Long Way Home: Chronic COVID and the Afghan Airlift

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theSkimm

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4.5 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

First up: We’ve got the latest on evacuations from Afghanistan, and the deteriorating security situation around Kabul airport. Next: We’ll break down this week’s biggest headlines, from a report on COVID-19’s origins to school closures — plus a big decision by streaming platform OnlyFans. ICYMI: The F.D.A. and Pfizer made it official this week, in the form of full approval for the pharma company’s COVID-19 vaccine. We’ll break down why that’s different to emergency authorization, and what it could mean for vaccine mandates. Then: Some millennials are living a double life - working two full time jobs while their bosses have no clue. We asked one reporter what’s behind this latest work trend - and why bosses may actually be the ones driving them to double up on Zoom calls. Finally: COVID-19 has been debilitating for “long haulers”, who’ve suffered symptoms for months on end. We’ll talk to two women dealing with “long COVID” about their experience, and hear from a doctor about what we know now that we didn’t several months ago. On this episode, you’ll hear from: Anna Roberts Gevalt, long COVID patient Chimére L. Smith, long COVID patient and advocate Rachel Feintzeig, work and life columnist, The Wall Street Journal Dr. Hana Akselrod, COVID-19 Lead, GWU Medical Faculty Associates Want more Skimm? Sign up for our free daily newsletter Email us your questions about what’s going on in the news right now Subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts Skimm'd by Alex Carr, Luke Vargas, and Ciara Long, with support from Peter Bonaventure. Engineered by Andrew Callaway. TheSkimm’s head of audio is Graelyn Brashear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So March 30th of 2020, I woke up, I went to an online dance class for one minute or two minutes,
0:14.2	and then I just felt, wow, I feel really out of it. This specific form of fatigue in my body,
0:27.0	I've never felt this, and then a few days later I lost my sense of smell and taste.
0:37.5	Anna Roberts-Tervalt is a musician living in Queens, New York. At the time she got sick last year,
0:43.5	at the end of March 2020, New York hospitals were struggling to keep up with new COVID infections,
0:49.8	and she was told, if you're not having an emergency, don't come in. So she didn't,
0:55.7	but she also didn't get better. I was really tired and very loopy, very out of it for about three
1:04.0	weeks, and then I thought I got better, and then I realized it was very slow and unfolding way.
1:14.8	Oh, I'm not getting better, and oh, there are other people who aren't getting better, and
1:20.4	oh, my gosh, like it's just, I guess it's been, I think this is month 17 for me,
1:30.5	which is surreal to say. Anna was right, she wasn't alone. I'm Shamir Smith, I'm from Baltimore,
1:38.5	Maryland, I'm 39 years old, I came help but to go back to that day, I became ill in March 22nd,
1:45.6	and started off with a very sore throat. I was fatigued, and I did not understand why.
1:51.8	The next day, on that Monday, I woke up and I had this very eerie spinal pain, but by Wednesday,
1:59.5	I truly, truly knew that something was wrong. I couldn't even really keep my head up. I had to,
2:04.6	I was lying down all the time, I experienced memory loss. I could not recall information. I stopped
2:11.3	being able to read and comprehend information. I lost my vision for five months, and I truly now know
2:19.0	what it feels like when people say I've lost my mind. That is not just a figurative term,
2:26.1	that is something that could really, really happen, and it almost happened to me.
2:32.9	Welcome to Schem this. This week, we're checking back in on a story we last covered more than
2:38.4	six months ago, about how people are coping with the long-term health effects of COVID-19.
2:44.4	Despite some medical advances, there's still a lot we don't know, so we're going to skim the latest
	...

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