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Cont: The One Covid-19 Science and Medicine Thread Part 5

You're hilarious.

You type screeds of nonsensical garbage, but when asked for evidence of your stupid claims (don't forget, it was you saying how many kids are in hospital due to the new plague variant) you post 5000 words of obfuscation, whining and nothing of relevance.

Do go on...


And, as is his wont, The Atheist ignores an entire post with facts - in particular the facts contradicting his moronic idea that "only a handful of children under 5 died from covid worldwide."
That he never presented the least bit of documentation for his claim is 'forgotten' in his panic attack.
 
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I'm looking for details on Pfizer's Vaccine Protocol (C4591001 Amendment 9, Oct. 29 2020) change.
(...)
Anyone seen any detail on this?


That was four years ago, and I don't remember if I have seen anything like that - and certainly no details. Our knowledge about both the vaccines, the virus, its variants and their ability to evade previously acquired immunity has been updated several times since then.

The irony is that the minimizers were the ones who were most adamant that people had acquired life-long immunity - whether by infection of vaccination:
Overselling the vaccine in 2021 was not being pro-vaccine. It was pro-stop-worrying-about-the pandemic, from the doctors who assured us herd immunity was imminent.
(...)
No vaccine is 100% effective or safe, and being pro-vaccine means acknowledging their blemishes and areas of uncertainty, at least with new vaccines.

When the original COVID mRNA vaccine data was announced (here and here), they were 95% effective against COVID infection and even better against severe disease, though not 100% effective as several doctors claimed. There was a lot to be positive about, and it was vital to convey this information to the public. I encouraged vaccination with every patient I saw, and I still do. Countless people are alive today because doctors properly extolled the benefits of the COVID vaccines.

While optimism was entirely appropriate in early 2021, so was caution and humility. The virus was just a just year old, and January 2021 was the deadliest part of the pandemic. Over 3,000 Americans died on some days that month. The virus had given us many reasons to respect it in that first year, and we didn’t know what variants might be on the horizon.

The vaccines, of course, were brand new. Only 36,930 people had been vaccinated in the two mRNA trials, and they lasted just several months. The median age was 52-years, and trial participants are often unrepresentative of the public at large. There were just 347 cases of COVID, 40 severe cases, and only 1 COVID death in these trials.

It wasn’t possible to conclude from the original vaccine trials that the vaccines would be 100% effective against death. These trials taught us a lot, but they were the starting point of us learning about these vaccines, not the end. Over the next few months, hundreds of millions of people around the world would be vaccinated. We still had a lot to learn about their real-world effectiveness, especially over the long-term. We had literally everything to learn about their impact on viral transmission.

Because I am pro-vaccine, I hope I never portrayed them as a perfect panacea that would end the pandemic, and I did my best to acknowledge their unknowns. For example, in April 2021 I said:
"Im very very optimistic vaccines will cut transmission of disease. I’m not certain of it. This is why I wear a mask still in public and when treating covid patients.
Overhyping Vaccines Wasn’t Pro-Vaccine. It Was Pro-Stop-Worrying-About-COVID. (Science-Based Medicine, Oct 1, 2023)


Many quotations from minimizers overhyping COVID-19 vaccine efficacy back in early 2021!
 
Many quotations from minimizers overhyping COVID-19 vaccine efficacy back in early 2021!

To be fair, vaccinations rapidly decreased cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the first part of 2021. Levels then went back up as new variants started popping up. Especially Delta which escaped vaccination even 3 months earlier. Prior to that there were few breakthrough infections from either vax or prior infection so there was reasonable hope vaccination would be sufficient to end Covid-19. By summer that hope was dispelled.
 
Thanks a lot for posting this, please keep on. It’s more difficult, in my experience, to get good info now that everyone see Covid as something to live with. I got it once, did really well with Paxlovid, am 71 years old, and I don’t want to get it again, and this masking info helps.


I think it's the other way round, cause and effect: Making it difficult for us to get good info makes everyone see Covid as something to live with - which was also what we were told to do: learn to live with the virus! I have actually heard people say that since the media no longer releases daily updates, it must mean that the virus is gone. The numbers they may see, i.e. the number of new registered positive cases, is obviously a tiny fraction of what they used to be. When you look at the graphics, there appears to be zero cases now compared to 2021 when Denmark was world leader in testing. Even though most people no longer get tested nowadays, it doesn't occur to them that the only people who do get tested are the ones who are hospitalized.

Only 85+ are eligible for Paxlovid in Denmark - and in the rest of the Nordics, too, I think. :mad:

Got any good sources of info on Covid risk on planes? I know about most of the relevant factors but haven’t stumbled on good empirical studies. A friend who is older than me keeps on getting on planes and getting Covid soon afterwards, several times now. An anecdote, sure, but it drives me to find out good data.

I saw something fairly comprehensive about the spread of virus on planes. I'll try to find it again. I remember somebody writing that there is more virus in the air onboard before take-off and after landing. Airports and trains to and from airports also aren't C19 safe spaces ...

Some of the Covid-conscious people on X, many of the doctors, many of them frequent flyers, say they haven't been infected yet and attribute it to wearing good respirators. I've only flown once during the pandemic: Copenhagen-Paris-Havana and back. A lot of coughing going on everywhere, but I didn't catch anything. I wore an FFP2/N95 but took it off on the plane during meals/coffee.
And I got vaxxed in Cuba before returning.
 
To be fair, vaccinations rapidly decreased cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the first part of 2021. Levels then went back up as new variants started popping up. Especially Delta which escaped vaccination even 3 months earlier. Prior to that there were few breakthrough infections from either vax or prior infection so there was reasonable hope vaccination would be sufficient to end Covid-19. By summer that hope was dispelled.


That was not the Danish experience. By the end of 2021 when almost everybody (except kids) had been vaxxed in the summer and boosted in the fall, restrictions and mask mandates were suspended. In the winter of 2021-22, we were supposed to have acquired "super immunity," i.e. 'hybrid immunity'. It was very obvious that we hadn't.

TeTrIs, working from home, masking in indoor public places and schools going online in the early spring of 2020 and in the winter of 2020-21 kept the numbers relatively low before vaccinations. Learning to live live with the virus post-vax killed an awful lot of Danes in the winter of '21-'22 - and even in the early spring. The cumulative death toll of C19 almost doubled in the first four months of 2022:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths, Jan 1 to May 1, 2022.

It is what makes it seem to some antivaxxers as if people were killed by the vaccines. Post hoc ergo procter hoc. However, it is fairly obvious that the dying didn't start in the summer of 2021 when most of the population had had the first two jabs. It didn't begin until all other precautions except vaccinations were suspended.
 
It does sound good, but there have been an awful lot of attempts to make a nasal spray against Covid. The stories about them all sounded good as long as they were at the developmental stage. Cuba's Mambisa was one of them, but in spite of the success of their conventional C19 vaccines, Mambisa didn't seem to work in the end.
The Finns talked about this one for a couple of years. I don't know what happened to it.
 
Our Freedumb-Lovin' Right to Get Infected

Got any good sources of info on Covid risk on planes?


I can't find the one I was thinking of. It seemed to have been written by somebody who knew all about ventilation on planes.
This new study is probably right, and it points to the tragedy of our current situation:
Results
The study found that compared to short-haul flights without enforced masking, long-haul flights with no strict masking had a 25.93-fold increase in COVID-19 incidence rates, while medium-haul flights had a 4.66-fold higher incidence rate. However, long-haul flights where masking was enforced reported no transmission of SARS-CoV-2, indicating that masking could significantly lower aircraft-acquired COVID-19.

Furthermore, in flights with unenforced masking, each hourly increase in flight duration increased the transmission incidence rate by 1.53-fold. The reduced duration of exposure to aerosols and the non-inclusion of meals make shorter flights safer since they lower the probability of expelling aerosol particles or coming in contact with them.

The study also found that long-haul flights with enforced masking had almost no reports of SARS-CoV-2 transmission within the aircraft despite meals being served. The researchers believe the enforced masking could have caused the passengers to eat as quickly as possible. Furthermore, enforced masking also allows the flight attendants to ensure that passengers are appropriately masked.

Conclusions
Overall, the study found that flight duration was a factor in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within the aircraft in flights with non-enforced masking. In contrast, long-haul flights with enforced masking had no reports of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within the aircraft despite serving meals. The researchers also found that each additional hour of flight was associated with a 1.53-fold higher probability of viral transmission in flights without enforced masking. These findings highlight the protective effect of face masks against SARS-CoV-2.
Study shows enforced masking on long flights prevents SARS-CoV-2 transmission (News-Medical, May 28, 2024)


But we obviously can't have enforced masking! Not even on airplanes, of all places! That would interfere with our freedom to catch and spread the virus!
At least, we can mask up ourselves and hope that it's enough to protect us from the freedumb-lovin' antimasker morons and their disinformed victims.
On the planes to and from Cuba, I noticed that some of the air hostesses wore face masks. So did some of the people in the group I was traveling with - mainly because I had recommended it - FFP2 specifically. (We would be visiting hospitals and policlinics in Cuba!) Most of the other passengers didn't, not even the coughers.

Some of the people in my group who didn't mask up on the plane got a bad cough a few days after we had arrived in Havana. Nobody wearing face masks did. One of the people who developed a cough has since then (Sep-Oct '22) come down with Parkinson's, but it's impossible to say if one particular case is due to the infection.
 
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I can't find the one I was thinking of. It seemed to have been written by somebody who knew all about ventilation on planes.
This new study is probably right, and it points to the tragedy of our current situation:



But we obviously can't have enforced masking! Not even on airplanes, of all places! That would interfere with our freedom to catch and spread the virus!
At least, we can mask up ourselves and hope that it's enough to protect us from the freedumb-lovin' antimasker morons and their disinformed victims.
On the planes to and from Cuba, I noticed that some of the air hostesses wore face masks. So did some of the people in the group I was traveling with - mainly because I had recommended it - FFP2 specifically. (We would be visiting hospitals and policlinics in Cuba!) Most of the other passengers didn't, not even the coughers.

Some of the people in my group who didn't mask up on the plane got a bad cough a few days after we had arrived in Havana. Nobody wearing face masks did. One of the people who developed a cough has since then (Sep-Oct '22) come down with Parkinson's, but it's impossible to say if one particular case is due to the infection.
Thanks for all that! I guess we have to grin (underneath a mask) and bear it for plane flights. Do you think that wearing a mask offers significant protection to the individual wearing the mask on a plane without enforced masking?
 
Thanks for all that! I guess we have to grin (underneath a mask) and bear it for plane flights. Do you think that wearing a mask offers significant protection to the individual wearing the mask on a plane without enforced masking?


I was under the impression that masks don’t really protect you when you wear them. It is the infected person who should wear a mask.

You should wear a mask in order to protect other people because there is no way you can know if you are infected or not.

(I don’t wear a mask for the same reason as most other people: it is a hassle, and you is always sure you are not infected yourself)
 
Thanks for all that! I guess we have to grin (underneath a mask) and bear it for plane flights. Do you think that wearing a mask offers significant protection to the individual wearing the mask on a plane without enforced masking?


Wearing a mask of good quality offers significant protection to the individual wearing the mask everywhere.
Everybody knows that:
Masks? I've openly stated my son and I wear them.
Planes aren't any different from all other indoor public spaces in that respect.
And it not only helps protect you and your loved ones. Seeing you wear one helps people who would like to mask up but are too afraid to do so because they fear nothing more than standing out. (There are a lot of those.)
It's called salting the vibes.


ETA: Rolfe (a veterinarian virologist, IIRC) pointed this out very early on in the thread about Sweden's pandemic response: Viral load (Wikipedia) plays a role in infection:
Viral load is often expressed as viral particles, (virions) or infectious particles per mL depending on the type of assay. A higher viral burden, titre, or viral load often correlates with the severity of an active viral infection.
1) You have to breathe in a certain amount of virus (or number of virus particles) to get infected.
2) But even if you breathe in enough virus to get infected, the face mask may at least have helped you lower the potential viral load, thus making the infection less severe than it would otherwise have been.
 
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I was under the impression that masks don’t really protect you when you wear them. It is the infected person who should wear a mask.

You should wear a mask in order to protect other people because there is no way you can know if you are infected or not.

(I don’t wear a mask for the same reason as most other people: it is a hassle, and you is always sure you are not infected yourself)


It works both ways! (Why wouldn't it?!) In both cases, the point is that as much as possible of the air that you breathe, in or out, passes through the filter.
But it is much easier to test how much virus escapes into the air from a person wearing a face mask than it is to test how much (less) virus a person wearing a mask breathes in. To emulate the latter, they had to wrap a hamster cage in filters and place it in a room contaminated with SARS-CoV-2, if I remember correctly. (It worked!)

Unless you test whenever you are about to leave your home, you can't be sure that you are not infected. Asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission of the virus is real.

As for the hassle, putting on a mask isn't more difficult than putting on your glasses. Putting on a face mask is slightly less of a hassle than putting on hearing aids.
Besides, I've never had to change the batteries of a face mask in the middle of a conversation.
 
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As for the hassle, putting on a mask isn't more difficult than putting on your glasses. Putting on a face mask is slightly less of a hassle than putting on hearing aids.
I wear glasses, and I can assure you that it is a constant hassle to keep them from fogging when wearing a mask. Some masks are better than others, but I have yet to try a mask that didn’t leave some air passing the glasses after wearing it a while.

Fortunately I manage well without glasses, so if I don’t need to look far, I can take them off.
 
True. I only use glasses indoors, mainly for reading, so it hasn't been a problem for me, but I have heard many others complain about the same thing.
However, your problem points to another one, which is worse: The masks apparently let air escape that doesn't go through the filter. This means that they probably also let air in the same way.

Your face masks don't fit properly. Have you tried the duckbill ones? And/or the ones that go over the head instead of behind the ears?
 
I wear glasses, and I can assure you that it is a constant hassle to keep them from fogging when wearing a mask. Some masks are better than others, but I have yet to try a mask that didn’t leave some air passing the glasses after wearing it a while.

Fortunately I manage well without glasses, so if I don’t need to look far, I can take them off.

True. I only use glasses indoors, mainly for reading, so it hasn't been a problem for me, but I have heard many others complain about the same thing.
However, your problem points to another one, which is worse: The masks apparently let air escape that doesn't go through the filter. This means that they probably also let air in the same way.

Your face masks don't fit properly. Have you tried the duckbill ones? And/or the ones that go over the head instead of behind the ears?

It's almost never a fit issue.

It's because exhaled air goes through the same path as inhaled air which is pretty much the entire mask. Since exhaled air is virtually 100% humidity and lighter than the cooler air, the air that leaves on the top surface of the mask condenses water on the nearby glasses. One solution is to use a N95 with an exit port. Problem with that is it only provides user protection but doesn't protect others. One thing to try is to put some tape over the top portion of the mask. Not too much (< 20% of mask surface) as it will increase inhale/exhale air resistance. Not a perfect solution but should help in most conditions.
 
No, it's almost always a fit issue, which is why taping the top of the mask to the skin will actually help, but it will make it even more of a hassle, obviously. And for people who are already embarrassed about masking up, it will make them even more conspicuous.
Some people recommend 3M aura masks.
There is also the option to treat the glasses with anti-fog lens spray. I think all opticians sell it. I use it for the face shield of my motorcycle helmet.
How to Keep Glasses from Fogging with a Mask (WarbyParker, Aug 13, 2024)
The YouTube video accompanying the article shows a surgical mask, which is better than nothing, but not really good. There are several other YouTube videos about this problem and solutions to it.
 
From foggy lenses to foggy brains

RESULTS
The mean age of the COVID-19 group was 56.0±6.6 years, while that of the control group was 58.1±7.3 years. Longitudinal models indicated a significant decline in cognitive throughput (β=-0.168, P=.001) following COVID-19, after adjustment for pre-COVID-19 functioning, demographics, and medical factors. Observed changes in throughput were equivalent to 10.6 years of normal aging. COVID-19 was associated with observed cognitive decline and was worse among patients with PASC or severe COVID-19.
Characterization of change in cognition before and after COVID-19 infection in essential workers at midlife (American Journal of Medicine Open/Science Direct, Aug 13, 2024 )


I assume that "10.6 years of normal aging" doesn't mean older but wiser.
 
Breakthrough?

It remains to be seen if anything will come of it, but ...
SARS-CoV-2 uses its spike protein to attach to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 on human cells, initiating a process that allows it to enter the cell. The spike protein has two main parts: the S1 domain, which varies greatly among different strains of the virus, and the S2 domain, which is highly conserved across different coronaviruses. This similarity makes the S2 domain a promising target for vaccines and therapies that could work against many virus strains.
By combining simulations and theoretical predictions with structural information from their experimental collaborators, including initial and final configurations as well as intermediate states during the viral invasion, the researchers obtained a detailed picture of the infection process at an atomic level.
Researchers make breakthrough in fight against COVID-19 (Rice University, Aug 16, 2024)


This idea is not unlike the one that the Cuban vaccines are based on: to target the receptor-binding domain (RBD). Since the RBD doesn't vary (i.e. mutate) as much as the top part of the spike protein, new variants are less likely to become immune evasive as fast as is currently the case. At least, that's what I assume is the idea.

The YouTube video accompanying the article from Rice University:
A team led by Jose Onuchic at Rice University and Paul Whitford at Northeastern University, both researchers at the National Science Foundation Physics Frontiers Center at the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) at Rice, has made a discovery in the fight against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus responsible for COVID-19.
The team, in partnership with an experimental effort led by Yale University researchers Walter Mothes and Wenwei Li, has uncovered new insights into how the virus infects human cells and how it can be neutralized. Their findings were published in the journal Science on Aug. 15.
SARS-CoV-2 uses its spike protein to attach to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 on human cells, initiating a process that allows it to enter the cell. The spike protein has two main parts: the S1 domain, which varies greatly among different strains of the virus, and the S2 domain, which is highly conserved across different coronaviruses. This similarity makes the S2 domain a promising target for vaccines and therapies that could work against many virus strains.
By combining simulations and theoretical predictions with structural information from their experimental collaborators, including initial and final configurations as well as intermediate states during the viral invasion, the researchers obtained a detailed picture of the infection process at an atomic level.
Researchers make breakthrough in fight against COVID-19 (Rice University on YouTube, Aug 16, 2024)


An old (in terms of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic) Chinese article:
Coronavirus disease 2019 is a newly emerging infectious disease currently spreading across the world. It is caused by a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2, which plays a key role in the receptor recognition and cell membrane fusion process, is composed of two subunits, S1 and S2. The S1 subunit contains a receptor-binding domain that recognizes and binds to the host receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, while the S2 subunit mediates viral cell membrane fusion by forming a six-helical bundle via the two-heptad repeat domain. In this review, we highlight recent research advance in the structure, function and development of antivirus drugs targeting the S protein.
Structural and functional properties of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein: potential antivirus drug development for COVID-19 (NIH, Aug/Sep 2020)
 
This is the article for those of your friends and members of your family who give up if you present them with abstracts or summaries of studies, people who may have inadvertently become minimizers because the media gives them the impression that COVID-19 is just another mild virus like the ones we are used to getting every four or five years:

Needless to say, words have meaning. The selection of words modulates the message understood by the receiver. With regard to COVID, terms such as “seasonal”, “like a cold”, and “like the flu” can be selected by writers to paint a portrait that lulls the reader into a false sense of security, drawing comparisons between a virus that has been around for less than five years to other viruses or conditions with respect to which the audience has grown familiar with. Moreover, even stock photos selected for certain news articles can subtly influence your response to the content expressed in that piece. A selected photo of a person gently cradling a tissue paper over their nose, instead of a person waiting for treatment in the ER, may give off the impression that they are harmlessly recovering from a tear-jerking soap opera instead of from a viral illness. In fact, we want to believe that COVID-19 is as gentle as a cold, as this outcome is far more pleasing, so this skewed presentation of the risk is far more palatable than what is expressed in the scientific literature.

However, COVID-19 is not a cold or the flu. Understanding that this virus is not a seasonal nuisance like the common cold is crucial in the fight against it, as explained herein.

We emphasize that the purpose of this piece is to correct some of the language circulating in the media and to arm you with accurate information so that you can make reasoned decisions that are aligned with your health goals. As much as an athlete who is training for a triathlon may want to avoid regularly smoking or taking recreational drug.
No Amount of Hand-Washing Can Make COVID-19 a Seasonal Virus - with a COVID-19 Primer (WHN Science Communications, Aug 14, 2024)


Authors: Špela Šalamon, MD, PhD Yaneer Bar-Yam, PhD, Matti TJ Heino, Nicholas Bertram, Stephane Bilodeau, PhD Greta Fox
 
No, it's almost always a fit issue, which is why taping the top of the mask to the skin will actually help, but it will make it even more of a hassle, obviously. And for people who are already embarrassed about masking up, it will make them even more conspicuous.
You might be right. But if people don't adjust the nose tab correctly they are not being very responsible. However, the tape approach does provide good sealing and it also reduces the flow of humid air near the glasses so people should see a fogging improvement even if they correctly adjust their nose tabs.

This guy addresses both fit and humid air expelled though the mask membrane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3TBGDb6SnA

Some people recommend 3M aura masks.
Yep, and for a good reason. Aura masks have an embossed upper panel specifically designed to reduce fogging.

Embossed panel to reduce eyewear fogging
https://www.protectly.co/blogs/latest-ppe-news/key-differences-between-3m-aura-masks
 
This is the article for those of your friends and members of your family who give up if you present them with abstracts or summaries of studies, people who may have inadvertently become minimizers because the media gives them the impression that COVID-19 is just another mild virus like the ones we are used to getting every four or five years:




Authors: Špela Šalamon, MD, PhD Yaneer Bar-Yam, PhD, Matti TJ Heino, Nicholas Bertram, Stephane Bilodeau, PhD Greta Fox
That was bracing.
 
I have linked to a short (7 min.) PBS NewsHour video in the other thread where Eric Topol is interviewed about the current stage of the pandemic. He recommends masking up - at least until people have had the booster shot.
INTERVIEWER: So let's talk about protective measures. Are we back to the point where people like yourself would be recommending masking in crowded places? I mean, do you wear a mask if you go into a crowded place or travel on an airplane?
DR. ERIC TOPOL: Well, I sure would recommend that, yes, because we have a lot of circulating virus right now, and it's a challenging one.


A team at the University of Houston has come up with a nasal spray and nasal vaccine that show promise. Human trials have yet to start but they look promising
https://uh.edu/news-events/stories/2024/august/08062024-varadarajan-nanosting-rx-and-vaccine


He is also asked about the nasal sprays. It doesn't sound as if they are right around the corner, unfortunately.
 
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COVID-19, brain changes & mental illness

New findings in JAMA Psychiatry find that levels of mental illness such as depression, anxiety and self-harm are elevated after a COVID-19 diagnosis. Additionally, a new study published in Scientific Reports found that patients who lost their sense of smell after a COVID infection saw long-term structural changes to their brains as well as a tendency to more impulsive behaviors.
If you want to mitigate your risk of these mental side effects from COVID infections, one key strategy is to make sure you are up to date on your vaccinations. The study in JAMA Psychiatry found that patients who were vaccinated prior to their COVID infection had fewer mental health issues. Other studies suggest that vaccination may help reduce the risk of losing your sense of smell, though it's not yet clear how much that risk is mitigated.
InnovaationRx: COVID May Be Causing Mental Illness - And Reviring Our Brains (Forbes, Aug 21, 2024)


COVID-19 and Mental Illnesses in Vaccinated and Unvaccinated People (JAMA Psychiatry, Aug 21, 2024)

Patients recovering from COVID-19 who presented with with anosmia during their acute episode have behavioral, functional, and structural brain alterations (Nature/Scientific Reports, Aug 17, 2024)
 
Kids and Long Covid

The kids were correct all along.
In the most comprehensive national study since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a team of researchers that includes a Rutgers-organized consortium of pediatric sites has concluded that long COVID symptoms in children are tangible, pervasive, wide ranging and clinically distinct within specific age groups.
Results of the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“We have convincing evidence that COVID-19 is not just a mild, benign illness for children,” said Lawrence C. Kleinman, a professor of pediatrics and population health expert at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) and the study’s third co-author. “There are children who are clearly disabled by long COVID for long periods of time.”
In the early stages of the pandemic, a myth arose and was perpetuated suggesting that because children often developed only mild cases of COVID-19, the risks for young patients were not serious. But this conjecture dissipated amid a rash of data demonstrating that a few children infected with COVID-19 will get very sick and others will suffer an array of health complications long after initial exposure.
Researchers Aim to Pull Back the Curtain on Long COVID in Kids (Rutgers, Aug 21, 2024)


Will it make minimizers and the Long-Covid-Is-All-in-the-Head crowd realize and acknowledge that they are wrong? Probably not because it was always based on wishful thinking. They never had the least bit of interest in finding out what's true.
 
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Long Covid

Steven Novella:
It’s interesting to follow the scientific exploration of a new clinical entity in real time. It reveals a lot about how medical science works, and how scientists nibble away at complex problems. This is partly why I have been closely following the story of Long COVID as it has unfolded over the last few years. I also see patients with long COVID so it’s important to my clinical practice as well.
Long COVID, technically known as postacute sequelae of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection (PASC), is a host of symptoms that persist after active infection with SARS-CoV-2 has completely resolved. It is estimated that between 5 and 30% of people who had a COVID infection have some symptoms of Long COVID, which can persist for weeks, or even months or years after the infection. The high range of estimates is due to the heterogeneous nature of the syndrome – what counts as Long COVID? Also, there is great variability is how the syndrome is reported and diagnosed.
(...)
Over the last four years we have seen long COVID go from a clinical observation, often dismissed as psychogenic, to a recognized syndrome that has a huge impact of patient quality of life and ability to function. COVID is a systemic serious infectious disease, and it is no surprise that it potentially leads to post-infectious symptoms (something that is very common with serious systemic infections). We are starting to zero in on potential causes, at least part of which seems to be immune dysregulation following infection. Treatments so far are symptomatic, but can be very helpful and improve quality of life.
More on Long COVID (Science-Based Medicine, Aug 21, 2024)
 
Long Covid and ME/CFS

But only for people who understand German:
Long Covid & ME/CFS: Probier’s doch mal mit Tee
Manchmal braucht’s einfach eine Tasse Tee, dann wird das schon wieder! Das mit der Müdigkeit wird besser, wenn du mal das Handy weglegst! Sowas müssen sich Menschen anhören, die in Deutschland wegen Long Covid oder ME/CFS medizinische Hilfe suchen.
Chronisch krank, aber niemand glaubt dir (ZDF.de, Aug 29, 2024 - 30:59 min.)
Long Covid & ME/CFS: Try with a cup of tea
Sometimes, you just need a cup of tea, then you're fine! Your fatigue gets better if you put away the smart phone! That's the kind of thing that people in Germany are told when they are looking for medical assistance because of Long Covid or ME/CFS.
Chronically ill, but nobody believes you

It's satire, but much like with TDS or LWT you learn more from the 20 minutes (9:55-->) about Long Covid, ME/CFS and Long Covid minimizers than you do from many long articles ... if you understand German.
 
Excellent article about measles (and COVID-19), and how measles weakens the immune system:
Scientists have known for years that measles can alter the immune system – but the latest evidence suggests it's less of a mild tweaking, and more of a total reset.
Measles: The race to understand 'immune amnesia' (BBC, Feb 14, 2024)


I wish the article had also mentioned the impact of COVID-19 on the immune system, but there are several other studies and articles about that.
Severe COVID-19 may lead to long-term innate immune system changes (NIH, Aug 18, 2023)

In a paper published on August 18 in the journal Cell, scientists report that innate immune cells—a critical part of the immune system activated to battle COVID-19—remain altered for at least a year after infection. The finding suggests that these cells may play a role in some of the lingering symptoms associated with Long COVID, although more studies are needed to confirm that connection.
How COVID-19 Changes the Immune System (Time, Aug 18, 2023)
 
And apropos of COVID-19 and weakening of the immune system:
In less than a year, SARS-CoV-2 (SARS2) has managed to displace Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) as the leading cause of death worldwide due to a single infectious agent. Both pathogens affect the respiratory tract, mainly the lungs. However, the impact that a possible Mtb + SARS2 co-infection can have on the host response is still unknown. Herein we propose (depict) a rigorous system to evaluate the complex interaction between the two infections in vitro in a lung epithelial cell line (A549). Overall, the process includes eight steps: (I) Mtb culture, (II) cell maintenance, (III) preparation of viral stocks, (IV) determination of infectious titers, (V) Mtb and SARS2 co-infection, (VI) determination of intracellular bacterial load, (VII) SARS2 viability test, and (VIII) decontamination of supernatants. This comprehensive protocol will allow experimentalists to study the pathogenesis of co-infection in vitro, and facilitate collaborative work in the literature.
SARS-CoV-2 and Mycobacterium tuberculosis co-infection in vitro (bioRxiv, Aug 15, 2024)


Among 57,746 patients who underwent multiplex PCR testing 10,516 (18.2%) had positive for at least one of he 22 pathogens. Additionally, 881 (1.5%) patients were confirmed to have a co-detection. SARS-CoV-2 exhibited negative interactions with adenovirus, coronavirus, human metapneumovirus, parainfluenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus and rhino/enterovirus. SARS-CoV-2 co-detection with other pathogens occurred most frequently in patients of the younger age group (0-4 years). A multiple logistic regression model indicated that younger age was the most influential factor for SARS-CoV-2 co-detection with other respiratory pathogens.
Conclusion
The study highlights the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 co-detection with other respiratory pathogens in younger age groups, necessitating further exploration of the clinical implications and severity of SARS-CoV-2 co-detection.
SARS-CoV-2 co-detection with other respiratory pathogens - descriptive epidemiological study (ScienceDirect, Sep 2024)


More down to earth:
Hey folks,
ONE QUARTER of the global population (1.7 BILLION) carries the bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB), Mycobacterium tuberculosis, in a dormant state.
All it takes to activate >>> lowered immune functioning >>> SARS2.
Get it now?
Good luck getting TB to go away!
Dr. Sean Mullen (X, Sep 1, 2024)
 
More Covid Brain: Post hoc ergo propter hoc

In this thread, I have already mentioned several articles and studies about the way COVID-19 affects the brain. This is another one:

Many of Covid’s earliest and most alarming effects involve the brain, including a lost sense of smell, sluggish thinking, headaches, delirium and strokes. More than four years after the pandemic began, researchers are recognizing the profound impacts Covid can have on brain health, as millions of survivors suffer from persistent issues such as brain fog, depression and cognitive slowing, all of which hinder their ability to work and otherwise function. Scientists now worry that these symptoms may be early indicators of a coming surge in dementia and other mental conditions, prolonging the pandemic’s societal, economic and health burden.
What We Know About Covid’s Impact on Your Brain (Bloomberg, Sep 13, 2024)


On X, antivaxxers and other conspiracy nuts are already busy denying it:
Scientists fear Covid may be responsible for a coming wave of dementia. Here's how having Covid may have harmed your brain.
Bloomberg (X, Sep 13, 2024)
"what's the probability that that's what it was designed to do"
"Covid or the vaccine?"
"Mare brain damage is due to leftist biased news media
Thanks, Dr. Fauci"

"Couldn’t at all be the vaccine! ******* bozos"
"You mean “the covid vaccine” is responsible."


But there are also articles and 'studies' that appear to support the minimizer view that lockdowns were the cause of all evil.
Only a few days ago, variations of this headline popped up all over the media world:
Covid lockdowns prematurely aged girls’ brains more than boys’, study suggests (TheGuardian, Sep 9, 2024)
The "stress of the pandemic" is mentioned once, lockdowns are mentioned four times, COVID-19 infections aren't mentioned at all!

The pandemic may have sped up brain development for adolescents, research shows (NPR, Sep 9, 2024) Speeding up brain development sounds good, doesn't it?!
Teen brains 'aged' during Covid lockdowns, new research suggests (NBC News, Sep 9, 2024)
COVID Lockdowns Changed Teenagers' Brains, Study Reveals (Newsweek, Sep 9, 2024)

The study itself:
We report that the lockdown measures enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in unusually accelerated brain maturation in adolescents and that this accelerated maturation was much more pronounced in females than in males.
(...)
We collected MRI structural data longitudinally from adolescents prior to and after the pandemic lockdowns.
(...)
Sample.
MRI data were acquired from adolescents longitudinally at two time points: in 2018, prior to the pandemic lockdowns, and then 3 y later, starting in August of 2021 and continuing into early 2022 (see SI Appendix, Table S2 for how these dates compared to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictive measure dates in Washington State). All study subjects were recruited from the local community. The ages of the participants at the prepandemic time point were 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17 y. The ages of participants at the postpandemic time point were 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20 y. Participants were excluded from the study if they were left-hand dominant (as determined by the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory); if English was not the primary language spoken in the home; if they had any history of speech, language, or hearing difficulties; if they had an uncorrected vision problem; if they had ever been diagnosed with a developmental or psychiatric disorder; if they had any surgical implants or dental work that could interfere with the MRI; if they identified as a different gender than that assigned at birth; or if they were taking psychotropic medications. At the first time point, MRI data were collected from a total of 160 subjects (30 nine-year-olds, 33 eleven-year-olds, 34 thirteen-year-olds, 31 fifteen-year-olds, and 32 seventeen-year-olds). Data from 1 seventeen-year-old were excluded due to an incidental finding. At the second time point, MRI data were collected from a total of 130 subjects (26 twelve-year-olds, 25 fourteen-year-olds, 31 sixteen-year-olds, 23 eighteen-year-olds, and 25 twenty-year-olds). All study procedures were approved by the UW Human Subjects Board, and informed consent was obtained from each participant and a parent.
COVID-19 lockdown effects on adolescent brain structure suggest accelerated maturation that is more pronounced in females than in males (PNAS, Sep 9, 2024)


Now, unlike me, these guys are supposed to be real researchers. I would assume that real researchers know that correlation is not causation and that post hoc ergo propter hoc (Wiki) is a fallacy, but I don't think these guys do. It doesn't even seem to occur to them that something else besides COVID-19 lockdowns happened between 2018 and 2022 that might be a (or the) causative agent: an awful lot of COVID-19 infections!

I doubt that C19-induced brain fog is the reason why infections were ignored in the study. I suspect that it may have had something to do with this instead:
"This work was funded by a grant from the Bezos Family Foundation."

I think that Covid minimizers would have been the first to object to a study of C19 brain fog that didn't have two cohorts, one infected and one uninfected.


ETA:
A new peer-reviewed study provides convincing evidence that the cognitive impairments observed in long COVID patients share similarities with those seen in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. This is another reason to avoid the worst effects of COVID with the vaccine.
I have written several articles that provide compelling evidence that long COVID has a deleterious effect on the brain. This new study builds on that body of evidence.
This article will review and analyze the new study in the hope that it convinces more people that COVID is not some trivial disease.
Long COVID linked to Alzheimer’s-like brain changes (SkepticalRaptor, Sep 9, 2024)
 
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Living with the Brain Fog

It is not as if the authors of the Bezos Family Foundation study mentioned in the previous post had no reason to distinguish between the brains of infected and uninfected individuals:
Even mild cases can cause significant brain changes, research shows, making "living with Covid" a risky and dangerous strategy.
Is Covid's Impact on the Brain as Alarming as It Sounds? (Bloomberg, June 24, 2021)

* The abnormalities resemble up to a decade of brain aging
* More research is needed to gauge duration of virus's impact
Brain Shrinkage, Cognitive Decline Found Months After Mild Covid" (Bloomberg, Mar 27, 2022)

Several studies have linked infections with brain fog, trouble concentrating and memory lapses.
Evidence Is Mounting That Covid Is Bad for the Brain (Bloomberg, Jan 27, 2023)


And yet the new study insists that it must have been due to those weeks a couple of years ago when people couldn't dine at indoor restaurants.
 
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well you got one thing correct in the word salad.
Now, unlike me, these guys are supposed to be real researchers .
and yet you freely question their observations.

Bohr could be skeptical of Einstein....take note
 
I notice that macdoc didn't find anything wrong in my recent posts about the impact of COVID-19 infections on brains, but for some reason he feels the need to point out that I'm right and to tell us about Bohr and Einstein, who both died a long time before the pandemic.
 
As previously mentioned, it is not a new discovery that C19 affects brains. From an older study:
Older people who were infected with COVID-19 show a substantially higher risk—as much as 50% to 80% higher than a control group—of developing Alzheimer’s disease within a year, according to a study of more than 6 million patients 65 and older.

In a study published today in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, researchers report that people 65 and older who contracted COVID-19 were more prone to developing Alzheimer’s disease in the year following their COVID diagnosis. And the highest risk was observed in women at least 85 years old.
New study: Risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease increases by 50-80% in older adults who caught COVID-19 (TheDailyCase, Sep 13, 2022)
 
Changes in memory and cognition during the SARS-CoV-2 human challenge study

This is from a challenge study where 34 young people were infected with the wild type SARS-CoV-2. 17 developed mild Covid-19 and one had no symptoms but was PCR positive. While cognitive deficit measures were significant with low p values, no subject reported perceived cognitive issues. Still rather disturbing.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00421-8/fulltext

We found that volunteers who exhibited sustained viral load after inoculation with SARS-CoV-2 performed worse on a measure of global cognition, than volunteers who did not exhibit sustained viral load. This deficit persisted up to a year after inoculation.
 
Very small sample of almost entirely white people, so definitely more work needed.

I'm picking the problem with running larger studies is the lack of people who haven't been infected at any time, so we may never have an adequate answer.

And then...

People who have an influenza infection are more likely to need medical care for neurologic disorders within the next year than people who have a COVID-19 infection, according to a study published in the March 20, 2024, online issue of Neurology

https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...-influenza-than-COVID-19-hospitalization.aspx

And it's not just 'flu and covid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8231753/

Viruses are bad for you. On the other hand, they're a great driver of evolution, so it's all going to work out one way or the other.
 
Very small sample of almost entirely white people, so definitely more work needed.

I'm picking the problem with running larger studies is the lack of people who haven't been infected at any time, so we may never have an adequate answer.

And then...



https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...-influenza-than-COVID-19-hospitalization.aspx

And it's not just 'flu and covid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8231753/

Viruses are bad for you. On the other hand, they're a great driver of evolution, so it's all going to work out one way or the other.
That depends on the virus.
 
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