Discovery

But they are still missing a connection with people who have been living for years with other chronic illnesses. That means they are having to reinvent the wheel about how to live with many of their symptoms. The spark that made CI Forum so valuable was the overlap between what people with different illnesses went through. People with MS, chronic Lyme disease, ME/CFS, systemic lupus… turned out to have a lot of challenges in common, from symptoms to stigma to getting through the day. Forum members shared coping methods across illness boundaries.

Governments are still responding to the immediate crisis. It’s up to us to look ahead, make plans, and start putting together a better solution for COVID-19 long-haulers… and, while we’re at it, for all the other chronically ill people in a similar pickle.

Any country that does not wrestle this novel coronavirus down to low prevalence is making its population a viral reservoir. By doing so, each such country endangers the entire world. It may spawn a mutation that is even worse than what we face now, more lethal or more disabling.

SpaceApps is an international hackathon to find ways to use NASA’s freely available data to tackle real-world issues. It’s been happening since 2012. Due to COVID-19, this year it’s happening in cyberspace 30-31 May and the target is the pandemic.