Victor Davis Hanson
Seven months later, on the eve of my 2022 tour to Israel, in early May, I got Covid 2.0, again after a large public event.
(On book tours and at formal speaking dinners, one is often asked to do an early meet-and-greet/book signing, then followed by formal photo-ops with guests, then VIP receptions, then general receptions, then dinner, then talk, then a smoker-like post-dinner brief reception. And as a result, one can easily shake hands, be hugged, and take selfies with some 300-400 people in a few hours, three or four times a week. My favorite line, as late as two years ago, when one coughs repeatedly on you: “Don’t worry. I don’t have Covid. I was vaxxed.”)
In any case, I thought Omicron would be like Delta until it was not.
Seven days in bed with a high fever followed in May 2022. Then over a year’s loss of taste and smell. Neuropathies. Blurry vision. A bizarre gross yellow tongue. (Covid tongue?) Terrible muscle pains, brain fog, and crushing fatigue—for the next 20 months.
After testing negative on day 9, but feeling worse than the initial infection days, I went back to work. I spoke out of state four times during the first week of testing negative. Then I flew to Israel to lead the tour for two weeks.
But each day of May and June 2022 became worse as if having the flu without having the flu. I came home two weeks later and thought “I can still work through it.” After three months of nonstop speaking, travel, and writing, I was told by a doctor, “I think you have long Covid, slow down.”
So, what was long Covid? Covid viral reactivation (I doubt it)? Reactivation of prior viral bouts like mono (seems far-fetched)? Blood clots (perhaps)? Destruction of serotonin in the brain (a theory)? Alteration of the immune system by the virus in susceptible people leading to constant upregulation of the immune system’s defenses by overproduction of histamine, leukotrienes, cytokines, etc. against a nonexistent and long gone Covid virus (more likely)?
Blood tests during that long Covid bout were a bit weird: low WBC, low serum protein, screwed up albumin/bilirubin ratios, etc. But mostly, I had zero energy, terrible insomnia, vertigo, brain fog, and muscle/flu-like symptoms. Often, someone would say, “You still have Covid? I got over it in four days, no sweat.”
That continued for nine to ten months, before beginning gradually to ease up. In the meantime, I eventually tried a lot of things: acupuncture, rest, meditation, supplements, vitamins, teas, massage—and kept working.
Gradually over the second year, things got better (a very kind doctor advised me on things that proved quite prescient and later backed up by double-blind studies: carnitine/creatine for fatigue, NAC/NMN for cellular resilience, quercetin/luteolin for immune boosting, 5-HTP for serotonin, etc.).
I tried power walking, going from 100 yards to a mile—that took two months.
Then I attempted something I had never done before: light jogging. I again started with 100 yards and ended up six months later at 2 miles a day.
By the end of 2023, I thought long Covid was finally gone. Then I got a slight case of Covid (3.0; same old, same old: following a larger dinner, speech, and reception). But like the first case, it came and went in 3 to 4 days, and long Covid continued to wane.
At two years, this May, I felt cured. After three Covid infections, long Covid for 18 to 24 months, and two vaxes, I was certain I had some immunity.
Then this trip, then Covid again, and now as I write, the worst of the four bouts.
When you are lying down with a high fever day after day (nine days seem like two weeks), you begin to reflect on things. (I tried not to get angry at Dr. Fauci for subsidizing gain-of-function Covid-19 research at Wuhan and lying about it. Why blame the communist Chinese for these terrible infections, given they do what communists always do: plot, cause havoc, and deny? They are the proverbial scorpions, and we are the frogs. That is, their communist character is to cause misery for the world.
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