To the Editor:
Re “What Reporting on Long Covid Taught Me,” by Ed Yong (Opinion visitor essay, Dec. 22):
As a Covid long-hauler (happening three years now!), I discovered it validating and even supportive to learn Mr. Yong’s essay. It was significantly validating to have the acknowledgment of post-exertional malaise (PEM). This so aptly describes a lot of my life.
For instance, I apologize to my canine earlier than happening a shorter-than-usual stroll. I’ve to plan for seemingly mundane duties of self-care and residential care: having a shower, altering garments, doing the dishes, sweeping my condominium, doing laundry, and many others. I put these duties in my calendar, and even then the expectation of the aftermath makes me really feel incapable, determined and overwhelmed.
I appreciated Mr. Yong’s astute acknowledgment that signs are sometimes dismissed due to sexism (I’m transgender). And I used to be denied incapacity as a result of it was decided that I used to be purposeful sufficient to wrap silverware in napkins. Sure certainly, remedy just isn’t solely a medical subject, but in addition a social one.
Mr. Yong made it clear that his journalism has been reworked by doing analysis in a extra integrative method, particularly really being with present long-haulers. I’m immensely grateful to him for his journalism and to The Instances for publishing it.
(I earned my Ph.D. in 2012, and it’s taken me two days to jot down this.)
River Jackson-Paton
Dallas
To the Editor:
Ed Yong’s visitor essay is correct on level. Lengthy Covid is actual, and the general public must be educated about it.
My expertise with Covid is that of a former registered nurse within the thick of it. I watched so many sufferers and colleagues get sick, some dying, some getting higher, and a few who’re nonetheless scuffling with lengthy Covid.
It is rather laborious for me to listen to somebody, normally an anti-vaxxer, say, “They need to simply let everybody get Covid and get it over with.”
I hear this very often and my response is all the time, “Are you aware of lengthy Covid?” I all the time get one among two responses: “No” or “That’s made up.” Then I attempt to educate.
Donna Hunt
Atascadero, Calif.
To the Editor:
I recognize Ed Yong’s extraordinary reporting on lengthy Covid and his opinion piece concerning the well being care system’s failure to take persistent sickness sufferers critically. What many don’t notice is that years and even many years earlier than the pandemic triggered lengthy Covid, many sufferers, together with me, struggled to search out medical doctors and coverings for most of the identical well being issues that lengthy Covid sufferers face.
I can not provide you with a single title for our sickness as a result of it doesn’t but exist. I and numerous different sufferers have a slew of diagnoses, together with autoimmune illnesses, mast cell disorders, connective tissue issues and dysautonomia. Many people are disabled and homebound or bedbound.
Medical doctors for these issues had been already laborious to search out, and the surge of lengthy Covid sufferers has made accessing educated care harder. I hope the elevated demand will encourage extra medical doctors to review and deal with these circumstances. Now that much more sufferers are struggling, we have to cease dismissing this constellation of sicknesses.
Rachel Graves
Tacoma, Wash.
Being Jewish in America
To the Editor:
Re “Why I Can’t Stop Writing About Oct. 7,” by Bret Stephens (column, Dec. 20):
American democracy has promised a land, as Mr. Stephens says, “wherein you didn’t have to cover.” Mr. Stephens writes despairingly concerning the lack of this promise, and there’s little question that, in the present day, America’s promise feels distant to many. For Jews, an eroding democracy brings with it a profound sense of trauma and worry.
But essentially the most applicable Jewish response to this problem just isn’t despair, however dedication. If our establishments are buckling, let’s reinforce them with boards for civic studying. If our civic tradition is fraying, let’s restore it with alternatives for dynamic and respectful dialog. If our democracy is beneath menace, let’s take actions that strengthen it — proper now, and in communities throughout the nation.
For practically two and a half centuries, even amid painful setbacks, the US has supplied one of many final, greatest locations to be Jewish — not as a result of it catered to Jews, however as a result of its democratic pluralism, albeit aspirational and imperfect from the start, allowed minorities like ours a possibility to stay freely.
When that democratic pluralism struggles, we shouldn’t prematurely mourn its loss. We should always restore it as an alternative. This isn’t naïveté; it’s the company our mother and father and grandparents got here right here in search of.
Aaron Dorfman
New York
The author is the chief director of A Extra Excellent Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy, a community of synagogues and Jewish teams.
Black Voters, Beware the G.O.P.
To the Editor:
Re “Black Voters in Georgia Say Biden Has Forgotten Them,” by Mara Homosexual (Opinion, Dec. 24):
Ms. Homosexual cautions that Black voters in Georgia really feel ignored and deserted and will desert the Democratic Social gathering within the coming presidential election. Whereas her conclusions are extremely debatable, there isn’t a such doubt concerning the choice.
The Republican Social gathering of Donald Trump has rolled again voting rights, gerrymandered predominantly Black districts, eradicated or scaled again social packages that help the poor and despatched federal troops to crack down on anti-racism protests.
Ought to Georgia’s Black voters depart the Democrats for the Republicans, they may shortly study the true which means of abandonment.
Tom Goodman
Philadelphia
Liz Cheney’s Guide: ‘Too Little, Too Late’
To the Editor:
It’s with some aid that I learn Carlos Lozada’s Dec. 21 column, “Liz Cheney’s Checkered History of the Trump Era.”
Ms. Cheney worries concerning the prospect of one other Donald Trump tenure within the White Home, however I fear simply as a lot about Ms. Cheney’s rush to sainthood as she plugs her new guide and her ostensibly revised views.
As Mr. Lozada reminds us, Ms. Cheney, proper together with different Trump molls and henchmen within the G.O.P., lengthy pledged obeisance to Mr. Trump. She — a minimum of the individuals she now criticizes — acquired us to this terrible, scary time and place, and she or he shouldn’t get a move now for what’s at greatest a transparent case of “too little, too late.”
Beth Z. Palubinsky
Philadelphia
College students Know We Want Free Speech
To the Editor:
Re “Students Can Show Us the Way to Free Speech,” by Sophia Rosenfeld (Opinion visitor essay, Dec. 18):
Ms. Rosenfeld’s essay thoughtfully reminds us that we, because the parenting, instructing and older generations, don’t all the time have higher solutions to questions on free speech than our youngsters and college students. Certainly, as Ms. Rosenfeld writes, “The sky actually isn’t falling.” Our youth are extra able to find cheap options than we predict.
I lately attended my son’s faculty commencement. For weeks earlier than going, I loathed what I assumed would absolutely be a miserable carnival of elite righteousness. As a substitute, I skilled one thing much more reassuring about our future.
I conversed with my son’s classmates to listen to their views about free speech, wokeness and schooling. Not surprisingly, they’re clever, insightful, compassionate, however most of all, keenly conscious of what’s damaged. They’re respectful and pleasant to one another, even once they disagree.
Now could be the time for the preachy older generations to step apart and belief the youthful generations. They will and are navigating the treacherous waters of our time simply fantastic.
Nao Matsukata
Bethesda, Md.
