It's odd how little attention we've paid to the long-term effects of viruses in general. The cumulative effects of the illnesses they cause could easily be carving off multiple years of healthy lifespan for millions of people but until COVID, nobody really cared as long as the majority were able to return to productivity relatively quickly in the short term.
I think part of the reason for that is that COVID was new, and an unknown. Also, severe COVID in the early part of the pandemic seemed much more serious than a cold, though it is less so now.
