TESTIMONY
Greg Levine on the Challenges and Risks Faced by Long COVID Patients in Healthcare Settings and the Need for Improved Public Health Policies
2:39:25
·
3 min
Greg Levine, a freelance journalist, testifies about his ongoing battle with long COVID and the lack of precautions in healthcare settings.
- Levine contracted COVID in January 2023, leading to long COVID symptoms like shortness of breath, chest pain, and fatigue.
- Despite precautions, Levine faced environments in healthcare settings where basic protections like mask-wearing were ignored.
- He encountered risks of re-infection in hospitals and clinics, which neglected mask mandates even as COVID cases continued.
- Levine criticizes the abandonment of protective measures in healthcare facilities and urges the council to mandate masks, fund high-quality masks, and ensure cleaner indoor air.
- He highlights the disregard for public health policies and the necessity of collective responsibility in combating COVID.
Greg Levine
2:39:25
I'm Greg Levine.
2:39:26
I'm a freelance journalist, and in January of 2023, I caught COVID.
2:39:31
I was still limiting public activity at the time.
2:39:33
I was still wearing masks in public settings, but so far a few others were.
2:39:38
When I finally tested negative and came out of isolation, my illness did not seem to end.
2:39:43
I had shortness of breath, chest pain, tachycardia, elevated blood pressure.
2:39:47
Stream fatigue, but we now understand to be long COVID.
2:39:51
My life ever since has been defined by this disease.
2:39:54
In a way, I'm lucky.
2:39:55
I live in New York City, we have 2 good programs here that are looking at long COVID.
2:39:59
It took me months, but I finally got in to see qualified caring professionals who had the experience to treat my illness.
2:40:06
But here's the wild thing.
2:40:07
Even though I was already a sick and I was aware that another infection could make me sicker, even though I was in 2 of the country's best hospitals, every trip to the doctor, at every trip, I was surrounded by people who are not taking even the most basic precautions to protect themselves or to protect others.
2:40:23
Patients, many of them coughing, sniffling, uncouth, that would mean crowded waiting rooms.
2:40:28
While in the early months of 2023, maybe staff and doctors, most fleet wore masks.
2:40:34
By summer, masking became the exception rather than the rule.
2:40:37
Around the country, tens of thousands are still hospitalized with COVID.
2:40:42
100, sometimes thousands are dying every week.
2:40:44
This is still true to this day.
2:40:46
But in these hospitals, the abandonment of mask requirements reminded me of a quote from the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
2:40:54
It was like throwing away your umbrella and a rainstorm because you weren't getting wet.
2:40:59
Here I was, suffering, yet every doctor I visited required me to make a bargain with myself.
2:41:04
What's more risky?
2:41:05
Getting not getting the care I need or chanting a reinfection by going to places that were hell bent on being back to normal.
2:41:13
In November after having spent about 90 minutes in an imaging center where I was masked, but absolutely no one else was, not patients, not staff, I contracted an upper respiratory infection.
2:41:23
At first, it was not COVID or at least I tested negative, but after several weeks,
Mercedes Narcisse
2:41:28
Tom makes more
Greg Levine
2:41:29
I wound up testing negative again.
2:41:31
Is this where we wanna be back to?
2:41:33
The recent trend, you know, is exhibited by the CDC, is to adopt the straddleism that sounds like Yogi Berra.
2:41:38
We can make rules because no one will follow them.
2:41:41
That doesn't make sense.
2:41:43
It's like saying, don't wear seat belts.
2:41:45
Some don't wear seat belts.
2:41:46
We shouldn't require them.
2:41:47
Obviously, that's not how government should work.
2:41:50
You have the power to require masks to public hospitals.
2:41:53
You have the means to fund the program, give New Yorkers access to high quality mask.
2:41:57
You could even start to require cleaner indoor air.
2:42:00
You could fund more access to better use.
Mercedes Narcisse
2:42:02
Try to wrap it up.
Greg Levine
2:42:03
I will wrap it up.
2:42:05
Current policies assume that there are sick people and there are healthy people, and it's always a sick people who need to take care.
2:42:11
But that's not how the way life works.
2:42:12
At some point, we will all be vulnerable.
2:42:15
At this moment, the SARS CoV-two virus is the presenting the challenge.
2:42:19
So let's meet it.
2:42:20
Let's each and every one of you give us the help to help others.
2:42:24
Like with masks, like with rapid available testing.
2:42:26
We are all each other's keepers, and this is a simple step that is in your hands to help us.
2:42:31
Thank you so much for listening to me.
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Myra Batchelder, Leader of the COVID Advocacy Initiative, on Enhancing COVID-19 Prevention and Support in New York City
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Member of the Public on Urging NYC to Fund Free N95 Respirators and Tests, Mandate Respirators in Key Settings, and Condemn CDC's COVID Isolation Policy
