校园确诊案例激增时“必须考虑” 新冠疫情的长期影响

学术界警告称,教职工和学生都面临这种后遗症可能持续数月之久疾病的风险

十月 14, 2020
A student at the window in a university halls of residence
Source: Getty

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英国学术界日前警告称,随着新冠病毒在学生群体中迅速传播,大学需要意识到相关长期疾病可能对校园造成的影响。

研究表明,在英国第一波新冠疫情后,成千上万的新冠患者可能承受长期症状,比如数周甚至数月的疲倦感或呼吸困难。

根据最近一份报告,与初始感染造成的死亡风险不同(该风险在老年人和有基础健康问题的人群中尤其高),新冠患者所受的长期影响似乎“难以预测”。

托尼·布莱尔全球变化研究所(Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)的报告重点介绍了伦敦国王学院研究团队的发现,他们一直根据有400万人使用的应用程序收集的数据来记录新冠患者的症状。

该研究表明,大多数患者并未因此而住院,其中1/10的人在确诊4周后仍报告症状,而多达2%的人表示在3个月后仍有健康问题。

利物浦热带医学院的教授保罗·加纳(Paul Garner)曾写过自己与长期新冠斗争的文章。他说,各大学需要意识到这种情况对教职工的影响,比如在压力下“将教学平台转换为混合学习模式”。

他说:“我认为我们需要让学生和教职工了解这些,以便他们帮助其他人认识到这一点,并确保他们得到适当的社会和心理支持,以及如何管理疲劳的实际帮助,确保他们不会过度疲劳,有时间康复。”

“之前我不得不停止与40名学生的所有面对面教学,因为我没办法去工作。我的身体真的太不舒服了。”

他说,尽管他认为长期新冠可能在学生群体中不那么普遍,但加纳教授说“很难相信20岁的人们就不会发生这种情况”。

这份报告引用的一项研究表明,在没有基础慢性疾病的18至34岁的确诊患者中,有1/5的人在检测呈阳性后2到3周仍报告症状。

加纳教授补充说:“对我来说,患病体验非常令人沮丧。如果再加上离家的种种压力,这种孤立无援的经历是很可怕的。”

伦敦大学学院的神经科学教授、政府独立顾问成员卡尔·弗里斯顿(Karl Friston)说,这种疾病能带来长期并发症的风险,促使人们进一步质疑让学生返回校园的决定。

他说:“(这)引出了一个问题:自满地让许多学生进入宿舍然后快乐地互相感染、或自满地认为他们就一定能免于遭受任何长期后果,这是对的吗?”

simon.baker@timeshighereducation.com

本文由Liu Jing为泰晤士高等教育翻译。

后记

Print headline: Long Covid must ‘be considered’

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Reader's comments (3)

This is timely, we had several cases of suspected covid-19 prior to effective testing, and more recently. Of those early suspected cases several people, including previously very fit cyclists and martial artists, have reported the symptoms of 'long-covid' and feeling exhausted for no apparent reason. The big concern is the myocardial damage, something students in the USA have suffered even though asymptomatic during the initial infection. Sadly like many UK Universities the P.R. aspects seem to be more important to senior management, so 'long-covid' is a long way down the list, well beyond hiding actual current case numbers from the staff and students so the press and public don't become 'aware'.
The science is not conclusive on this and there needs to be better testing to give a more accurate diagnosis of COVID. The use of PCR is misleading and has led to a high number of false positives. It it not clear what this 'long COVID' is, what are the biomarkers that link it to COVID and whether the underlying and confounding factors been considered. The numbers of these reported cases are small and therefore may not yield the conclusive findings needed. Common colds can also lead to further debilitation in small numbers of people. There is no need to create yet more panic. It is becoming clearer than ever that the whole COVID situation has resulted in needless fear, deprivation of liberty without protecting the truly vulnerable (aged and with co-morbidities) and an escalation of other far more serious illnesses that remain untreated or will emerge from this situation and the economic nightmare that may follow.
Thank you for the article. The research paper referred to is extremely interesting and well worth reading. Pity, really -- but alas not surprising -- that some people still persist in wanting to minimize the whole thing by ritually citing "the science" and recommending that we shouldn't trust it and should, instead, look the other way.