To: ariana.cha@washpost.com, dan.keating@washpost.com
Subject: What about excess mortality? What about Long COVID?
Date: November 28, 2022
Your article in today’s Washington Post committed a grave error in not mentioning even a single word about the fact that the statistics you were citing reflected only deaths officially classified as being caused by COVID, which is a massive undercount of the number of deaths that are actually being caused by COVID and will be moving forward.
Study after study has shown dramatic short-term and long-term health impacts from COVID infection. For example, a recent study from Australia shows that 90-days post COVID infection your risks are elevated as follows:
- 15x for myocarditis and pericarditis
- 6x for pulmonary embolism
- 4x for heart attack
- 2x for stroke
These impacts affect everyone, not just the elderly. And deaths from these impacts are frequently not classified as COVID-related and therefore not included in the statistics you wrote about in your article. They are, nevertheless, deaths caused by COVID.
Furthermore, your article also grievously erred in not including even a single sentence about the risks of Long COVID, many of whose sufferers are not elderly. As Fiona Lowenstein eloquently explained recently in an On The Media segment, media reports which focus on COVID deaths without mentioning Long COVID perpetuate the widespread lack of understanding of the risk and severity of Long COVID, a lack of understanding which is due in no small part to arguably intentional downplaying of Long COVID in government messaging about the pandemic.
As long as people are misled and misinformed by articles such as yours, they will continue to make bad decisions, and tolerate bad decision-making from the government, about how we as a society respond to COVID.
You’re making things worse.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Kamens
