Like polio, the long-term impact of COVID will be measured in disability

This column is an instalment in our series Apocalypse Then, in which cultural historian Ainsley Hawthorn examines the issues of COVID-19 through the lens of the past.

Practically everyone, from public health officials to political pundits to social media commentators, has framed the threat of COVID-19 in terms of its mortality rate.

But COVID is going to injure many more people than it kills.

For every one person who dies of the disease, 14 people have health problems that last months after their initial infection, including chest pain, abdominal pain and shortness of breath. One in five patients hospitalized with COVID goes home with a new disability.

The loss of life over the past year and half has been staggering, but this pandemic is shaping up leave its greatest mark on survivors, making it much more similar to polio than, say, the Black Death.

Poliomyelitis, more commonly known by its abbreviation polio, has probably existed since ancient times, but it wasn't responsible for any major epidemics until the 19th century. Canada's first recorded case was in 1910, when a little girl was admitted to a hospital in Hamilton, Ont., with what appeared to be rabies.

It was only after she died that doctors diagnosed her illness as polio.