San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
| Mental health remains an issue.
Charlotte Juarez spent two weeks in the intensive care unit this summer battling COVID19. She suffered double pneumonia, excruciating pain and intubation.
She recalled her doctor saying that her body was shutting down. “He said, ‘Call your kids and say goodbye.’ ”
Juarez, 57, survived COVID19. But she has experienced a host of physical difficulties since returning to her home in Burlingame more than four months ago, including chronic fatigue, heart palpitations and hair loss. She said the shape of her eyes even changed, requiring her to get new contact lenses.
But what she is most concerned about is the lingering psychiatric issues.
“Total forgetfulness,” Juarez said. “I don’t remember what we just ate. I don’t remember how to make things. I had to learn to drive again.”
She said the “bigtime brain fog” is just one of the aftereffects of COVID19. She has difficulty sleeping and is also experiencing heightened anxiety.
Juarez said the affliction is so bad she has not been able to return to work at Nordstrom, where she worked as a sales clerk before the pandemic.
Worst of all is the depression. “Out of nowhere, it comes and it’s overwhelming,” she said.
We already know about the physical toll of COVID19, presented in concise, sobering daily tallies of deaths and hospitalizations. But for many people like Juarez, who survive a physical bout with the disease, there follows a host of mental health issues that are harder to understand.
About 20% of those infected with the coronavirus experience a psychiatric disorder within 90 days of their diagnosis, according to a large study by researchers at Oxford University.
On Thursday and Friday, the federal government held its first workshop dedicated to longterm effects of COVID19, with the nation’s top public health officials outlining the urgent need to deal with the lingering symptoms of the coronavirus.
“This is a phenomenon that is really quite real and quite extensive,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said at the conference on Thursday.
COVID19 survivors are at a higher risk of developing mental illnesses, such as anxiety and depression, based on the findings of the report published in the Lancet Psychiatry journal in November. They are also at increased risk of developing dementia.
With people forced to stay home, cut off from families and friends, and facing financial troubles, the coronavirus pandemic is causing psychological distress for millions of people in obvious ways.
More than 40% of American adults experienced depression, anxiety and substance abuse issues associated with the COVID19 outbreak, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But for “long haulers,” a blanket label for people who experience ongoing health issues after having COVID, the psychiatric disruptions can be compounded with physical pain and the trauma of going through a neardeath experience.
“Maybe 20 to 25% of those people have an unexplainable symptom complex without any laboratory data to indicate why they may be feeling that way,” said Fauci in a forum discussion with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week. “They have difficulty concentrating and focusing. That could last from weeks to months.”
Fauci has suggested that some long haulers’ symptoms like brain fog and fatigue are “highly suggestive” of encephalopathy, a disabling illness that alters mental function and causes people to struggle with everyday tasks. One study found that 32% of hospitalized COVID patients suffered from the condition.
Many survivors report being unusually forgetful, confused or unable to concentrate even enough to watch TV, according to a report from researchers at UC Davis. They said the “brain fog” effect can wear off after a few weeks and then return.
“It’s scary and crazy at the same time,” Juarez said.
What all experts agree on is that more clinical research is needed to determine why long haulers continue to experience symptoms in their minds even after the virus has left their bodies.
“Only nine months into the pandemic, the longterm effects of COVID19 on the nervous system remain uncertain,” according to a study published by American Neurological Association in November.
Until more definitive answers emerge, people like Juarez are finding support in online groups like Survivor Corps.
“It’s a nightmare,” she said.