Reminder: Long COVID's disability & suffering will be the pandemic's most devastating long-term global legacy. Neither GBD supporters nor critics anticipated its scale or included it in their policy calculus -and “let er rip” strategies prioritizing widespread exposure clearly worsen the toll. Millions affected, with real costs in lives and productivity (on top of 20 million direct deaths globally, which we should never forget or minimize). nature.com/articles/s43856-0…

All those comparing the attention on #Hantavirus to heart disease or cancer deaths are right: we desperately need more focus on chronic disease. But they also miss a key distinction. We just lived through a global pandemic that drove a massive surge in deaths: ~20 million excess, plus millions disabled by Long COVID (not to mention the actual increase in cardiovascular deaths due to Covid). Highly contagious infections can spiral out of control fast when not well managed. We have to be better at managing both chronic and acute health threats – and we shouldn’t compare apples and oranges.