Something that is often unclear concerning Covid is: what does it mean for a person to be recovered from Covid? There's an ambiguity: a person can be recovered in the sense that the virus has left their body, or they can be recovered in the sense that they feel the same as they did before getting Covid.

I've found that I was faced with an uncomfortable dilemma when people ask whether I was recovered from Covid. I'm recovered in the sense that it's been almost a month and I'm testing negative and the virus has left my body. But I still have a slight long term symptom (feel like I have to clear my throat more often than usual), so I don't feel the same as before I had Covid. (Long term symptoms also often happen to me when I get a cold, ever since about 2008, maybe because I got pneumonia at that time. So far they're no worse than that, and I hope it lasts no longer than that. I don't have the loss of energy.)

If I say I'm recovered, then I reinforce the following mistaken idea about Covid - that it's a temporary sickness that you get for a few days and then get better and, if you're lucky, don't die from. But the scary thing about Covid is not the possibility of dying. It's the possibility of never recovering, of having some kind of permanent damage. Since I don't know yet if that's the situation for me, celebrating being "over" it seems out of place. Is my immune system permanently weakened? Are my lungs permanently weakened? I have no clue, so as a result it bothers me when people are like "yay, you're over Covid".

But if I say I'm not recovered, then people might think I'm still sick in the contagious sense. In many cases, people take months or even more than a year before they feel back to being the same again, but obviously the virus has long left their body and it's safe for them to go places.

So it's no wonder people with long Covid feel like nobody is listening to them. The significance of Covid compared to other sickness is not the serious immediate effects, which are rare for vaccinated people, but the fact that it very often has a long-term impact.