- Employee
- 06/07/2023
Corona isn't done and dusted for everyone
The pandemic may seem like something we've left far behind us, but COVID-19 is still very much a current concern for some people. Like the TU/e employees who are still struggling with post-COVID syndrome, also known as long COVID. How many people are affected by this syndrome? What impact are their symptoms having on their work and personal life? And what can they do to get better? Cursor asked company physician Jack Gulden and a colleague with long COVID.
When company physician Jack Gulden of HumanCapitalCare, TU/e's occupational healthcare service, is asked about the current number of long COVID cases at TU/e, he can be brief: “We currently know of eight.” That doesn't sound too bad at all, given that TU/e employees number into the thousands.
With the period away from work averaging 208 days however, COVID-19 has taken a heavy toll in each of these cases. Primarily for the employees themselves, but also for their departments, where their colleagues have had to manage without them for an extended period. Later in this article, TU/e employee Ina speaks about her own experience.
Post-COVID syndrome can involve physical symptoms such as tiredness, shortness of breath or headaches, as well as other, mental symptoms. “Think of the brain fog we've been hearing about, when a person's cognitive organizational abilities don't work as they should,” says Gulden.
Working hard
Can we identify factors that make a person more susceptible to this syndrome? It is difficult to say. Gulden can at least confirm that seven of the eight staffers at TU/e with long COVID are in the 45-plus age group. And he suspects that the strong work ethic so typical of TU/e employees is playing a role.
“The culture at TU/e is one of working hard. For many employees this is self-imposed. But when pressure of work is impacting you negatively and you're actually teetering on the edge of exhaustion, you become more susceptible to health problems and infections.”
Taking it easy
Recovering from long COVID is made difficult by coronavirus itself: it undermines the body's recuperative power just when it is most needed. “So you can't ‘train yourself better’ by exceeding your limits little by little,” says Gulden.
“It's important that you take it easy: don't push your energy level, instead be guided by it. And it's also important, of course, that you get enough rest and eat well. You may want to seek the support of a physiotherapist, occupational therapist and/or psychologist.”
Infections
Where are we now in terms of the number of new corona infections? Is the pandemic really behind us? “In the first quarter of 2023, HumanCapitalCare noted nationally – i.e. within all our client organizations – 400 reported cases of infection. In the same quarter of 2022 that number was five times higher,” says Gulden.
“There's no longer any requirement to test for coronavirus, and that's impacting the numbers. It means some cases of infection will go unnoticed. But I certainly think that as a population we've overcome the virus, in the sense that we have built sufficient resistance - thanks to vaccination and previous infection by the virus - to ensure that we're less likely to become infected and when we are, our symptoms will be less severe.” Increasingly, we can regard corona as something on a par with the ‘regular’ flu, is Gulden's message.
“There's no point fretting”
TU/e employee Ina (62) had never had corona until last December. Yet straight away she found herself with long COVID. Of all the rotten luck! she thinks. But what she finds even more frustrating is not being able to actively do anything to aid her recovery. Ina's chief symptom is maintaining mental focus. While she is employed to fulfill a support function, she is currently working fewer than half her contracted hours.
She never failed to wear a face mask, got all her shots, and followed all the other rules. And it worked! ‘Ina’ (whose real name is known to Cursor) did not contract coronavirus. Not, that is, until December 2022, when she had a fever and lost her sense of smell and taste for a couple of days. A test confirmed it: positive.
Fortunately, she was soon back on her feet and after the Christmas vacation she was able to return to work. At least, that's what she thought. “But things didn't go at all well.” Her symptoms are not so much physical as concentration-related: “Every task that requires mental focus is energy-guzzling.”
During the early weeks, Ina's working day would be followed by a two-hour stint on the couch; dead to the world. “I really was bone-tired.” Since then she has been signed off as partially work incapacitated and instead of having a four-and-a-half day week, she is working four times a half day. As she is no longer capable of sustained deep concentration, her work consists mainly of tasks she can divide into manageable chunks. The ancillary activities she used to do for TU/e as someone who was keen to be involved, she's had to put on the back burner.
Brain fog
She tries to stay upbeat under these difficult circumstances. “I'm not managing to load my name list,” she says to her colleagues when brain fog prevents her calling a name to mind. Or: “My English isn't working,” when she is momentarily tongue-tied. But at the same time she is full of questions and concerns. “There's a reasonable chance that everything will be just fine, one the other hand, this situation could go on indefinitely.”
From the company physician she understood that long covid should be treated in the same way as a burnout: very slow reintegration, no overtaxing yourself, no going beyond your limits. That last one in particular is a challenge: “You only notice where your limit is when you've gone too far – which is exactly what you're not supposed to do.”
As someone who is full of get-up-and-go, not being able to actively work on her recovery is something she finds hard to stomach. “You have to let it all wash over you. That is deeply frustrating, but fretting about it doesn't do any good either.” So there's only one thing you can do: “Let it go, let it go, let it go.”
Understanding
She is pleased with the guidance she has received from the occupational healthcare service. “They have a very good understanding of long COVID and how to handle it.” Likewise, the understanding and support she gets from her colleagues and manager.
The only thing that sometimes leaves her grinding her teeth is the understandable wish expressed by management that mutually acceptable goals be set. Regrettably, that's just not possible right now. “I too would love to know the answer to a question like ‘how long roughly do you think this is going to go on for?’”
Conference
That testing when there's a suspicion of corona is no longer required is something Ina thinks is pretty crazy, in view of the severity of her symptoms. “Everyone thinks corona's done and dusted. But even recently there were dozens of cases among the academic staff. All delegates at the same international conference – it spreads like wildfire at events like that. We're underestimating it.”
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