Pathology
Yesterday, I posted this preprint which talked about how pre- and post-COVID brain scans showed changes in the brain. Yesterday I saw a Twitter thread talking about that study. The author said that a loss of brain matter is normal when you lose your sense of smell, due to the circuits not being exercised. (Apparently brain matter is use-it-or-lose it.)
Mitigation Measures
This report says that school districts in Arkansas which had mask mandates had 23% lower COVID-19 rates than districts without mandates.
Long COVID
This Twitter thread talked about how there are a huge number of diseases which are actually results of long-term infection. What we commonly think of as “polio” actually is “long polio” — only 0.5% of polio cases end up with paralysis. Viruses and parasites which lead to illnesses which were mentioned in the thread:
- long polio is paralysis
- long strep throat (which sometimes becomes scarlet fever) is Rheumatic heart disease and PANS/PANDAs
- long chicken pox is shingles and Ramsay Hunt Syndrome
- long HIV is AIDS
- long HPV is cervical cancer, anal cancer, oropharyngeal cancer, penile cancer, vaginal cancer, and/or vulvar cancer
- long H. pylori is stomach cancer
- long Epstein-Barr virus is mono, multiple sclerosis, and certain types of lymphoma
- long hepatitis B or C is liver cancer
- long herpes virus 8 is Kaposi sarcoma
- long schistosomiasis is bladder cancer
- long onchoceriasis is bile duct cancer, blindness
- long Chagas disease is chagas cardiomyopathy
- long trachoma is blindness
- long prion disease is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
- long Lyme is many things, including lupus
- long measles is Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis
- long syphilis is dementia and infertility
- long Epstein Barr Virus or long coxsackie or long flu or long dengue they think is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- long TB is brain and/or lung damage
- long sepsis is post-sepsis syndrome
- long West Nile is um they don’t have a name for it, so um long West Nile
- long Ebola is um long Ebola
- long SARS is um long SARS
- long rubella is blindness, deafness, heart problems, intellectual disability, liver damage, spleen damage
- long E. coli and/or long noroviris is irritable bowel syndrome
- long herpes simplex 1 (“cold sores”), herpes simplex 2 (“herpes”), and/or chichen pox (which is also a herpes virus) is Mollaret’s meningitis
- long histoplasmosis is… many things (I believe my mother’s deafness was long histoplasmosis)
- long bacterial plaque is gingivitis
- long Strep mutans and Lactobacilli is dental cavities
- long red complex bacteria is periodontis
- long nipah virus is encephalitis
- long viral hemorrhagic fevers and cytomegalovirus is deafness
- long enteroviruses is Type 1 diabetes (maybe)
- long mumps is male infertility
- long human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 is leukaemia and/or HAM/TSP
- long rheumatic fever gives heart murmurs
- long parvovirus P19 is arthritis and hydrops fetalis
- long Hendra disease is long Hendra disease (aka leprosy)
- long viral pneumonia gives asthma
- long Mycobacterium leprae is Hansen’s disease
- (in cats) long Feline Coronavirus is Feline Infectious Peritonitis
Updated 2022-05-18:
- long Coxiella burneti is Q fever fatigue syndrome
- long chikungunya is long chikungunya
- long Ross River virus is Ross River Fever
Updated 2022-06-15:
- long herpes might be Alzheimer’s Disease
- long cytomegalovirus is implicated in aging more poorly
- long gastroenteritis is implicated in irritable bowl syndrome
- long rhinovirus and/or RSV are implicated in asthma
- early-childhood severe infections are linked to later mental illness,
- long toxoplasma gondii is linked to schizophrenia
- long EBV is linked to schizophrenia
- long campylobacter (food poisoning) linked to Guillain-Barre syndrome and arthritis
- long adenovirus 26 is linked to obesity
- long periodontitis (gum disease) is linked to cardiac and cognitive issues
- long flu is linked to Parkinson’s, to long flu, and to major depression
Addendum 2022-06-22: this is an interesting article talking about infectious diseases causing what we think of as non-infectious conditions.
Addendum 2022-06-27: long flu is linked to Alzheimer’s Disease.
Addendum 2022-06-30: long chicken pox can turn into Ramsay Hunt Syndrome.
Addendum 2022-07-27: long melioidosis is chronic melioidosis.
Child Development
Many people (especially anti-maskers) have expressed concern about whether children’s language development. This article says, basically, that it’s not a problem. In particular, they mention that blind kids learn language just fine, and blind kids can’t see any part of anybody’s face at any time. (Also: don’t little kids spend a lot of time at home with their parents, where presumably everybody is unmasked??)
This article says that reading levels (in the USA, but maybe applicable here?) in children are at a 20-year low due to the pandemic.
Recommended Reading
This article talks about the hunt for genetic reasons why some people get infected by COVID-19 and some don’t, despite a lot of exposure.