Commentary
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Immune system damage from COVID-19 is different from HIV/AIDS — but the advocacy has parallels
Lymphopenia is a health condition in which people have low white blood cell count in their blood. Without these cells, the body is unable to defend itself effectively against pathogens. Lymphopenia is one type of way your body can be immunocompromised; it can be caused by many things, including infections, inherited conditions, autoimmune disorders, and…
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“Stand Together,” an excerpt from The Covid Safety Handbook
The Covid Safety Handbook is informed by the global, national, local, and neighborhood care circles coming together under the banner of Covid prevention to center science, accurate and non-judgemental information, inclusiveness, and equity in public health. This book draws strength from all the tireless variant hunters and wastewater trackers around the world who struggle to…
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My Mom was disabled by ME, but I didn’t understand until I developed Long COVID. I wrote an apology letter to her.
Dear Mom, Thirty years later, I finally understand. Do you remember the year 1994? You got sick when I was a child, and you weren’t ever the same again. At first, it was a cough and congestion But as days gathered into weeks, you spent more time in bed Why are you so tired, I…
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Special edition zine: One year of The Sick Times
We made a zine! To celebrate our first anniversary, we commissioned artist Katie Drackert to create a printable mini-magazine of our first year’s highlights, as well as top Long COVID and COVID-19 resources. Please print it and distribute it widely!
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Video essay: Taipei on what it’s like being a drag artist with Long COVID
In our first video essay for The Sick Times, drag artist Taipei talks about how Long COVID impacts her work as a performer and how many spaces are inaccessible for disabled performers due to a lack of COVID-19 precautions. Transcript: What’s it like to be a drag artist living with Long COVID? Let’s talk about…
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Missing the gig: When your subculture leaves you behind with Long COVID
“Maybe now vocalists will finally start bringing their own mics,” I tweeted in the first days of March 2020. My virtual audience was mostly friends I met by participating in subcultures in and adjacent to the DIY tendency of hardcore punk rock. In those early days, we on the cultural fringes shared a sense that…
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The trouble with recovery stories
Recovery stories have been popular in the media lately. Two recent stories have evoked a wide range of reactions among those with ME, with some gaining hope from them and supporting the right for everyone to share their experiences as they choose; and others feeling let down by narratives that arguably perpetuate negative stereotypes about…
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We set out to make our ‘invisible illness’ visible in South Africa with SICK Pride
How can people with energy-limiting conditions march for our rights if we have negligible physical capability and exertion worsens our symptoms? My colleague Mlindeni Gabela and I are pioneering a new kind of protest in South Africa: SICK Pride. SICK stands for the Society for the Inclusion of Chronic Knowledge, which we feel is a…
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Why aren’t public health officials telling people about the fertility cost of COVID-19 and Long COVID?
“Come back to me when you start wanting children,” my gynecologist said. I had asked about the implications on fertility, thanks to my Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) diagnosis — and was dismissed once again. It enveloped me with such despair. For over two years I was shunted between varying medical offices, from primary care to…
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Five reasons why the NIH should retract the “effort preference” claims in their intramural ME/CFS paper
In February, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published a controversial paper that aimed to characterize myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The study, published in Nature Communications, took eight years and cost $8 million. Participants flew in from all over the country and went through intense testing on NIH’s Bethesda,…
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