To the Editor:
Re “Could Long Covid Be the Senate’s Bipartisan Cause?,” by Zeynep Tufekci (column, Feb. 20):
Like one of many individuals you interviewed, I, too, was an “Energizer bunny” earlier than I contracted Covid. I labored as many as 18 hours a day for an aerospace firm, received A’s in my grad faculty courses, ran my very own nonprofit and served on the board of administrators of a number of different nonprofits.
Nonetheless, two energetic Covid infections inside three months — in June and August of 2022 — left me nearly bedridden with lengthy Covid for 18 months. I wasn’t capable of full my grasp’s diploma on time, needed to settle for a demotion at work (as an lodging for my infirmity), and am in additional hazard of shedding my job completely if my well being doesn’t enhance quickly.
So as to add insult to harm, there are too many dismissive docs who deal with lengthy Covid in an ineffective method and consider that lengthy Covid is essentially a psychological problem. That simply smacks of gaslighting.
We want sturdy, constant funding and relentless, focused analysis to establish efficient diagnostic testing and profitable therapies. We have to require insurance coverage corporations to fund experimental or off-label utilization of prescription drugs and nutraceuticals (meals merchandise with well being advantages). We, the sick, need assistance.
Please hold producing articles that shine a light-weight on this vicious affliction. There are such a lot of of us who desperately want a treatment and a voice.
Sorina Suma Christian
Cellular, Ala.
To the Editor:
Thanks for the unimaginable piece about lengthy Covid. My husband is 30 years previous and was in his residency for neurology on the College of California, Irvine, when he got here down with lengthy Covid. It’s ruined his life. He can’t discuss or stroll and has 24/7 sensory deprivation.
His story issues. Lengthy Covid tales matter. We may have a complete technology of chronically unwell individuals whom we lose from the economic system and day by day life if we don’t educate the general public now.
Please write extra about lengthy Covid and its affect on individuals’s our bodies — it’s not simply an prolonged chilly. For some, it’s a persistent and systemic illness related to neurological, immunological, autonomic and power metabolism dysfunction.
Our lives have been derailed. At 28, I’m my husband’s full-time caregiver. We’ve given up every thing to offer him a shot at survival. And our story is just not distinctive.
To the Editor:
Re “Recycling Cans Changed My Grandpa’s Life,” by Andrew Li (Opinion visitor essay, Feb. 21):
I recognize Mr. Li’s tribute to his grandfather the “canner,” who supported his immigrant household by redeeming the 5-cent returnables that the majority of us simply throw away. He made town a cleaner and extra sustainable place for everybody whereas setting his children and grandkids up for fulfillment.
However why will we make his entrepreneurial efforts out to be “unhappy and degrading,” as his grandson suggests? As a result of we drive him to dig via our trash to seek out the nickels buried beneath (or dimes, if the deposit had been doubled as has been proposed).
If neighborhoods, companies, co-ops and householders would put their redeemable cans and bottles in a separate bag, field or bin, he could be simply one other member of the group buying and selling helpful companies for compensation. Isn’t that the American method?
David Eisen
Cambridge, Mass.
To the Editor:
I lived in New York Metropolis my total life earlier than I retired elsewhere. For years it made me smile to see individuals stand on the redemption machines with carts stuffed with cans and “make a dwelling” feeding them. I referred to as them “the poor man’s A.T.M.s,” and I used to be completely satisfied that they existed.
At any time when I went to redeem my very own cans and bottles, if there was an individual there forward of me with a considerable amount of them, I’d all the time hand them mine with a smile, and it made me really feel good. So it introduced again good reminiscences to learn Andrew Li’s essay about what this chance has meant to individuals. I hope they do elevate the redemption quantity.
I now stay in one other state, the place there are a lot of indigent and deprived individuals and no such returnable container law, inflicting many to show to petty felony exercise to outlive. I’ve all the time felt unhappy that this higher alternative to assist individuals actually, and in addition to encourage recycling, doesn’t exist right here.
Judy Weintraub
Louisville, Ky.
Academics ‘Pushed to the Brink’
To the Editor:
Re “Teacher Sick Days Are Rising Nationwide, and Substitutes Often Aren’t Available Either” (information article, Feb. 20):
That lecturers are taking extra sick days for the reason that pandemic shouldn’t be shocking. Scrambling in 2020 to regulate to distant instruction, juggling hybrid courses in school rooms unequipped to deal with them, risking our lives to show our nation’s youngsters, and feeling maybe extra intensely than ever scorn towards our occupation, we lecturers had been pushed to the brink.
If college students skilled studying loss, lecturers skilled stamina loss. 4 years later, we’re nonetheless recovering.
However the root of instructor shortages can’t be ascribed to the pandemic alone. According to a New Jersey Education Association poll revealed final yr by a activity drive finding out public faculty employees shortages, solely 21 % stated they’d advocate that buddies or members of the family grow to be lecturers.
Your article rightly factors out that lecturers have much less work flexibility and are paid lower than equally educated professionals. However a well-deserved bump in pay gained’t do something to alleviate the unreasonable workload, administrative paperwork, inadequate skilled growth, insufficient sources, lack of autonomy and poor mentoring that lecturers face day by day.
What’s wanted is a sea change in attitudes towards educating in America. If the nation paid lecturers the respect it pays skilled athletes, film stars and C.E.O.s, extra individuals would wish to be lecturers.
Gary J. Whitehead
Norwood, N.J.
The author is the 2024 Bergen County Trainer of the 12 months.
Faith on the Border
To the Editor:
Re “At the Border, a Blending of Politics and Religion,” by Mark Peterson (Opinion visitor essay, Feb. 11):
Thanks for this picture essay. To inform the total story of the border, you also needs to publish a photograph essay of the spiritual establishments combating day by day for justice and freedom for immigrants. There are different, reverse methods individuals exhibit spiritual conviction on the border.
Lucia Savage
Oakland, Calif.
Lounging in Mattress
To the Editor:
I simply completed studying “How Long Is Too Long to Stay in Bed?” (Effectively, nytimes.com, Feb. 17). I’m now penning this letter, and as quickly as I click on “ship” I’ll stand up and dress — or perhaps not.
Ann J. Kirschner
Brooklyn
To the Editor:
“How to Rest” (The Morning e-newsletter, Feb. 17) made me so glad that I’m sufficiently old to not be on TikTok, the place the pattern appeared, so I don’t have “mattress rot.” I wakened this morning to a wonderful dawn, and now I’m going to roll over and sleep for one more hour. With out guilt.
Holly Witte
Bellingham, Wash.