Local Support for COVID positive Akwesasronon

By Kaniehtonkie

During a global pandemic, COVID positive Akwesasronon are left without local support. Support in the sense of dealing with long term COVID symptoms. More than a year into the pandemic, it’s not clear how many Covid-19 patients go on to develop what’s called ‘long-term Covid’, or ‘Long Covid’. A recent study that included mostly people who had just mild cases found 30% were reporting symptoms as long as nine months after contracting the virus. Other studies have found a higher percentage.

From the site of the first COVID outbreak in Wuhan, China, they found that 76% of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 were still experiencing symptoms six month after their symptoms began. According to CNN, researchers who followed people infected with the coronavirus for up to nine months, the longest follow-up to date, found that 30% were still reporting symptoms, and more than that reported a worse quality of life than before they got the virus, according to their research.

Dr. William Li told CNN, “We now realize it goes way beyond the standard post viral syndrome,”

Dr. Li is a physician of internal medicine and founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on the role of blood vessels in diseases. Li, a vascular biologist, has been researching Covid for almost a year.

“These symptoms can last for nine months. And we’re going on to a year now, we’re still seeing new symptoms unfold,” he said.

Health services on the northern and southern portion of Akwesasne offer initial support, with MCA sending COVID positive community members a COVID information packet. SRMT and MCA also offer support in terms of everyday needs such as quarantine support, mental health, everyday supplies but ,when contacted, for long term COVID symptoms neither has a long term support group.

This is where Diana Berrent steps in. Berrent was one of the first people in her area to test positive for COVID-19. While scrambling to get medical information and testing, she became an advocate and activist for herself and others. As a self-described “Canary in the COVID Coalmine,” she vowed to amplify her voice as she navigated through this virus odyssey.

She documented both her illness and recovery through her Coronavirus Diary, giving the world a glimpse of her struggles and process. While in isolation, Berrent launched “Survivor Corps”, a grassroots solution-based movement to mobilize the sharply increasing number of people affected by COVID-19. Three weeks after the resolution of her symptoms, she was Participant #0001 in Columbia University’s clinical trial to recruit survivors to donate their blood and plasma. Berrent tested negative for the virus and positive for the antibodies. As an added bonus, she is a Universal Donor, able to give her blood and plasma to those COVID-19 patients less fortunate - who either cannot create their own antibodies or who have rarer blood types that are more difficult to match.

Berrent’s goal now is to activate and enroll as others to join Survivor Corps, the Peace Corps of the COVID Generation saying, “We, as a community, can save lives. Our collective power could truly help stem the tide of this pandemic and assist in the national recovery, research community efforts and take a more active role in trying to mitigate this pandemic”.

Berrent has offered to work with Akwesasne in setting up our own support group. In the following weeks, Indian Time will post information on how this new support group is forming. If you are a COVID positive patient, a recovered COVID community member or would like to join to assist a friend or family member you can contact “Survivors Corps” at: survivorscorps.org

You can also find Survivors Corps on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

The team at Survivor Corps created, designed and developed this website to provide support, information and education about this developing pandemic to COVID-19 patients - to help connect patients to researchers and to help facilitate the nation’s COVID-19 response.

Survivor Corps is the largest grassroots movement in America dedicated to actively ending this pandemic.