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I did not see Ella Eastin in the list of Stanford athletes swimming in the Trials, so I searched and was shocked to discover she officially retired from swimming last month because of a chronic neurological condition that has incapacitated her. One of my favorite Stanford athletes, I hope she recovers at least to the point where she can lead a fulfilling life. She was awarded an NCAA postgraduate scholarship and plans to become a nurse.

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It is interesting that you chose not to quote that the neurological condition is described as "possibly from long-haul COVID-19".

From her May 18 Instagram post[/:

Over the past year and a half, I have been battling a seemingly undiagnosable illness that incapacitated me. I lost my ability to manage daily activities and had to be taken care of by family and friends. I couldn’t live a normal life, much less one of a professional athlete.

The condition reportedly "affects more than 70 million people" worldwide.  It often appears secondary to a primary infection.

A medical paper on some patients with suspected COVID-19 Dysautonomia.  Detail of possible interest: "Notably, autonomic symptoms were present at COVID-19 onset in 5 of the 6 patients in this series, and none of the patients were hospitalized for these or other symptoms."
"In another large review of 841 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, dysautonomia was reported in 21 (2.5%) patients. Dysautonomia was considered mild in 15 of these patients,
"Though the scope of COVID-19 dysautonomia is at this point unknown, the implications and significance are enormous given the scale of the pandemic. It is at this point unclear whether dysautonomia is more prevalent in COVID-19 than other infections or whether there are any mechanisms that uniquely target vulnerable autonomic pathways"
(Although there is one subject of the study whose age matches Ella, I don't believe that subject's timeline matches Ella's.)

A "year and a half" before May 18 would suggest Ella had one of the earliest cases of COVID-19 in the US, if the belief that the condition followed or was concurrent with a COVID-19 infection, and her time line is anywhere close to accurate.

From SwimSwam:
"Eastin has not raced in an official meet since December 2019, and left Stanford, where she was training as a post-grad, to return home to Southern California at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic."

She performed well enough in the Dec. 2019 US Open.

There is an April 23, 2020, 25-minute video interview on SwimSwam. "Ella Eastin has been at home in Southern California and out of the water for over a month now. At first, like any other swimmer, this was very unsettling, especially given that in January-February she had already taken an extended period out of the water due to health reasons."  In the interview, Ella mentions having a rough start of the year (2020) due to a "health issue".  She is clearly considering that she would be swimming again when the pandemic subsided. At 9:00, she talks about being grateful that she is healthy.  (Her dad may have had COVID in mid-March, but she hadn't seen him as of the interview.)  Ella also indicates that she left for SoCal immediately upon the closing of practices, which I believe was the result of the March 16, 2020, shelter-in-place order in the county.

My take, given her "year and a half" is that the January-February health issue was the start of her health problems (at least in her mind) leading to her diagnosis of dysautonomia.  I think that she did not think she had COVID prior to the date of the interview.  She didn't indicate she had health problems at the time of the interview, and referred to herself as being healthy.

So, I'm less sure about her dysautonomia, if she first had symptoms in January 2020, as being COVID related.  It seems highly unlikely to me that she had a very early COVID (though, she was in a county with early cases).

[M T]

I did not see Ella Eastin in the list of Stanford athletes swimming in the Trials, so I searched and was shocked to discover she officially retired from swimming last month because of a chronic neurological condition that has incapacitated her. One of my favorite Stanford athletes, I hope she recovers at least to the point where she can lead a fulfilling life. She was awarded an NCAA postgraduate scholarship and plans to become a nurse.

article

It is interesting that you chose not to quote that the neurological condition is described as "possibly from long-haul COVID-19".

From her May 18 Instagram post[/:

Over the past year and a half, I have been battling a seemingly undiagnosable illness that incapacitated me. I lost my ability to manage daily activities and had to be taken care of by family and friends. I couldn’t live a normal life, much less one of a professional athlete.

The condition reportedly "affects more than 70 million people" worldwide.  It often appears secondary to a primary infection.

A medical paper on some patients with suspected COVID-19 Dysautonomia.  Detail of possible interest: "Notably, autonomic symptoms were present at COVID-19 onset in 5 of the 6 patients in this series, and none of the patients were hospitalized for these or other symptoms."
"In another large review of 841 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, dysautonomia was reported in 21 (2.5%) patients. Dysautonomia was considered mild in 15 of these patients,
"Though the scope of COVID-19 dysautonomia is at this point unknown, the implications and significance are enormous given the scale of the pandemic. It is at this point unclear whether dysautonomia is more prevalent in COVID-19 than other infections or whether there are any mechanisms that uniquely target vulnerable autonomic pathways"
(Although there is one subject of the study whose age matches Ella, I don't believe that subject's timeline matches Ella's.)

A "year and a half" before May 18 would suggest Ella had one of the earliest cases of COVID-19 in the US, if the belief that the condition followed or was concurrent with a COVID-19 infection, and her time line is anywhere close to accurate.

From SwimSwam:
"Eastin has not raced in an official meet since December 2019, and left Stanford, where she was training as a post-grad, to return home to Southern California at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic."

She performed well enough in the Dec. 2019 US Open.

There is an April 23, 2020, 25-minute video interview on SwimSwam. "Ella Eastin has been at home in Southern California and out of the water for over a month now. At first, like any other swimmer, this was very unsettling, especially given that in January-February she had already taken an extended period out of the water due to health reasons."  In the interview, Ella mentions having a rough start of the year (2020) due to a "health issue".  She is clearly considering that she would be swimming again when the pandemic subsided. At 9:00, she talks about being grateful that she is healthy.  (Her dad may have had COVID in mid-March, but she hadn't seen him as of the interview.)  Ella also indicates that she left for SoCal immediately upon the closing of practices, which I believe was the result of the March 16, 2020, shelter-in-place order in the county.

My take, given her "year and a half" is that the January-February health issue was the start of her health problems (at least in her mind) leading to her diagnosis of dysautonomia.  I think that she did not think she had COVID prior to the date of the interview.  She didn't indicate she had health problems at the time of the interview, and referred to herself as being healthy.

So, I'm less sure about her dysautonomia, if she first had symptoms in January 2020, as being COVID related.  It seems highly unlikely to me that she had a very early COVID (though, she was in a county with early cases).