According to this article there are now three large scale studies analyzing covid risk, and they all indicate that your risk of negative health consequences goes up every infection.
While this risk starts (relatively) low for most of us, particularly those vaccinated and in younger people or children, there are concerning signs it may not stay low. If each new invasion of our bodies allows this insidious virus a greater chance to cause damage, such small risks will eventually add up to a big one.
Even if you only experience the symptom of the initial infection mildly.
“Each subsequent COVID infection will increase your risk of developing chronic health issues like diabetes, kidney disease, organ failure and even mental health problems,” physician Rambod Rouhbakhsh warned journalist Sara Berg in an American Medical Association podcast earlier this year.
“This dispels the myth that repeated brushes with the virus are mild and you don’t have to worry about it. It is akin to playing Russian roulette.”
Long COVID is defined as a multisystem disease that have a devastating effect on any organ system, with potentially lifelong consequences. Rates of long COVID among people who have contracted SARS-CoV-2 vary controversially between studies and regions, from about 10 percent to a staggering 50 percent of people who’ve had the virus reported as having long term symptoms.
We are basically ignoring the risks and hoping for a science miracle to save us before things get too bad. Same approach we are taking with global warming. What an interesting time to be alive.
The virus has also evolved to replicate faster in the upper respiratory tract, which means it’s more infectious but seems to have fewer longer term systemic impacts on the lungs.
The original virus doesn’t exist outside labs anymore, and I’m not sure how common the wildtype was even in April 2021 (from memory maybe Alpha was dominant then?)
How does that follow? Is there a lower amount of viral replication in the rest of the respiratory tract, compared to previous lineages?
Also, not to be rude, but I think the focus on respiratory tracts is completely defunct now (if it already wasn’t years ago). It was always a whole-body disease, but killed via lung failure. But I believe everyone susceptible to dying like this is already dead. (Personally I suspect that lung failure is simply the apex of the multi-organ disease progression, and it seems that the people who die of lung failure aren’t only having their lungs fail)
The problem now is all the other “lesser” stuff COVID does, which is still worse than literally any other disease save ebola and marburg