Opinion | Shining a Light on Long Covid, a ‘Vicious Affliction’
To the Editor:
Re “Could Long Covid Be the Senate’s Bipartisan Cause?,” by Zeynep Tufekci (column, Feb. 20):
Like one of the people you interviewed, I, too, was an “Energizer bunny” before I contracted Covid. I worked as many as 18 hours a day for an aerospace company, got A’s in my grad school classes, ran my own nonprofit and served on the board of directors of several other nonprofits.
However, two active Covid infections within three months — in June and August of 2022 — left me virtually bedridden with long Covid for 18 months. I wasn’t able to complete my master’s degree on time, had to accept a demotion at work (as an accommodation for my infirmity), and am in further danger of losing my job entirely if my health does not improve soon.
To add insult to injury, there are too many dismissive doctors who treat long Covid in an ineffective manner and believe that long Covid is largely a psychological issue. That just smacks of gaslighting.
We need strong, consistent funding and relentless, targeted research to identify effective diagnostic testing and successful therapies. We need to require insurance companies to fund experimental or off-label usage of pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals (food products with health benefits). We, the sick, need help.
Please keep producing articles that shine a light on this vicious affliction. There are so many of us who desperately need a cure and a voice.
Sorina Suma Christian
Mobile, Ala.
To the Editor:
Thank you for the incredible piece about long Covid. My husband is 30 years old and was in his residency for neurology at the University of California, Irvine, when he came down with long Covid. It’s ruined his life. He cannot talk or walk and has 24/7 sensory deprivation.
His story matters. Long Covid stories matter. We will have a whole generation of chronically ill people whom we lose from the economy and daily life if we do not educate the public now.
Please write more about long Covid and its impact on people’s bodies — it’s not just an extended cold. For some, it’s a chronic and systemic disease associated with neurological, immunological, autonomic and energy metabolism dysfunction.
Our lives have been derailed. At 28, I’m my husband’s full-time caregiver. We’ve given up everything to give him a shot at survival. And our story is not unique.
To the Editor:
Re “Recycling Cans Changed My Grandpa’s Life,” by Andrew Li (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 21):
I appreciate Mr. Li’s tribute to his grandfather the “canner,” who supported his immigrant family by redeeming the 5-cent returnables that most of us just throw away. He made the city a cleaner and more sustainable place for everyone while setting his kids and grandkids up for success.
But why do we make his entrepreneurial efforts out to be “sad and degrading,” as his grandson suggests? Because we force him to dig through our trash to find the nickels buried below (or dimes, if the deposit were doubled as has been proposed).
If neighborhoods, businesses, co-ops and homeowners would put their redeemable cans and bottles in a separate bag, box or bin, he would be just another member of the community trading useful services for compensation. Isn’t that the American way?
David Eisen
Cambridge, Mass.
To the Editor:
I lived in New York City my entire life before I retired elsewhere. For years it made me smile to see people stand at the redemption machines with carts full of cans and “make a living” feeding them. I called them “the poor man’s A.T.M.s,” and I was happy that they existed.
Whenever I went to redeem my own cans and bottles, if there was a person there ahead of me with a large amount of them, I would always hand them mine with a smile, and it made me feel good. So it brought back nice memories to read Andrew Li’s essay about what this opportunity has meant to people. I hope they do raise the redemption amount.
I now live in another state, where there are many indigent and disadvantaged people and no such returnable container law, causing many to turn to petty criminal activity to survive. I have always felt sad that this better opportunity to help people honestly, and also to encourage recycling, does not exist here.
Judy Weintraub
Louisville, Ky.
Teachers ‘Pushed to the Brink’
To the Editor:
Re “Teacher Sick Days Are Rising Nationwide, and Substitutes Often Aren’t Available Either” (news article, Feb. 20):
That teachers are taking more sick days since the pandemic should not be surprising. Scrambling in 2020 to adjust to remote instruction, juggling hybrid classes in classrooms unequipped to handle them, risking our lives to teach our nation’s children, and feeling perhaps more intensely than ever scorn toward our profession, we teachers were pushed to the brink.
If students experienced learning loss, teachers experienced stamina loss. Four years later, we’re still recovering.
But the root of teacher shortages cannot be ascribed to the pandemic alone. According to a New Jersey Education Association poll published last year by a task force studying public school staff shortages, only 21 percent of its members said they would recommend that friends or family members become teachers.
Your article rightly points out that teachers have less work flexibility and are paid less than similarly educated professionals. But a well-deserved bump in pay won’t do anything to alleviate the unreasonable workload, administrative paperwork, insufficient professional development, inadequate resources, lack of autonomy and poor mentoring that teachers face daily.
What’s needed is a sea change in attitudes toward teaching in America. If the nation paid teachers the respect it pays professional athletes, movie stars and C.E.O.s, more people would want to be teachers.
Gary J. Whitehead
Norwood, N.J.
The writer is the 2024 Bergen County Teacher of the Year.
Religion at the Border
To the Editor:
Re “At the Border, a Blending of Politics and Religion,” by Mark Peterson (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 11):
Thanks for this photo essay. To tell the full story of the border, you should also publish a photo essay of the religious institutions fighting daily for justice and freedom for immigrants. There are other, opposite ways people demonstrate religious conviction at the border.
Lucia Savage
Oakland, Calif.
Lounging in Bed
To the Editor:
I just finished reading “How Long Is Too Long to Stay in Bed?” (Well, nytimes.com, Feb. 17). I’m now writing this letter, and as soon as I click “send” I’ll get up and get dressed — or maybe not.
Ann J. Kirschner
Brooklyn
To the Editor:
“How to Rest” (The Morning newsletter, Feb. 17) made me so glad that I am old enough to not be on TikTok, where the trend appeared, so I don’t have “bed rot.” I woke up this morning to a glorious sunrise, and now I am going to roll over and sleep for another hour. Without guilt.
Holly Witte
Bellingham, Wash.
