I'm surprised no one mentioned long covid, I'm assuming that has a part to play, people who have mild or even asymptomatic cases of covid are reporting fatigue and breathlessness months after catching the virus. Covid can cause blood clots and damage to the heart and lungs, so out of these 5k cases a day how many people are going to become chronic illness suffers? How many years does catching covid cut off the end of your life? You could catch it and have a mild case but unknowingly have damage to your lungs or heart and end up having an early heart attack because of it, you could get blood clots that travel to your brain and have a stroke at 30 or 18.
These are the things that worry me personally about the increase in cases, not so much the death but the unknown future health repercussions.
Fatigue from long covid article:
www.bbc.com/news/stories-54106272
Sometimes she slept more than 16 hours per day, and struggled with the day-to-day activities needed to look after herself.
"When I did speak with the doctor regarding my dizziness, the fact I have fainted, and also about my fatigue, he openly stated that he did not know how to support me and that the virus is still so new. This of course left me feeling even worse."
In such cases, the WHO says, symptoms may include extreme fatigue, persistent cough or exercise intolerance. The virus can cause inflammation in the lungs, cardiovascular and neurological systems, and it can take a long time for the body to recover.
According to the Covid Symptom Study app, which tracks people's symptoms regardless of whether they had a test, about 300,000 people in the UK have reported symptoms lasting for more than a month, and 60,000 people have been ill for more than three months.
Barbara Melville is an admin of the Long Covid Support Group on Facebook, which was set up to provide a place for people to talk about their experiences and support each other. It now has over 21,000 members, who are living with a wide range of symptoms.
"The chronic illness community is used to waiting 12 months to see a specialist or spending three hours in a clinic waiting for a 10-minute test, but this may well come as an unpleasant shock to previously healthy folks," says Jo Southall, an occupational therapist who specialises in supporting people with chronic illness.
A group of long covid sufferes campaigning for better medical care and understanding of their illness:
www.longcovidsos.org/
The Zoe Covid Symptom Study has produced figures suggesting that 10% of people who contracted Covid-19 are still unwell after three weeks, and that 5% may continue to be sick for months.
While it’s still claimed that patients with ‘mild’ symptoms usually recover within a couple of weeks, previously fit, healthy and in many cases young people are battling continuing illness and are unable to return to their previous lives. Sufferers report breathing difficulties, muscle weakness and pain, fatigue and prolonged fever as well as neurological, vascular and cardiac symptoms.