Hi, I'm Emerson

This is the wastewater data from the US CDC showing the national and regional trends of wastewater viral activity levels of COVID-19.
As you can see, it still exists and even enters the 'Very High' category in some places during spikes.

Click the graph to go to the CDC website and see the data for yourself

Where I order masks

Not an endorsement, it's just somewhere I have ordered from, it's cheaper to order in bulk and they sometimes do pretty good offers.
You can order from sites like Amazon, but I tend to avoid it for ethical and quality reasons.

• The Face Mask Store

Part One: Choosing a Course

Plain Text of Graphic

University While Chronically Ill
Part One: Choosing a Course
Subject: Intensity, Interest
Attendance: Full-Time vs Part-Time, In-Person vs Online, Fixed vs Flexible
University: Disability Support, Accommodation, Location, Lecture Recordings
Course: Course Layout, Contact Hours, Module Options
Where To Find Information: UCAS Website/Events/Fairs, University Websites/Open Days, Contacting Universities Directly

• OECD 2026

Long COVID is now a major chronic disease burden. It is a chronic condition with economic and social impacts comparable to major non‑communicable diseases.

Long COVID is a multisystemic post‑viral condition, which is real, persistent, and poorly understood. It's not one disease, but a cluster of related syndromes with different biological mechanisms, this includes immune dysregulation, inflammation, and possible viral persistence.

Projected prevalence for 2025-2035 is 0.6-1.0% of the population at any given time. This is lower than the >5% of the population on average across OECD countries in 2021, but millions have still been left chronically ill, and it evidently has not disappered.

There is an enormous economic impact. The direct healthcare costs alone total USD 53 billion in 2021 alone and are expected to stabilise at USD 11 billion per year for the next decade.

The indirect costs are even bigger, and include:

With studies showing 1 in 5 workers with Long COVID experience employment disruption, equivalent to a 5–10% loss of labour input per affected person.

And the whole presenteeism/absenteeism thing is why I don't see the point in chronically ill/disabled people being in jobs that we are not capable of, some people are so blinded by their hatred of people on benefits that they stop being logical about it. Because genuinely what is the point in being employed if you cannot do the job?

Long COVID is projected to reduce GDP by: 0.1–0.2% every year, equivalent to USD 135 billion annually across OECD countries. This is comparable to the entire annual health budget of the Netherlands or Spain.

I am not someone who puts much belief into GDP as a metric, but $135 billion is a massive amount of money, even 0.1-0.2% of GDP of a single country is a large amount of money. According to the House of Commons Library, UK GDP in 2025 was £3,040 billion in cash terms in 2025, so 0.1-0.2% of that would be £3-6 billion lost due to Long-COVID.

• House of Commons Library 2026

Healthcare systems are struggling to cope, only six countries have formal national care pathways (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands), and many Long COVID clinics created during the pandemic have since been closed or downsized this one has affected me personally.

The report also hightlights:

Many countries also lack cross‑sector coordination between health, employment, and social services, which makes it easy for people to fall for the cracks.This lack of integration is further excacerbated by how awful the social safety net is in many countries for this sort of condition.
Most countries do not have Long COVID‑specific disability policies and rely on general disability systems, which often fail to recognise fluctuating or invisible symptoms. Personally I think this lack of recognition is deliberate so they can avoid having to pay out benefits.
This all leads to delayed or denied disability benefits, people falling out of the workforce, and increased poverty risk among Long COVID patients.

I personally can attest to some of these being an issue in my own life. My ongoing battle with the DWP for disability benefits being one example.

So basically the OECD has said this needs a whole-of-government response, it cannot just be left to the health sector. Their key recommendations being:

The OECD also stresses that Long COVID should inform future pandemic preparedness, especially when it comes to long‑term sequelae of infections. Long-term sequelae are chronic, pathological conditions resulting from a prior disease. I had to google that one.

Do I expect any of this to happen anytime soon? No, not really. Most politicians seem to be playing a game of 'who can bury their head in the sand hardest?' when it comes to all chronic illnesses, and that very much extends to Long COVID. The UK Government recently cut disability benefits, so they want to do nothing to cure/prevent Long COVID, whilst punishing the people who have it.

To conclude, Long COVID is here and it's not going away. It is both under‑recognised and under‑treated.
And without coordinated policy action, it will continue to drain health systems, economies, and human lives.

So cheery stuff, eh? It's a shame most people refuse to wear a mask or even acknowledge how serious it is. But what would I know? I'm just an Economist who had my life ruined due to a COVID infection.

So based on all of this information, investing money into research and treatment for Long COVID and other chronic conditions would be a boon for the UK economy. The government spending would boost GDP in the short-term and drive growth whilst making the UK more enticing to investors; in the long-term treating and even curing these illnesses would massively increase total productivity by increading the productivity of people currently in the workforce and by making it so many more become able to work
Sadly, this plan makes too much sense, so I do not expect it to happen.

Time and money should also be invested into prevention, currently it's far easier to prevent catching COVID in the first place than it is to treat it (given that we don't have any treatments). This could include masking policies in hospitals, investments into clean air infrastructure, and awareness campaigns.

• The Face Mask Store

I recommend buying FFP2 or FFP3 Masks or the equivalent from other countries like N95/KN95.

Conflation of Intelligence and Disability

In my experience, and in the stories I’ve heard from friends, there’s a pattern. The system often treats well informed, articulate disabled people with suspicion, as if understanding your own condition somehow makes you less disabled in their eyes.
There seems to be a psychological need to put people into neat categories, either disabled or not, and when someone doesn’t fit that stereotype, it makes them uncomfortable. Intelligence doesn’t magically negate disability, and we need to challenge the idea that it does, it’s a ridiculous mindset.
So many people have their knowledge and understanding of their conditions used against them by the DWP when applying for PIP, as if being informed about your own health magically undisables you. It’s a harmful and absolutely ridiculous assumption, and it needs to be called out for what it is.

Not Following Their Own Regulations

Under Regulation 4(2A), if a claimant cannot perform an activity on more than 50% of days, they must be treated as unable to perform it.
This is regularly ignored, leaving people with dynamic disabilitites without support, or forcing them to go to court. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that the tribunal will enforce this regulation either.

Assessors are not Experts

Assessors are random medical professionals, meaning that someone with autism and complex chronic conditions could be assessed by a paramedic or a non-specialised nurse.
Claimants often have to explain what a condition is to the assessor before they can explain how it affects their ability to do tasks.
They often disbelieve people about their conditions and how they affect them despite having little to no authority on such matters. They also often just write down incorrect information.