Heard Community

Someone linked this article a while ago and I still find myself thinking about it. People have moved from talking about being desperate to get out of "covid jail" to overwhelming social pressure to downplay any instance of infection now that "the pandemic is over."

Before the advent of modern medical care in the 20th century people were vulnerable to a raft of infectious diseases from typhoid to tuberculosis. Those who were fortunate enough to survive infection were expected to take a long time to recover fully, Krienke found. This process of restoration—a stage between acute illness and full health—was a major focus of physicians and families. For centuries, the care of convalescents came with its own set of theories and rules, intended to prevent relapse and integrate patients back into normal life.

But with medical advancements, tolerance for long recovery waned. “Modern medicine is uncomfortable dealing with things where we don’t have a quick fix,” says Lancelot Pinto, consultant pulmonologist at the P.D. Hinduja Hospital and Medical Research Center in Mumbai. “When there were no cures, patients were allowed to live out the natural history of the disease. For diseases that have a cure now, there is no leeway, it’s presumed that if you are cured microbiologically, if the tests come back normal, you don’t deserve any more rest … and that maybe the symptoms are imagined or psychological in some way.”

Now, those older ideas about recovery could provide important perspective for the pandemic, say researchers like Krienke, who studies literary and medical history, as millions of patients who’ve had COVID-19 find themselves frustrated by the persistence of symptoms for weeks or months beyond their infection. “All kinds of illnesses have lingering effects, but culturally, we don’t have a way to talk about it,” says Krienke, now an assistant lecturer at the University of Wyoming. “I think convalescence is a helpful paradigm for the present moment.”