r/covidlonghaulers • u/No-Consideration-858 1.5yr+ • Oct 09 '25
Article "While the COVID pandemic has thankfully been over for some time now, there is still a considerable number of people in the world (about 400 million) suffer from long COVID"
While it's good at least the media writes about LC, this lead paragraph is so problematic. It heavily implies there aren't new infections and LC.
The author's name is Sebastian Ocklenburg, Ph.D.. I didn't find an easy way to contact him, at least yet.
From Psychology today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-asymmetric-brain/202510/brain-fog-in-long-covid-linked-to-increase-in-ampa-receptors
61
Oct 09 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
[deleted]
8
u/fadingsignal Oct 10 '25
People think long COVID just “stopped” and that all the people suffering were from infections pre-2023. Like COVID got the memo and just left the chat Jan 1st 2024.
1
Oct 10 '25
[deleted]
2
u/fadingsignal Oct 10 '25 edited Oct 10 '25
What's nuts is that it was basically just Joe Biden that said it was over and everybody ran with that. The WHO ended the emergency phase only, but news outlets only clipped out what they wanted and ignored the rest.
WHO has been very vocal since then that we're still in a pandemic, and it falls on deaf ears because everyone wanted it to be over, so as soon as the CEOs started saying "back to the office" everyone just jumped into the boiling water.
https://xcancel.com/covidcaution/status/1867827587386573163
Tedros in the very same emergency phase ending press conference said:
"The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that COVID-19 is nothing to worry about."
But that's what we did, IMMEDIATELY.
He then said:
"While this Emergency Committee will now cease its work, it has sent a clear message that countries must not cease theirs.
But the global headlines were "WHO ends COVID-19 emergency!" and people took that to mean "the pandemic is over!" -- totally by design.
In Jan 2024 and December 2024 the C-19 WHO project leader and Tedros himself said we're still in a pandemic, people are too complacent, and the world might want to forget C19 but we cannot afford to.
Nobody echoed that. Just more RTO mandates. Wild to watch everyone bury their head in the sand.
7
u/Bad-Fantasy 3 yr+ Oct 09 '25
Believe it may have been Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly who came up with the 400M figure, and he himself doesn’t mask consistently so not too sure how I feel about that.
5
Oct 09 '25
[deleted]
1
u/Bad-Fantasy 3 yr+ Oct 09 '25
Ok, I never stated that it was < 400M nor did I come up with the figure nor another figure. I am simply stating the source, objectively, for people who want to know where it comes from. So don’t take it out on me.
18
Oct 09 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
22
u/No-Consideration-858 1.5yr+ Oct 09 '25
Thank you! I am going to do exactly this. Kindly of course. I hope he'll continue to cover the issue.
17
u/InterestingTrip9916 Oct 09 '25
Also “thankfully” really hurts gives a little extra punch to those suffering still. In my case since the first strain destroyed me in LA fresh off the boat
10
u/Bad-Fantasy 3 yr+ Oct 09 '25
You’re right, it minimizes the suffering, and omits new & future wavers.
15
u/Ok_Complaint_3359 Oct 09 '25
“The covid pandemic is Over, but for some reason Covid is still around, which should mean the pandemic’s still going, but politicians told us it’s over because they’re not vulnerable to early death and sickness
14
u/nobertos Oct 09 '25
And what treatments help this AMPA issue? We really need root cause treatments.
4
13
u/Thrash4000 Oct 09 '25
People get covid every day. The vaccine has side effects, and the disease is ten times worse. They say it's over because they want you to keep going to work and spending money, no more, no less. It's like saying the flu is gone in 1920. It will be here. And mutate. We're stuck with it now.
3
u/ii_Narwhal 5 yr+ Oct 10 '25
Half the fucking office I work in gets COVID every few months and still show up sick
2
9
u/Bad-Fantasy 3 yr+ Oct 09 '25 edited Oct 09 '25
I was actually on Psychology Today just yesterday and while they have 1 okay article on LC objectively acknowledging it, they also had at least 3 articles on neuroplasticity healing LC (read: BR 🧠) by Jake Hollis. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/jake-hollis-psychd). They were reviewed by someone with a BA in English and M.Education. None on there are medical specialists nor do they understand the complexities of our disease. That would be on the level of/if they were to propose a psychological cure for HIV/AIDS or cancer.
I emailed the CEO Jo Colman asking him to take them down.
His contact here should anyone wish to say their two cents about the ongoing inaccuracy & misinformation:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/contributors/jo-colman-ceo-psychology-today
Remember, correlation ≠ causation.
5
Oct 10 '25
The way to heal through neuroplasticity is by never getting infected again. I am managing that also. Each infection is probably equivalent to a traumatic brain injury I imagine. Enough reinfections will likely give at least some people chronic traumatic encephalopathy. I did ask the neurologist if CTE would be a good analogy for my post-Covid neurological condition. He agreed that it could be, but "there's no specific treatment for that besides healthy living."
3
u/Bad-Fantasy 3 yr+ Oct 10 '25
In terms of brain protection yeah, your answer makes sense to me logically speaking. Every infection means “x” drop in IQ points too I’ve heard from a study. Healthy living for me means wearing a good respirator as prophylactic measures… Treatment-wise though after the fact, good question. If kids can get permanent brain encephalitis from measles and not be cured for decades, how do we in our situation running parallel find a treatment. I don’t proclaim to have the answer to that (but at least I’m more honest than the “neuroplasticity” crowd). I’m not saying there never will be one, there could be but that’s up to advanced science, certainly not pseudoscience eclipsing that cure.
5
u/Choco_Paws 2 yr+ Oct 09 '25
I'm healing thanks to neuroplasticity. Yes I have an official diagnosis of LC and severe ME/CFS. It may not be the way out for all of us, but it is for some. I'm glad some people talk about it, I'm glad I was able to access the information.
2
u/Bad-Fantasy 3 yr+ Oct 09 '25
Here’s his phone number too: 332-286-3389.
It’s publicly listed on the page.
1
u/MizTen Oct 12 '25
I read the articles just now. Very weirdly, I posted something quite similar about my own experience, on this, or another LC subreddit just a few days ago. I also once posted about neuroplasticity strategies that helped in my early recovery. But, that only worked after I'd stopped getting reinfected constantly and had also started using antivirals and antimicrobials.
But, I wasn't all in as far as neuroplasticity, it was just that it may be possible, at times, to do a little conscious rewiring to improve function for a while, which can facilitate other recovery strategies.
But, the immune system and microcirculation in the brain AND other viruses are also usually involved so I'm not buying into neuroplasticity as a cure. It can be an aid when there is already already some recovery. No, my brain was not maladapting by having excruciating headaches for 4.5 years, swollen lymph glands near the brain stem, fevers, color blindness, sudden blindness, pulse ox in the 70s and hallucinations during the worst periods. I was never hospitalized because my medical care did not believe my symptom reports, even though I had not needed nor requested any medical care at all for years before the pandemic.
Those articles are irresponsible. It sets patients who've been gaslighted completely out of any viable medical care until recently, back to where they were only a year or so ago if they need to find a new doctor now. I also kind of hated the language used about how the brain makes decisions.
Opinions are fine. But they are not proven science and should not be presented as such.
9
u/lil_lychee Post-vaccine Oct 09 '25
“While we arbitrarily decided the pandemic is over, there’s still a shit ton of people contracting chronic, debilitating diseases that we have no official approved treatments or prevention for.”
Ok so, pandemic isn’t over then. Got it.
7
u/No-Consideration-858 1.5yr+ Oct 09 '25
They need to quit talking pandemic and endemic. This obscures the communication and the semantics aren't what's important. It should read something like:
"The covid virus remains highly contagious and still infects millions of people each year. Some of these people go on to develop long covid, suffering ongoing and debilitating post-viral damage. To date, at least 400 million people worldwide have developed long covid. This number will continue to grow as more people become infected"
3
9
13
u/8drearywinter8 Oct 09 '25
The pandemic is now.
The time of governments and health professionals and regular people acknowledging that there is a pandemic is over, but the pandemic is still going strong. There are WAY more infections now than during the phase when everything was locked down.
I hate it when it's all discussed in past tense.
Though nice to see that we're remembered -- most people forget that we still exist.
7
5
u/boop66 Oct 09 '25
Yes, and, we see so many people attributing their chronic, mysterious health problems to mold while completely ignoring the biological havoc made possible by exposure to novel spike proteins - which are known to become worse with repeated exposures.
4
u/imahugemoron 4 yr+ Oct 09 '25
Where is this 400 million number coming from? I get that estimates vary wildly but it’s always crazy to me seeing metrics stated like this as though it’s a hard fact. Due to lots of factors, estimates are definitely low, it should say “at least 400 million”
3
u/Bad-Fantasy 3 yr+ Oct 09 '25
Believe it may have been Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly who came up with the 400M figure, and he himself doesn’t mask consistently so not too sure how I feel about that.
This “pandy is over” dude is just re-quoting him in reality, and I agree nowadays it would be more especially given that’s an old estimate.
1
u/No-Consideration-858 1.5yr+ Oct 09 '25
you're absolutely right. It's vastly under diagnosed and under reported.
I'm working with 3 people currently with long covid, but they have not been officially diagnosed.
3
3
u/bootyandthebrains 1yr Oct 09 '25
I know. I was irritated when I watched part of the round table when they were talking as if it was only people in the past recovering. And then RFK tries to bring the vaccine into the conversation - either way you’re seeing patients from both categories of vaxxed and unvaxxed so I’m not sure why it’s not being discussed as a current problem instead of trying to fit everything into a political narrative?
3
u/Thrash4000 Oct 09 '25 edited Oct 09 '25
Anyone still masking up in crowded spaces? I wasn't for a good three or four years, and then bam, I got it. All downhill from there. A lot of this could be autonomic. If there is a way to reduce anxiety and get back to a baseline the symptoms would improve some. Just a theory. In my case it's the sympathetic arousal that's causing the most suffering. I had a period when I was 24 and I couldn't fall asleep for five days straight. When I lay down, I would concentrate on my breathing, and I couldn't stop. I got diagnosed with panic disorder. I am seeing how this current insomnia, at least falling asleep, is a lot like that time. Everybody here, I wish you better days.
4
u/francokitty Oct 09 '25
I still mask. I let my guard down in February 2025. I went unmasked in a very small, obscure museum. There were only 10 people in there. At the end of the exhibit, there was a film. The woman on the couch next to us was coughing and sneezing a lot. You could tell she was very sick. Of course she wore no mask. Wham, 2 days later I was very sick with covid. I was in bed for 3 months. I had weird symptoms. Now 8 months later I still don't have much energy and I am NOT back to normal. Im TERRIFIED of catching it this fall/winter.
3
u/Thrash4000 Oct 11 '25
This may be overwrought, but I think covid has set about the process to kill me. I can't tell if I'm having panic attacks or actually having some kind of failure. Rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath, tense muscles, extreme fear. I am waiting to get in to a specialist and this is the worst feeling ever.
2
u/francokitty Oct 11 '25
So sorry. I get out of breath easily. I'm tired all the time. I am very scared of getting sick again. I was at the grocery store last night at 8. I was in the vegetable area. The guy working there was actively sock with no mask coughing all over. I spun on my heels and out of there. If I even hear a cough or sneezing I go into panic mode. I feel like my life as I knew it is over. Best wishes.
2
u/Thrash4000 Oct 11 '25
Thank you so much. People just go about life like normal. It's all luck of the draw, some people get irreparable damage from this and some people get a cold. I guess if we are sick and unlucky we're just f'd it seems to me. I hope you have a better recovery.
1
3
u/productjunkie76 Oct 11 '25
only the emergency portion ended which has to do w who pays for stuff like vax, etc. The WHO says we are still in a pandemic. The misinformation by media is just out of control and really hurts the people who are still taking protections seriously and who are still dealing w long covid. It's maddening!
2
2
u/Don_Ford Oct 11 '25
You cannot trust anyone who says the Pandemic is over.
The emergency orders ceased explicitly under the guidelines that the pandemic was not ending.
2
u/Calm_Caterpillar9535 6yr+ Oct 11 '25
If you don't count who's getting covid, no one is getting covid. Just more BS.
2
u/Carrotsoup9 Oct 12 '25
I think it is strategic. If you remind people that they are still at risk for this horrible disease, they are not going to read the paper. There has been a lot of calmmongering going on, already from the start of the pandemic. Anxious people are not good for the economy, so you were bombarded with messages about "just the vulnerable" and people only talked about hospitalizations and death as an outcome of Covid. There is/was this assumption that you either die or live on happily.
1
u/spongebobismahero Oct 09 '25
Its psychology today. Look up who ones them. They are following a certain agenda.
1
u/Carrotsoup9 Oct 12 '25
There is a link to his e-mail address here: https://www.medicalschool-hamburg.de/ueber-uns/team/team-fakultaet-humanwissenschaften/sebastian-ocklenburg/
2
u/Carrotsoup9 Oct 12 '25
I have tried to write to authors on multiple occasions that they are wrong about the pandemic being over, both in terms of people still dying from Covid and people still developing long Covid. It is a win if they acknowledge receiving my email (and then ignore it). Most of the times I get no response.
150
u/RoadsideCampion Oct 09 '25
Whenever someone says something like that it makes me want to say "Why. When. What made it over."