After being trapped by the sequelae of the new crown for 15 months, the current status of the 20-year-old Stanford scholar is exposed: bedridden for 16 hours a day

Ranked in the top 10% of Stanford University, but was unable to attend his graduation ceremony because of the new crown disease.

This is the real experience of 23-year-old Ravi Veriah Jacques in the UK.

He used to be able to ride 30+ kilometers a day and almost never got sick.

Now he has lost his sense of smell and taste, and has to lie in bed for at least 16 hours a day, otherwise he will be too tired to move.

This pain has lasted for 15 months, seriously affecting his job search progress and even his daily life. He described himself as “a prisoner of the body”.

After this readme was posted, it went viral on the Internet.

Through the words of the younger brother, netizens saw the pain and helplessness experienced by patients with new coronary pneumonia in the long-term struggle against the virus.

As a result, more people are aware that the new coronary pneumonia has changed the normal life of too many people.

Once an athlete, he won academic awards softly

Jacques was born in August 1998 and graduated from Westminster College, one of the nine most famous public schools in the UK.

Subsequently, he was admitted to Stanford University with a score of 2360 (out of 2400 on the old SAT), majoring in history.

Before contracting the new crown, his schoolwork and internship were the same, and his life can be said to be rich and fulfilling.

In terms of learning, Jake has received various academic awards almost every year:

In 2018, he was named one of Stanford University’s Top 10 Most Influential Undergraduates of the Year (Most Influential Undergraduates List);

In 2019, he was named a Hume Humanities Honors Fellow. Every year, only 8 to 10 students at Stanford University receive this award, and they also receive a $1,500 scholarship;

In 2020, he received the Dean’s Award, and in the same year he was awarded the JE Wallace Sterling Award for Scholastic Achievement for his outstanding performance.

Near graduation, he was successfully elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, only the top 10% of Stanford graduates can be selected.

In addition to his studies, Jake’s extracurricular life is also very busy.

He has a number of internship experiences, and has also set up school publications and worked as an intern teacher in elementary schools.

At the same time, he is also an athlete, can cycle at least 20 miles (about 32 kilometers) a day, and also likes to play football.

According to Jake, before contracting the new crown, he almost never got sick.

In 2020, Jake graduated from Stanford. Affected by the epidemic that year, Stanford University announced that it would temporarily cancel the current traditional graduation ceremony.

However, the graduation ceremony did not wait, but Jake contracted the new crown first.

(According to the official announcement from Stanford, the graduation ceremony of the 2020 graduates has been postponed to June 2022.)

He was diagnosed in March 2021. Unexpectedly, this almost directly took his life.

After the diagnosis, he lay in bed for at least 16 hours a day, could not walk for more than 15 minutes (otherwise he would be extremely tired), lost his sense of taste and smell, and was accompanied by mild tinnitus and gastrointestinal discomfort.

He asked the doctor to prescribe medicine, but his body did not improve at all. After a year, his body recovered less than 15%, and then he remained in a weak state.

According to Jake, over the past year, he has hardly been able to read, let alone complete tasks that seemed to be very simple in the past. Once he exercised a little more vigorously, he would be out of breath.

Moreover, he also revealed in an interview that he was vaccinated after contracting the new crown, and the antibody test in the body would become more complicated, so it was impossible to determine which strain he was infected with.

In June of this year, the Stanford University graduation ceremony, which was postponed for two years, was finally held, but Jake was too ill to attend.

Not only that, the epidemic has seriously affected his work, life and even life.

I was supposed to get my first job after college and enjoy my 20s. On the contrary, I am still struggling with the disease, and I don’t know when it will get better.

Jack is not alone. Like him, many people are still struggling with the aftermath of the new crown, one of the most common symptoms is extreme fatigue.

Now he has set up a new crown sequelae assistance group, and he is also very concerned about other patients who are unfortunately suffering from this disease for a long time.

He believes that many people underestimate the severity of the aftermath of the new crown.

What are the sequelae of the new crown?

After Jake expressed his emotions, some netizens also came out to talk about their experiences.

I am now 24 years old and trapped in the aftermath of the new crown. I have struggled with sleepiness since June 2020, but I am still sleepy every day.

I was diagnosed with COVID-19 in January 2021, and it still affects my life to this day.

Even professional athletes with better physiques than ordinary people will face the challenges of sequelae.

For example, Messi mentioned in the interview that the new crown virus left his lungs with sequelae, and he could not even run for a month and a half later.

So, what exactly is the aftermath of the new crown?

According to the clinical definition published by the World Health Organization, “long COVID-19” is the sequelae of the new crown.

It usually occurs in people who have been diagnosed or may have been infected with the new coronavirus, usually appear within 3 months of diagnosis and last for at least 2 months.

In an article published in “Nature” on June 20, it was mentioned that the probability of suffering from the sequelae of the new crown varies from 5-50%.

The main symptoms it contains are:

extreme tiredness shortness of breath, chest pain or tightness problems with memory and concentration (“brain fog”) changes in taste and smell joint pain

Among them, fatigue is the most common symptom.

Jake also mentioned that this kind of fatigue is very different from the fatigue we usually feel, “it is difficult for those who have not experienced it to imagine.”

Of course, there are many other symptoms, such as muscle pain, hearing and vision problems, headaches, loss of taste and smell, cardiovascular disease, decreased lung function, intestinal damage, kidney damage and other problems.

Psychological aspects will also be affected, common depression, anxiety and distracted thinking, trance.

According to WHO statistics, more than 200 kinds of symptoms have been described about the sequelae of the new crown.

The duration of symptoms varies from person to person, ranging from 2 to 3 months, to as many as Jake has never recovered.

A previous study of hospitalized cohorts of patients with new coronary pneumonia showed that almost half of the patients still had at least one sequelae symptom even a year after they were cured.

Studies have not been able to determine how long it takes for the sequelae to disappear.

In addition, there are many types of sequelae, and the performance of different patients is different. At present, the medical community still lacks proven treatment methods, and cannot even provide rehabilitation guidance.

The head of WHO clinical management said that no drugs have been found to treat the sequelae.

Patients can only take interventions to relieve their symptoms.

For example, when there is no fatigue in the day, appropriate activities; patients with cognitive impairment, try to avoid doing multiple jobs at the same time.

In August 2021, an article in The Lancet put it bluntly:

The sequelae of the new crown is a major challenge of modern medicine.

So, why are there sequelae of the new crown?

Based on existing research, academia has put forward some theories, such as the following:

The first: because of the immune response to the new coronavirus in the patient’s body, some organs are damaged, resulting in sequelae.

The second: there may be residual new coronaviruses in the patient’s body, and they continue to stimulate the patient’s body. There are some ideas that the virus hides in parts of the lungs, other than the respiratory tract, such as the gut.

This year, a Stanford University School of Medicine study found that the new coronavirus can persist in the human gut for more than 210 days.

The third type: It may be that the new coronavirus has caused an excessive immune response in some patients, which has caused the immune system to malfunction, and a series of sequelae have appeared.

Although there is no way to avoid or treat the sequelae of the new crown, some scholars have proposed some reference methods that can predict the sequelae.

In January this year, a study published in “Cell” proposed that measuring these factors at the early stage of diagnosis of new coronary pneumonia can predict whether patients will develop new coronary sequelae.

Mainly: the amount of certain antibodies in the body, whether you have type 2 diabetes, the level of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the blood, and the level of Epstein-Barr virus DNA in the blood.

Dr. James R. Heath, co-corresponding author of the paper and chair of the Seattle Institute for Systems Biology, said:

Identifying these contributing factors can help understand the long-term sequelae of COVID-19 and potential treatments for it, as well as understanding which patients are at highest risk of developing chronic disease.

In addition, this study found that mild symptoms of new coronary pneumonia are also affected by sequelae. Scholars suggest that the use of some antiviral drugs in the very early stages of the disease may be helpful in preventing sequelae.

One More Thing

Just a few days ago, a study from Stanford & Yale published in “Cell” showed that mild symptoms of the new crown can still cause nerve cells and myelin to disappear.

The study observed changes in the nervous system in humans and mice after infection with the new crown.

The results showed changes in the microglia cells responsible for the immune defense of the nervous system in the brains of patients with post-COVID-19 disease.

This phenomenon is very similar to the “chemo brain” that occurs in cancer patients.

“Chemobrain” can lead to problems such as memory loss and cognitive dysfunction in patients.

And the same phenomenon occurred in mice mildly infected with the new crown.

The findings of this study provide more references for the study of the sequelae of the new crown. Scholars can further speculate whether the treatment method of “chemo brain” is also useful for new crown patients with similar problems.

Earlier, there were also studies showing that mild symptoms of the new crown increase the risk of heart disease and reduce the size of the brain.

All in all, we still have too much unknown information about the impact of new coronary pneumonia on the human body.

Scientists all over the world are speeding up the pace of research to overcome these problems.

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