this just in: we actually don’t know that much about long term effects of… basically any disease that doesn’t kill us. Fascinating!

Ah yes, the seasonal “totally not covid with covid like symptoms” virus.

Edit: While I was making a bit of a joke about some people who clearly got covid and then claimed otherwise, the article did offer some interesting insights about the differences between Cov-19 and influenza:

Meanwhile, analyses of organ systems showed that Covid-19 caused a higher risk of disease across all organ systems. The only exception where the risk was higher in flu was the pulmonary system.

“This tells us the flu is truly more of a respiratory virus, like we have all thought for the past 100 years,” senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the clinical epidemiology centre at Washington University, said.

“By comparison, Covid-19 is more aggressive and indiscriminate in that it can attack the pulmonary system, but it can also strike any organ system and is more likely to cause fatal or severe conditions involving the heart, brain, kidneys and other organs.”

Just this last week, my youngest kid caught and brought home influenza-A, which I’ve been reading is pretty gnarly this year. But it’s been comparatively mild for us - probably because we vaccinate. Mostly just an annoying cough and some fatigue.

In my case, I didn’t get sick at all. My wife has mild symptoms, as does my oldest kid. The worst is actually my youngest, but still not particularly severe.

Moral of the story: Vaccines are fucking awesome and the fact that some people refuse to vaccinate just blows my fucking mind.

I wonder how healthy people would have been over the ages then without these things?