to draw attention to themselves when it may cost the state.

It’s critical that we observe how some (not all) doctors and journalists will burn credibility to protect the state — because they know that siding with the state will not truly cost them in the end. Although Wesseley came out loudly and proudly to call 9/11 victims hysterical, 25 years later he has only been rewarded for his loyalty to official narratives.

He will likely never fall out of favor, because he continues to demonstrate usefulness to the state.

This is what Poppy is doing as well. She is demonstrating her value to the state. She is an asset; a good, productive, and loyal worker, someone who will question lazy and bad workers. They may claim to be ill, but Poppy knows better. There is no logical explanation for an increase in disability, for there is no pandemic. These “sick” people are hysterical — they’re mostly women after all. Shrill, irritating, irrational, emotional women. Poppy abandons solidarity with her fellow workers and with her fellow women in order to cast her lot closer to the oppressive patriarchal ruling class.

In order for there to a be a crisis, the crisis must have victims. When you silence those victims, you erase the crisis. That is how the erasure of millions of newly disabled people serves the narrative of COVID-19’s disappearance/harmlessness.

It’s important for those nominally on the left to understand how questioning Long COVID patients’ illnesses, as well as disabled people’s illnesses and disabilities in general, serves the state. Creating an environment of doubt, vitriol, and surveillance in which fellow workers are negatively radicalized against sick people is the goal of the state; again, this is a “divide and conquer” tactic.

Understanding the state’s motives and these tactics can familiarize people with this propaganda so they stop providing free labor to the state by punching down on ill workers, many of whom were disabled by negligent public health policy and labor in service of the state. Participating in this state project fractures the working class.

Poppy concludes her piece thus:

A chronically “sick” person does what a chronically sick person is supposed to do: they withdraw from regular life, struggle with previously simple tasks, receive support and condolences, and rarely, if ever, get better.

She’s almost correct here. Certainly, chronically ill people do withdraw from regular life and struggle with previously simple tasks. Rarely getting better — that’s sort of covered by the descriptor “chronic,” is it not?

But this description is intended to shift blame. In her presentation, people with chronic illness are choosing not to get better. The intended audience here is not people with chronic illness; it is well people. This piece aims to persuade the well audience: sick people are making a choice to behave as if they are sick, so don’t encourage them, and don’t be nice to them, and don’t support any government policies to give them any money.

To take the implications of this statement further, Poppy wants well people to consider that sick people, choosing to be sick as they are, are doing so to shirk their fair share of the work we’re all called upon to do collectively. Thus, the sickness and disability of a fellow citizen is an attack upon you. You’re working, yet these “sick” people are living the high life, basking in “support and condolences” from near and far, collecting big checks from the government instead of contributing to society, and decorating their wheelchairs with fun stickers and colors — yet more evidence that they’re not really sick! (As we all know, real sick people HATE fun stickers and colors!)

We must ask our abled fellow workers to engage more seriously with ableist propaganda, to learn to identify it, and most particularly to learn when state actors and their allies in the press are utilizing divide and conquer tactics to stoke hatred toward sick people.

We must ask our abled fellow workers to engage more seriously with ableist propaganda, to learn to identify it, and most particularly to learn when state actors and their allies in the press are utilizing divide and conquer tactics to stoke hatred toward sick people.

This article was originally published at The Gauntlet, a Substack publication by Julia Doubleday sharing COVID-19 and Long COVID information, updates, and commentary.