allergies to experience or even live like a world war. does my dear, you know, especially during the and damage where you can go anywhere in the game world, you know, everywhere. choose the game that you want. any open roll game, choose it, and you are now on a vacation in a place where you're like flying helicopters or you're, you're on beaches, you're, you're in a city drive, you know, whatever you want. you name it these, these are getaways. ah ah, well, can you see alex famine? sure, we examine one of the consequences of all for you to administration. i live in corbett, to sweep through the population. although cases have been surging through the late

summer. the for whole nation, for taking comforts in the fact that mass vaccination has weakened the link between infection and hospitalized ation. thus, although cases had been reaching near record level, the pressure on the health service from the contagion is much less than it was in previous wave of the by this. however, while the vaccines appear to be limiting the acute impact of the condition, that is still great uncertainty about the long term effects and in particular about the conditions of long coping. on today, shall we look at the science and the personal impact of this debilitating illness. professor daniel of the department of immunology and peter called london, is among the foremost specialist starting this issue that we've done it's, it's a clinical dr. specialize in pediatric infectious diseases. and she is also one of the know, estimated one in people suffering from long corporate administration had

no mandate. no political. first though you're treat enough and messages in response to i show last week on the forever wars. when alex interviewed cardinal lord and wilkerson, the former chief of staff to us 6 of state, general colin powell and she had already clocked up over 725000 views on facebook alone. in henderson says, knowledgeable expediency and deeply relevant facts or not, and agrees good interview. she says very informative. william says, this is the very best, yes. picky the rest of the media. what this open? thank you all at the alex salmon shoe corner york says great insights into deacon's troubled past the future. and the long duplex codex, jim wallace says the forever wars will continue simply because the people who the power, those to manufacture weapons and ammunition, no more wars mean an end to their profits. you see, it says it's a refreshing tab,

intelligent interviewer, asking intelligent and poignant questions. then actually listening to the system interviewee a cbl. hassan says, sending chips to scanner. son was one of the biggest mistakes the united states is made. and bolton says, the war is only just beginning. biden's incompetence is made the taliban, the most well armed, tetanus history. felix says that discussion should be watched by millions. best one yet. keep them coming to it's steven right degrees and says, glued to that one. great interview with top guest. finally, robin jewess says they were never a weapon up to tell it, but one of mass destruction is totally delusional. to think otherwise. post covered 1900 sandra moore, long cove. it is still one of the under reported stories of the pandemic in the 1st year. attention was understandably focused on the dramatic acute cases of corporate cry. tonight the emergency care, however,

it is gradually becoming understood that long term debilitation from the aftermath of the disease, maybe as socially and economically significant as immediate panoramic alex to do to leading academic in the field. professor danny elfman of imperial college fester. danny elfman, thank you so much for joining me in the the alex simon show. this is still a relatively new condition because cobit obviously is a, is a new disease. how did the idea of long covert get 1st identified? was the route to long have it has been a bit unusual yet because this is a disease. it's been identified not through the text books or lectures, but to social media. it's, it's a disease of social media age, or let's say a definition of the social media age. in the sense that during those months after the 1st wave of cobit, there were sufferers all around the world. initially,

especially from europe, from italy, describing this condition. and they were the ones who named it, you know, who got the symptoms all listed down there. and that of course, will have the advantages as well to be unusual because that means lots of people be talking to each other about the variety of symptoms. so each physician won't just be starting a single group of people, in fact, will have access to information from a large group of people. i'm a big fan of the approach. this is a condition, it's been defined and find itself very visibly through the patient. the, the naysayers in the cynic say, what a self reported. but you know, how could it be self reported when we have no other way and reporting it? it's very real and a very good way of doing it. and of course long covert well will summarize a range of conditions of severity. i mean some people totally debilitated or that

of extended period of time as some people just having periodic bouts of weaknesses . a full range of the severity of symptoms. you know, i think we've worked very hard like any other clinical definition to have a very clear working definition that any t p can kick the box for. so they know exactly what we're talking about. and that is difficult when you've got $200.00 symptoms that are included under that list. i think all of us working in it now have a sense of what it looks like and what this thing is. and bearing in mind that this is still a new condition of the vaccines offering hope for, for long coban sufferers, we divide in prevent people developing call that they reduced the severity of the mitchell symptoms for many people. dizzy, awful hope for long covert suffers. well, any indirectly in the sense that long covey couldn't see you from any active infection with a virus, it doesn't matter whether you are

a symptomatic or intensive care. you are at risk of having long have it. the vaccines are really good and reduce your risk of getting infected in the 1st place . therefore they also reduce your risk of long no more, no less than that. as a possibility, the therapy might be discovered, therefore that wouldn't affect with chase the violence. so the system or for people could dial along with the of the effective would be on the witnesses. so much research at the moment all underway at every possible aspect. so sure if you could pin it down early, work out what it is and where it comes from. you could perhaps treat people early with borrows or, and can plan trees. or if you just had a working definition, what this thing is, you know, they'd be 7036, i'm sure that you can, you can apply many of your colleagues and intensive care made. the point to me is that cover this unusual in the sense of violence which seems to attack

the weakest point. the body almost is not purely bronco conditional, but with tact. little displayed in any other organ long cool. the symptoms do they have the same range of symptoms? so the immediate condition. yeah, great point. so when we talk about the, you know, the sheer basis of his horrible virus. i say one of the things it does is it finds this receptor a to the all over the body and that has impacting your brain, your kidney, your liver, your lungs, you've got your blood vessels. and to some extent, one could argue that's married in the long symptoms, where you could just say, well, if long does it logical, your immune system is all of your body. so that's why shouldn't you problems everywhere as local from, from your studies? is it a disease or an act to viable still attacking the body, or is that the symptoms of previous attacks and the body attempting to,

to recover from the infection? important question. so the jury is still slightly out on, on which of the mechanisms we think are most like people on it. some people like the idea that it's a reservoir system virus, perhaps in the gardner, there's some good evidence to support that. folks like ourselves also like the idea that it's kind of perturbation of normal immunity. that term, you know, your immune system takes months or years to get to know what's the estimate on the number of people across the country. know who can be classified as long call the sufferers. yeah, so we baker a lot about this because we get into the hall definition and even the state versus the react data. depending on whether you say persistent is more than 4 weeks after you tackle more than 8 weeks after that. or the real long haul is who is still desperate a year later. so we don't have to guesstimate, i say a minimum of

a 1000000 people in the u. k. and with that scale of, of condition, i have been consulted by government departments as to how these definitions can go into social security policy. for example, what, what's been done to, to deal with an infection and that must scale. well, you know, i want to be up my role in it. i, i guess i get, i get off, consult on lots of different things, including long. i really want to see more and more consultation on this because, you know, we, so i think i have in the sand because this'll have implications for health care planning for medical school numbers for employment law. you name it. this is going to want us to come. what would advice be to someone who believes of taking covert the leaves are suffering from the long symptoms, obviously consult their own possession, of course, but, but should they be going onto the internet?

joining the society should be compelling, not to follow people is therapy in itself is more than a therapy. i think the, the patient groups have been dynamo, they really have led the race. and, and, you know, some doctors are good and some are less good and need to be able to walk into that g p. surgery and state. okay, very clearly. and i think the support groups can help you to do that. that's all in terms of the, the range of, of sometimes you've seen report him. obviously fatigue would be a bad, much of a common factor. other, other things that people should been looking for in particular, we know that the acute condition of 7, let's take light loss of smell this long cold, but also have some common factors on afflicting. many people it does everything so many good studies on this now mainly out the support groups where the list now stretches to some like 200. so i think commonly near the top of the list all know your fatigue, brain fog, neuro, cognitive, wheezing and breathlessness, chest pain,

loss of taste, and probably, and hair loss. and then you get also slightly rarer ones, but there's a super common all around the world. i'm speaking running the world, how much from international effort is being focused on, on tackling the long cold it. i think it really is important to have an international essay that is growing. and there are meetings put up a world health organization and looking at it. and i, age and in the united states grew together different groups in different countries . and it's important, i think that a person anywhere in the world feels they have the same rights to walk into their doctor surgery and say, you know, i've been out of x. people are 6 months help me talk to my employer told me to get some time to get some treatment. and i can't be local answers. those need to be global answers. and i think where, you know, we're trying hard to builders. it's still an aspect which long covert is at the back of the queue while people deal with the acute condition. yeah,

so we'd be see what 19 or 20 months now as fire fighting and looking at daily for allergies and little tolerance. good anything else. but all i say when i get a chance speak policy makers about this is, you know, we can't, we can't duck this. when i look, for example, brazil and their expertise to continue a virus. long off, you stopped worrying about the acute infection. you have to worry about 3 or 4 or 5 years of off them out of people flooding your clinics. desperate to help out of work, loss of income, you know, whether you like it or not. it's all there to want to come. so taking that opportunity, speaking to the, the health administers those sectors and the, for the ministrations of the u. k. what message would you have to them about what's coming and terms of the long covered pandemic? oh, you know, let's do the crystal ball gazing. let's do the planning. let's do the financial

planning this to the health care planning. let's do the manpower planning because it is noble and it is going to be here to support us if we don't address it. so, bearing in mind, new conditionally, prolonged symptoms of the deadly pernicious violence. but in terms your medical expertise in a range of professional men, that's mind you of any other violence in terms of the way it's attacking people over for a long period. the simple answer is like everything else were coded, we didn't see it coming, i didn't see it coming. we thought karone of ours just didn't do things like this. but when i think back to other things i've worked on in the past, i think of things like glandular fever. the way that that can them come in and take teenagers, especially in really lay them alone, long period. i think a lot of work we do in brazil on them. she can give you a virus that you get from mosquitoes. where lot of people are forgotten, excuse infection. that they're, you know, they can't go to work because they've got to kind of thing, you know, freitas for years afterwards. so there are plenty of models out there that we can

look at and try and understand what's going on. faster. danny elfman from peter college london. thank you so much for joining me on the alec simon show. coming up after the break. alex continues discussions on the impact of loan call that proceeding me. the september, the 11th 2001 day that reshape to the modern world. i remember watching the world trade center burn on a tv at to ca, and i was standing there like this just looking at it. and a colleague of mine was standing next to me and he said, my god, did they have any idea what they've done?

you can, we're going to kill everybody now. everybody, the, the live tv images promote the us into declaring its war on terror. they've begun to bomb up, can villages and holmes and get people hurt and, and killed. the main goal is destroying terrorism and then was it achieved? yes. and no. okay. to essentially no longer exists good for us. but there are certainly other terrorist groups that are worse than welcome back. the early weeks for the panoramic were busy for natalie mcdermott specialize in piedro to infectious diseases and expedients and medical response to disasters and expertise was in great media demand. then she contacted

colbert herself, alex takes up the story with dr. mcdermott thought to been down and thank you once again for joining me on the alex simon show. oh, it's my pleasure. thank you. well, let's go back to the start of the fun damage. i mean, there, you are very much demand by, by the media because of your expertise, an infectious diseases. and then suddenly, from being somebody explaining the pandemic to the public, you became a software yourself. what exactly happened last time it starts with to kinda make or at least around march time i returned to clinical work. and while working at one of the 2 in london, i contracting k b 90. i was only on wow, probably for it was probably about 4 weeks to fully get back to normal, but i was back at work after about 10 days. and then i was working and then

again was working on the board. in about may time, i became on well with an almost identical illness again to cave it, which seemed a very quick time to, to become unwell again. but i became a while i had a very similar illness for about a couple of weeks. but during that time, i also developed some pain in my feet and not have sensation. my feet and things have kind of gradually progress from that to now where i'm quite limited in my ability to walk with crutches and have some, some issues with my bladder and we're still trying to get to the bottom of the exact cable. what has happened? so let's striking us were feel medical expertise. you must offense quite quickly that little, this is strange. i mean, this is something i should have recovered from. this is not the same as getting another boat of covered with your medical expertise background. and you must of

realize fairly something very, very different going on here. yeah, i think initially i had a lot of pain in my feet during that 1st 2 weeks where i had the k b like illness. so i just thought it was passive, back. i had a lot of muscle aches and pains, so i thought it was part of that. and then all of the other symptoms are though, but the pain in my feet didn't. and i think when i started to realize that it resembled no pain and my faith and i spoke with my doctor and, and got medication. but you know, you can get situations like that following viruses that are relatively transients and then so to resolve. so i think i just typed at the time that it would gradually get better. but then i realized when i was trying to drive my call one day to, to get to the pharmacy to get my prescription. that she, i couldn't feel the pedals properly with my feet. and then i started to realize actually my legs went as strong as they were. and i kind of hate but you know, obviously i've been on well, so it takes time and i pretty ever a couple of weeks i would build up that strength and my legs again,

but i just never did. despite going full every single day. i never managed to build that strength up again, and then things seem to kind of gradually get worse in stages. so in september time i had quite a significant deterioration. and that's when i was, i became a very limited in how far i could walk and, and then gradually every time i, i got the crutches and i go further using crutches but not, not without them. and then i think in january time i had another set back, some issues with my bladder and so on. so that kind of yeah, so it kind of continued to progress from their say, well, of course, your own medical experience included working on epidemics and the african content range of, of viruses and diseases. had you recognized anything quite light, listen, and other vital conditions. i think probably not identical, certainly with the boa. we know that area is what's referred to by some of the page to beta syndrome and people can have sort of ongoing to clearly. but with the biter,

it tends to be very specific, largely speaking, focused on the eyes. so people get a lot of information in the eyes and if that's not treated properly, they can go blind. but we also see that people have joint pain. and i also have tightness and headaches and so on. they said there are some features that you blocked. but i think we probably didn't see it on quite the level that we have seen . people developing problems following kate age and probably not with quite the variety of symptoms that people have following with about or it was quite limited to sort of mainly 5 specific symptoms. olson syndrome, in terms of which organ system was affected, though long, covert a very unusual, a new condition, obviously. but wasn't unusual in the sense it was actually named by the social media. and will you part of the family social media groups who are competing experience, who likes the name,

the the condition and brought it to public awareness? so i think it had been probably named shortly before i was really involved with some of the social media great side. i think i start to get involved in, in around the july end of july, beginning of august time, when things still were improving in my condition. you know, i'd kind of anticipated a few weeks of recovery and things still went any better. so i, i guess i joined a bit later so an already been named. but for me, i was part of some of the doctors grades that were discussing the symptoms and discussing what was going on and, and, and realizing just how many people might, might be affected by this condition. so it were much of the medical profession, understandably caught up in the acute phase of the pandemic. and a lot of the media concentration on the intensive care was somewhat of the national health service would be overwhelmed in an acute sense. i think that the social

media was an oval, at least for getting some concentration on this and shooting phase of the of the disease and communicating with fellow sufferers. yes, certainly. and i think it's provided a lot of support to people during that time, especially when they couldn't access any kind of health care or any kind of you know, really attention from their doctors. so i think it certainly provided a support network. i know it's received criticism because people believe that it, few people believing that as a problem, even if they don't potentially have one. but i would disagree. i think it's been an extremely good support network people, many of whom are still struggling even 18 months into the pandemic to actually get the kind of health care attention that they, that they need and that they deserve. so i think it's been use them in that sense, but it will take to use them in, in raising awareness of the situation. it wasn't really until the autumn of last year that i would say to you,

governments and people seem to really catch on board about the significance of long have it in the number of people affected and, and people affected a very prolonged period of time. so what do you think needs to be done? know in terms of the official response to long coven given the, the number of people who are clearly being afflicted with the condition? i think it is being taken seriously now by the u. k. government, but i think there's still not the level of seriousness being taken by the medical community actually towards it. sometimes in terms of treating people, there's a cool group of clinicians who are doing very well at caring for patients and raising awareness about the situation. but equally then some may say as who dismissed it and simply think that it's just some level of fatigue and that people will get better. and it's not really that big a deal. and i think that people need to take on board that it is. and i'll say when

it comes to children, i think there is still a degree of dismissal about affecting children and young people. and actually, i think we need to be taking it seriously because, well, proportionally it might not affect as many young people as it does. adults, it's still affecting a significant group of young people and some older children. and we need to factor that in, and i'm not entirely convinced that being factored into our decision making about the vaccine. certainly from the documents i've read from the g b i, whilst they comment on it sort of a sentence about it that says, well, long beach, it doesn't, we've had people raise concerns about it, but it doesn't really seem to be something that profession, children, that much and i think that if we're going to take into effect the side effects of back scenes and the risks of them, which are actually extremely rare. why we then not taking into account that people or children with longer with it might go on have long,

even if that's only 48 percent of them, that vastly higher than the risk side effect from the vaccine. so i just, i just wonder why we're not taking it seriously. it's we should. yeah. and finally made the ultimate, in terms of your order conditioning your own experience. are you detecting some lighter than the tunnel is progress being made? i would say, sadly, not i think time just, i'm learning to live with my limitations a little bit better. but i don't think that that's really been any significant progress in terms of my in your logical condition. and i continue to occasionally develop new symptoms related to that as well, which obviously is a little bit concerning. but hopefully we are making some progress where the problem is i had some investigations recently which had suggested there is a problem at the very base of my spinal cord. so hopefully i might get some more

imaging soon and, and identify what 3 going on. both both of them and you have a very best wishes and, and thank you once again for joining me in the alex salmon show. thank you very much. the focus on acute illness in face. one of the panoramic is understandable. st. thomas is hostile behind me, its way the prime minister himself was treated, loved ones, dying, intensive care words, full the health service, but clean under the pressure. this is what is dictated to focus on acute care. that is a human cost of the pandemic. however, it is increasingly apparent in social economic terms, the threat of one corporate is even greater on a conservative estimate. 10 times as many people will suffer, debilitating effects of long term corporate. i. serv died from the 1st stage of the panoramic. this leads to serious questions on the policy of the ford administration of big u. k. s. long corporate is a compatible threat to the acute stage is

a panoramic ben. why the allowing the high levels of disease to sweep through the population. in all 4 countries, public health prevention measures have been the last for the point of non existence . the health service may not be overwhelmed in the short term thanks to the impact of faxing. but in terms of human misery, they may be piling up huge problems for the future. the cost of freedom, they may be very high indeed. but for now from alex, myself and all the sure is good bye, stacy. i hope to see you all again. next week, ah, me soon

the ah, the civic lag around the world expedition by 1000 miles round the clock is given the dead calm, the national personal finance. even every country close by with the crew. gavin's food and water harbor. fortune to go to check those for sure. let me know. i got everybody locked down for almost no food and no water. but really, you know,

i'm not sure somebody stuck in the coven. you're living like the fema home, but in the 21st century. ahead of the 911 anniversary artsy commemorates the enduring impact of the us led war on terror. today we'll be hearing from a british army veteran on the devastating soul of the 20 year off gun conflict. we've talked to many people for situations which we just give a point and also i had the telephone on wheels. it's new government for afghanistan including a terrorists film, the f. b i most wanted late, but washington's left with no option.