I have long covid from the single time I’ve ever had covid. I’m not a singer or a dancer, but if I got all the right training, I think my long covid symptoms limits my ability to physically endure performing a concert. These superstars are constantly sharing air with thousands of people in single nights. In airports, at shows, dance practice, parties, meetings. Are they hiding the news? Do they just view it as the flu and don’t think it’s worth reporting? What’s happening?
Very valid question, but FWIW it did happen to an Olympic racer https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2024-08-08/noah-lyles-does-not-win-paris-200-meters
And there are several other cases, to be honest they just don’t make the news, probably just bc no one (except me) wants to talk about it
Kristaps Porzingis, of the Boston Celtics, had fatigue and respiratory problems for the last few months of the NBA season with an unnamed “post-viral syndrome.”
Edit - Here’s another athlete, a cricketer, and here’s a hockey player. I searched “battle with long covid” “athlete”, and “singer” brings up some hits, too, including a Denver opera singer and a Hong Kong star.
I’m not sure how it is for sports people, but for entertainers the insurance they have to cover missed gigs stopped covering covid cancellations, so they never say why certain concerts or whatever have to be cancelled anymore. It’s always flu or generic repiratory illness.
Celebrities drop out of the spotlight all the time, and the news doesn’t really cover covid infections anymore, but there is a lot of “I’m still recovering from that nasty cold two months ago” news tidbits or social media posts every now and then. For athletes I hear news about how someone is struggling since they got a “not covid” repiratory illness. Since a lot of the news doesn’t report any confirmed covid infections anymore it’s kind of up to you to infer when they are still having trouble months later, and ultimately it could be something else, there is no way to say definitively.
Before the vaccine the chance of getting long covid was 10-20%, and after vaccines that went down to about 4% per infection so it’s less common in recent years. However the risk doesn’t seem to be dropping any further but it’s very hard to tell. There is some theories and evidence that between the numerous vaccines and infecitons, our bodies are getting better at fighting off the various new strains of it, but I don’t think we’ll have a clear picture of the new normal for a long time. Specifically because almost no one gives a shit anymore. They don’t test, doctors don’t care, and if people get long covid, and don’t understand what long covid is, they chalk it up to something else like “shit just happens for no reason” or “aging”. Meanwhile the disability rate continues to climb. In the last 6 months or so the rate of covid has been relatively low due to lack of new variants popping up, but that just changed and we can expect a new signicant wave for summer.
Summer waves of respiratory illness is wild. I work in a pediatrics unit. It’s wasn’t like this before. Respiratory illness season started 2019 and never really properly stopped, its weird af.
Yeah, between how infectious covid is, how many new variants have been showing up, and how short immunity lasts (6 months give or take), there is no real seasonality with covid. Generally it drops off in spring because everyone spreads it to everyone else in winter, and then varies wildly the rest of the year.
And it can negatively effect the immune system for a while, so it opens people up to worse infections from other diseases, along with opportunistic bacterial and fungal infections. We just had one of the worse flu seasons in 15 years, and one of the worse whooping cough outbreaks since the 50s. The news has been reporting this stuff, but you have to look for it. I don’t think it penetrates most peoples algorithm bubble by default.
Shows get canceled all the time, people gradually disappear from the spotlight, others are dying younger. the bad thing is happening, but the media is largely ignoring it and it’s happening in the context of so many other bad things, it’s hard to tell.
Some artists are going to extensive lengths to keep tours going.
Shit I need a Steriwave machine. I can’t find where to buy one or how much it costs. It’s invention is at least 12 years old so hopefully that’s lowered the price.
Ideally the government should be offering this machine to everyone.
Get yourself an Air.
The bubble boy helment is a little claustrophobic for me. If I ever get rich enough to go to 10 big crazy concerts a year, maybe. But otherwise it’s not for me.
it’s probably worth noting that marquee-level / celebrity entertainment is an industry where the talent pool far exceeds the labor demands of capital. to put another way: there are so many more talented people out there who would be just as entertaining for whatever audience a platform reaches than there are positions gatekept by those that own the platform.
people have been getting chewed up and spit out since always, and there’s a whole giant machine devoted to focusing us on the “new” and distracting us from those left behind or pushed aside… unless there’s a last little bit of entertainment to squeeze from a star’s tragic fall from grace.
Please don’t give Vince Neil a get-out-of-gulag-free card.
One part hiding, one part access to better medicine, food, and immunity boosters like gamma globulin among the elite performers especially when they are travelling.
This is my first time hearing of gamma globulin. Sounds like a miracle drug.
Not quite but it does seem pretty nice. There;re all sorts of big bourgeoisie experimental medicine, quackery, miracles, and things that are definitely plausible simply not accessible to the rest of us.
