Underestimated danger – Corona – the almost forgotten virus

Doris F. (name changed) it’s not going well now. She suffers from chills, sweats, fevers, headaches and sore throats, as well as body aches, “which,” she laments, “are so bad I can hardly sleep.” One thing is certain: the Lower Austrian has Corona.

“It is the fault of the government that I have Covid”
“And I think I know exactly,” she says, “where I got infected.” In the large company she works for as an office worker: “I’m in a room with five colleagues. One of them tested positive a week and a half ago, but after two days of working from home he felt fit enough to go back to work.”

Postscript: “Although he coughed quite a bit.” Of course, the man wore a mask, “but untidy”; and plainly, “I’ve tried to stay away from him.”

In their fear of transmitting the virus. “From the start of the pandemic, I have always scrupulously observed all protective measures,” says the 27-year-old, “until today I have given up my beloved disco visits.” And of course she was vaccinated three times.

The young woman blames her current condition not only on the man who allegedly infected her with Covid “in his irresponsibility of coming to work sick”, but above all on the government, “they are – to me – absurd Action made possible by the abolition of the mandatory quarantine”.

Doris F. – no individual fate. “Meanwhile, I know a few people who have contracted Corona in their workplaces,” reports virologist Norbert Nowotny, while praising “the many companies that encourage, usually even oblige, their employees to stay at home if they are infected”. Not least for economic reasons: “Otherwise mega-bankruptcies would be inevitable.”

“No one should work if they are sick”
“No one is allowed – in the interest of others and their own interest – to do his job if he is infected with bacteria or viruses. But take good care of yourself. I have been giving my patients this advice for a long time,” explains Alireza Nouri, GP from Wiener Neudorf, “and rest is extremely important, especially with a corona infection.” Even if the symptoms are weak.

Because if you are overwhelmed, the risk of getting Long Covid later increases. In any case, the number of those affected is constantly increasing. According to a recently published study from the Netherlands, every eighth person who is infected has long-lasting consequences.

When everyday life becomes unmanageable
“I am not surprised by this result,” says Viennese GP Ramin Nikzad, who specialized in the care of long-ago covid patients more than two years ago. your symptoms? “Extreme fatigue. Tachycardia. Shortness of breath. Sleeping problems Nerve and limb pain. Difficulty concentrating. Smell and taste disturbances.”

Mental and physical impairments that occur jointly or in “single events” and “affect patients in their lifestyle, sometimes massively”. Sometimes so much so that they can no longer cope with their daily lives and only shopping in a supermarket is an unmanageable task for them.

Effective treatments for the symptoms have not yet been researched, “but I see that acupuncture and taking TCM tinctures often help to at least relieve them.”

Autoimmune Diseases and Viral Reactivations
In addition to the “classic” Long Covid, doctors have long noted other aftereffects. “Autoimmune reactions, a ‘disorder’ of histamine metabolism, reactivation of the Epstein-Barr virus, the causative agent of mononucleosis,” Ramin Nikzad lists some of them.

And he emphasizes: “Corona has remained a disease that has not really been researched to this day.” An opinion shared by Alexander Nader, member of the advisory board of the Austrian Society of Pathology and head of the Department of Pathology and Microbiology at Hanusch Hospital in Vienna.

The virus can “repair” itself in the cells
He has since performed autopsies on dozens of people who have died from the virus. “A monocausal cause of death,” he qualifies, “is sometimes difficult to determine.” Because some of those affected had suffered from previous illnesses – such as high blood pressure, diabetes or cancer – “and a Covid infection was not controllable for their sick organism.”

However, one thing is certain: if they had not been infected, they would have lived longer.

“And it’s a fact,” the doctor knows from the biopsies he performed: “The virus sometimes causes terrible reactions, even in completely healthy people.” It is not uncommon for blood clots and inflammation to form in the organs, which – if not detected in time – can be fatal. As a large-scale study by the National Institutes of Health shows.

Feared long-term consequences of corona by doctors
The NIH researchers removed and analyzed tissue from numerous autopsies and found particles of the virus still inside for 230 days after the infections started.

The doctors’ fear: that various chronic diseases will arise as a result of this “fixation”. Ergo, the real effects of the pandemic will probably only become apparent in a few years. But specialists already suspect that people who were once infected can develop heart failure or dementia at an early stage.

An infected person without a mask – on the train
And yet it seems almost no one is aware of the danger of the virus.

As Anita E. (45), a Viennese nurse – who does not react to the vaccination and has already had Covid four times – had to discover last weekend on a train journey with her daughter to Tyrol: “From the beginning there was a man in my car. , who coughed constantly. At Wörgl, he then asked the conductor if he should actually wear a mask – because he was positive.” The infected person had to get off at the next stop: “But my child and I had already spent hours with him in a very small space; my panic that he could have infected us was – and is – great.”

Antigen testing on vacation has yielded negative results so far: “Hope it stays that way.”

Gloomy forecasts for autumn
Currently, an average of almost 6,000 new infections are registered in Austria every day. Complexity researcher Peter Klimek said in an interview with the daily newspaper “Heute” on Wednesday that these were between 20,000 and 25,000, “would still be tested as sufficiently as a few months ago”.

An assessment that the expert substantiates with the results of wastewater analyzes and the occupancy of beds in hospitals. And he makes gloomy predictions for the fall: Returning travelers and the start of school should then cause a mega peak, he fears up to 70,000 infections a day – and thus a renewed overload of hospitals.