The plight of the Slovenian ferret

A Slovenian ferret tested positive for covid19. So too dogs, cats and a surprising number of minks. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (or God, as I have come to think of them) has issued guidelines for dealing with household pets and mink farms.

In happy news for the poultry community, chickens and ducks seem immune. The streets have not been lined with the tiny bodies of kittens and puppies, so I feel comfortable with the science that suggests they’re more likely to be carriers than to succumb themselves. Near the start of the pandemic, I read a story of a handful of cats who’d tested positive in China. I can no longer find that story and no one remembers me telling them about it.

It’s ok that no one is really thinking about these animals. They’re really not in danger. They’re not like us.

So, moving on: Covid was going to be good for mental health. I couldn’t believe how much thought was being put into it. Pandemics and states of quarantine are not unprecedented; medical people, social work people, people-people, knew what to expect. And with many a quiet cheer from many a quarter, from the very beginning, almost as soon as the talk was of masks and distancing and soap, it was also about safeguarding your mental health.

Numbers for helplines appeared for the lonely, depressed, anxious and suicidal. We were going to look out for and support the people who were most vulnerable to addictions and emotional and physical abuse.

Is it possible to be more distressed by the way these best of intentions have gone?

Yes. You could find out that being on a lockdown rollercoaster (instead of up and down, we’re in and out; a wobble coaster, maybe?) is not the most insidious thing. You could find out that contracting covid19 is bad for your brain.

A study out of Wuhan reported in Harvard Health this May records 30 per cent of infected patients developing neurological symptoms. These are patients with no prior mental-health conditions presenting dementia, psychosis and stroke.

And this group does not include the people being treated for all the ills related to isolation, money and job worries, school (or lack thereof) stress. It does not include the effect of living in fear of your own demise or that of someone you love.

The virus, the research says, can enter the brain tissue. The covid brain fog may be something you’ve heard about if you’re really interested in this line of study. It’s certainly the most commonly reported neuro-issue. Brain fog: fuzzy, lack of concentration, confusion, memory problems. Sometimes it lasts well past the physical symptoms.

But it’s an awfully easy one to not worry about, because, for so many, that’s us on a good day. It’s familiar. And it doesn’t seem like a mental illness or walk like one or quack like one. Ergo, it is not.

In June 2021, a patient in Trinidad tests positive for covid19. With a cough, mild fever and headache, it’s really an abundance of caution that makes her take the test. By the time she gets the results fewer than 24 hours later, she’s exhausted and crawls into bed.

She’s not been sleeping well. Probably worrying about the test? Worried about the people she saw between showing symptoms and testing. Worried because worrying is what she does. But no matter how exhausted, the sleep does not come.

One night, while not sleeping, she was certain there was an ideal situation that would allow her to sleep and heal: the light needed to be green, the time should be close to dawn, the air should be cool but not cold.

On another night she became convinced that everything ever written by James Joyce had entered her head, unabridged and un-annotated. She called her doctor.

Hallucinations and delusions are common, she was told. It’s more prevalent in patients with severe covid. Hospital covid. But sure, it could happen to her at home, self-quarantining and only a tad sick. She was also having all the brain fog symptoms.

And so the eternal question: if it’s so common – 30 per cent common – doctor-not-fazed common – why do we not know more about it? Why did this story shock me in mid-2021, when, after some snuffling about, I found reports dating back to the middle of last year? In the UK, CoroNerve, a surveillance programme that lets doctors log neurological symptoms of their covid19 patients to help understand the brain-virus matter, started last year.

You’ve already forgotten about the poor ferret in Slovenia, haven’t you?

Mental-health sufferers hear you, ferret.

If you’re not like everybody else, you’re not on everyone’s mind.