I usually hate anecdotal stories, especially as it's the tool of the right to defend pseudoscience. However, there's a heap of scientific evidence behind us.
In the last six months, I've a lot of older people and family passed due to heart troubles, including my dad. I would never say anything out loud, as it's just rude, as people are grieving and I don't know for 100% sure (the fecking burden of not being a reactionary). Like a friend's mum died of heart failure 3 months after a COVID infection, and I thought to myself "this is a very good chance that COVID increased her risk" but I'm not going to be a knob and say that out loud. You know who didn't fail to give their opinion? Fucking antivaxxers everywhere. "Did you mother get the jab?" "Fuck off her last vaccine was in 2021".
The other massive glaring thing I see every day is my students. Exam scores are way down, while behavioural and emotional problems (including medication) is up. COVID infections definitely can hurt kids' cognitive ability and cause an increased risk of neurological problems. I've just see way more fighting, anger, and serious emotional troubles in school than I ever have in my 20+ years of teaching. Students are missing way more school due to illnesses like COVID but also other viral stuff like the cold and flu than they ever used to, and they're falling behind because of it.
Total shot in the dark, but I see more of my close friends struggling with depression, anxiety, and low energy than I ever remember. I don't mean to downplay the genuine struggle that is mental health, people definitely had symptoms before COVID and many other issues are completely unrelated to COVID. I'm just seeing an increase across the board with people I know, especially people who I previously considered to be a rock.
I know that anecdotal evidence isn't worth considering, but we've being posting hard science for years, and I think it's fair that we start to notice patterns in our community.
I've had coworkers show up literally wheezing. No mask, no distancing. And my job has PSL too but they'd rather use that on vacation.
Ultimately this is a systemic and cultural failure. But it's hard not to be bitter at the individual manifestations of the social rot.
Anecdotally, any injury or illness seems worse and takes longer to recover than it used to. Some of that is age for sure, but like... Seems like 10-15 years of aging in the last 4 years.
Can't go anywhere in public without hearing a chorus of productive coughs. And some of them may not even have covid; colds and allergies and changes in temperature are enough to trigger the cough I've intermittently had since early 2020.
Ironically I wonder if covid's effect on the brain and risk analysis / decision making causes people to take it less seriously, not even think about the potential consequences. Like a human toxoplasmosis.
Hope it at least accelerates the collapse of the first world