outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

wamp wamp

Just In: According to AZ Senate President Karen Fann, the head of Cyber Ninjas - Doug Logan - is "quite sick" from COVID-19, and the "audit" report expected today has been delayed.

— Duty To Warn 🔉 (@duty2warn) August 23, 2021

lots of people are saying China swapped in COVID contaminated ballots

true, twas at the hipster coffee bar and I heard this

holy mackerel pic.twitter.com/YDZZQnvuJQ

— bücketheâd (@BuucketHe4d) August 23, 2021

Bloody piss-taker!

A remarkable feat of microscopy:

Incredible video by Sophie-Marie Aicher & Dr. Delphine Planas showing SARS-CoV-2 causing syncytia (cell fusion that is part of its evasion of the immune system in humans) and cell death (red) in bat brain cells.

Honorable mention Nikon Small World competition. pic.twitter.com/K5aZ7D0RES

— Dr Alexandra Phelan (@alexandraphelan) August 23, 2021

How about I NOT mention that to my friend with long covid symptoms who says they have trouble thinking & writing now. :(((((((

One of the commonly recognized complaints of people experiencing long-covid is "brain fog".

Common long COVID symptoms include extreme tiredness, shortness of breath, chest pain or tightness and "brain fog" – problems with memory and concentration.

Symptoms like "brain fog" drive me nuts. I'm 46 and have two kids, I get up early and I'm often tired. Even if Covid didn't give me "brain fog" I probably have it anyway.

A glimmer of hope for eventual improvement is the known plasticity of the brain and its ability to 'rewire' around damage.

I know I've posted about this before, but I've lately seen an increase in the anti-vax argument that the vaccine does nothing to stop the spread of COVID. What's more troubling is that I keep seeing the pro-vax response that it isn't meant to stop the spread, just reduce severity and hospitalizations.

This is WRONG. The vaccine significantly curbs the spread of COVID. It is somewhat less effective at this against delta, but is still much better than being unvaccinated. People need to stop conceding this particular point as it is very misleading.

yes

covid is like the battle against the climate denialists in the early 2000s, only this time absolutely everyone is involved

Yes, it's very much "climate change is only a theory"

there is no hope, with them. how many times will i have to learn this. but believe me, forget about them. they're gone.

it really is a complete waste of effort. i still believe in loud rebukes - like really loud fuck yous that are unmistakable - but i think they make sense as a kind of 1% effort thing, of use against people who are just completely lost, beyond hope. despite the fact that it won't change anything, it helps refute their argument that "nobody told me!". because you can be like, "yeah, i told you. i said 'fuck you, don't do that you fucking asshole!', and then you did it anyway". all of that takes about 20 seconds. then nothing else after that. that's my goal right now, with people who roll coal

I'm less concerned about them than about the people who are pro-vax but accepting the idea that it doesn't curb the spread. I think that will definitely put off people who are on the fence.

forget about them. they're gone

the people you are thinking about are gone beyond retrieval, but this is a different, newer battle than climate change and there are still confused, hesitant and conflicted people out there who are trying to sort this out in the midst of living conditions that are not conducive to figuring out anything new and controversial. they are reclaimable and are worth some small effort spent knocking down the misinformation.

Incredible video by Sophie-Marie Aicher & Dr. Delphine Planas showing SARS-CoV-2 causing syncytia (cell fusion that is part of its evasion of the immune system in humans) and cell death (red) in bat brain cells.

I wonder why they cut off the video right before the ivermectin particles swoop in and kick COVID's ass, hmmm, I'm not sure, could it be..... #BigPharma

I'm less concerned about them than about the people who are pro-vax but accepting the idea that it doesn't curb the spread. I think that will definitely put off people who are on the fence.

― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Tuesday, 24 August 2021 02:14 (two hours ago) link

FWIW, I think it pretty clearly curbs the spread less than previously thought, or at least the delta variant is so contagious that the vaccines are not curbing spread as much as they used to. But no question they still have some impact in slowing the spread.

But yeah I agree, it's grating when "smart" people loudly proclaim "the vaccine isn't meant to do that" or stuff like that. That's just not correct. At a minimum, the vaccine provides some reduction both in likelihood of infection and the time you are infectious if you get infected. The aggregate effect of that from millions of people can still be huge.

Symptoms like "brain fog" drive me nuts. I'm 46 and have two kids, I get up early and I'm often tired. Even if Covid didn't give me "brain fog" I probably have it anyway.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, August 23, 2021 10:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I hear what you're saying but as a person with a genetic celiac condition, I can only tell you that when I ate wheat if felt like trying to think through layers of gauze, or plastic sheeting, or something physically blocking you. Maybe extreme tiredness/sleep loss has a similar effect? But it was its own distinct thing. Anyway. Let's all try not to get covid just in case. :(

FWIW, I think it pretty clearly curbs the spread less than previously thought, or at least the delta variant is so contagious that the vaccines are not curbing spread as much as they used to. But no question they still have some impact in slowing the spread.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, August 24, 2021 1:01 AM bookmarkflaglink

recent study showed vaccinated Health Care Workers who get a breakthrough infection with Delta are spreading the virus less than unvaccinated who got a breakthrough infection with Alpha. Something like only 68% of breakthroughs had infectious virus that they could spread in the most recent Netherlands lab study. That and after 3 days, viral loads begin rapidly decreasing. So it still does have a big role in preventing spread - but you're right in that there is still plenty of ability for vaccinated people to spread, hence masks.

problem is Director Walensky publicly saying it doesn't stop transmission at all, which is complete nonsense.

My wife was telling me about friends of hers that have had "brain fog" during pregnancy and the like, and yeah, it does sound pretty disruptive. Like walking into a room and forgetting why you're there, but x10.

I still don't feel like I've seen good data on a comparison of people who recovered from COVID to people who didn't have it as far as long COVID symptoms, esp ones like brain fog and fatigue, which can have many causes. And I think it would need to be from the same time period, because stuff like isolation, being inside a lot, anxiety, and depression can also cause fatigue and brain fog.

My cognition has been clearly impaired since sometime this winter but it’s hard to pick out a root cause between psychological effects of isolation, my crohn’s getting worse (which it certainly is) and possibly having mild COVID somewhere along the line. In any case, it’s like nothing I’ve experienced before.

I have a friend who writes & teaches for a living who hated isolation and remote teaching but was cognitively fine all through the pandemic. They got covid late in the game and says they can't think or write clearly since then.

From my own experience, the brain fog of a celiac reaction is not like other kinds of distraction, tiredness, being hungover, or having the level of ADD I normally have. It's more than any of that. If long-covid is similar, I'm truly sorry for anyone going through it.

if you’ve never had covid then “long covid” is not a possibility for you i’d have thought…

there is a pretty substantial literature on long covid now, it’s not just “i feel tired/bad”

It's all sorts of stuff, from chronic fatigue to constant low-grade fever to impaired/altered taste.

there is tons of "good data" on it from NIH, etc.

i'm sorry this just makes me angry. why the impulse toward skepticism or minimizing it as just fatigue or anxiety like everyone has? because if it's real we might have to keep wearing masks longer?

I think there's some legitimate frustration that it's still not well understood or nailed down (though people like Dr Nisreen Alwan have started to really do a good job of publishing studies on it), combined with people who simply don't want to believe it's a thing because then it makes their recklessness even more assholish? idk

i definitely have a friend with it. we did a Fringe Festival play with swordfighting when the pandemic was in remission, and she had to pull the fight choreo aside and say that she was out of breath often due to her long COVID and just couldn't do it as-is, and the choreo was modified so she could more easily do it without being out of breath. and she said she'd never had this problem previously.

I still don't feel like I've seen good data on a comparison of people who recovered from COVID to people who didn't have it as far as long COVID symptoms, esp ones like brain fog and fatigue, which can have many causes. And I think it would need to be from the same time period, because stuff like isolation, being inside a lot, anxiety, and depression can also cause fatigue and brain fog.

if only there was some kind of international system of networked computers that held something approaching the sum total of human knowledge that could help you find whatever meets your standard for 'good data' on this

fwiw my wife has spent pretty most days since april 2020 with a high temperature or outright fever or physically exhausted or both and a battery of tests has rulede out every other possible causal factor except long covid and is now part of a study on the long-term effects of the disease, hope our family can do its bit to help you get that sweet sweet good data

really sorry to hear about your wife, bg :( <3

Nisreen Alwan's piece: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6554/491.full

damn that really really sucks bg

Sorry bg, I can't imagine how awful that must be.

So sorry bg. and Jon not Jon, I'm sorry to hear about the cognitive stuff you're dealing with, that's so rough.

I think there's some legitimate frustration that it's still not well understood or nailed down (though people like Dr Nisreen Alwan have started to really do a good job of publishing studies on it), combined with people who simply don't want to believe it's a thing because then it makes their recklessness even more assholish? idk

That tracks. People are like, "You're young/healthy/vaccinated! You statistically probably won't get it/get it badly/have lasting symptoms" and then dismiss the need for people to be cautious, use NPIs, etc, as extra levels of precaution to PROTECT THEMSELVES AND OTHERS.

anti-NPI people scare me. I wore a fucking black balaclava in hot-assed Florida before cloth/surgical/KN95s were readily available. yeah, it sucked...but now the mask options are a lot better and you get used to it after a while. like for all the things for "man up" alpha folk to whine about. but it's not the mask-wearing, obv, it's the 'symbolism' of it, and the attached tribal reaction to it.

there is also a feeling of 'information overload', which I'm suffering from, but others as well. those who don't know science think that understanding never changes, so changing guidelines = "were you lying the first time?" (no - we went with what we knew!).

but even those laypeople who do know how science works are overwhelmed by the overwhelming number of studies and which ones are legit and which might be 'noise', and the divide that keeps growing on major things like "should we get boosters".

but most problematic is the sheer number of people with MD in their name using their profession to spread anti-vax, anti-mask COVID-hoax nonsense. it's outright scary how many I find daily just on Twitter.

It's not really a 'fuzzy' thing when it happens, either - after my mother's death in January, my sister's whole family caught Covid, and they all recovered except my brother-in-law, who was fucked for 3-4 months until he got vaccinated - it cleared up a few weeks afterwards, and he's back to work now, nearly* entirely recovered.

I don't mean to suggest the vaccine as a cure for it, by the way, the reports I've seen suggest that he was lucky - which is good!

* The last time I was talking to my sister, a few weeks ago, he was about to go back in to work, I should check with them now.

there is tons of "good data" on it from NIH, etc.

― criminally negligible (harbl), Tuesday, August 24, 2021 9:52 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is there? All I can find is that it's being studied.

The question is not whether anyone ever experiences acute symptoms for a prolonged period after testing positive for COVID. The question is how common that is, and also how common it is compared to a control group of people who didn't test positive for COVID during the same period. And you also need to measure how long the symptoms last. Sorry if that's aggravating, but that's how science works. Without hard numbers and a control group, you don't have a very clear picture of how likely COVID is to cause prolonged acute symptoms. Post-viral fatigue and other prolonged post-viral symptoms have happened before with other viruses and I'm certainly not doubting that they can happen with COVID or that anyone's symptoms are real or terrible.

It's just that we have to make actual decisions about how cautious to be and how to live our lives, for example, there's a difference for me between sending kids to a school if there's a 10% chance they'll have lifelong severe impairments if they catch COVID (which I doubt) vs if there's a 1% chance they'll have moderate symptoms such as fatigue for up to three months but they'll most likely resolve after. If it was the former, I don't know that I'd send them to school at all, masked or not. And everything I read about Long COVID is extremely vague - again, not saying it isn't real, but it's not clear how common it is, how common the more severe symptoms are, and how common the more prolonged symptoms are, especially when compared to an identical population for the same time period who didn't have COVID.

what the fuck is the matter with you, FP'd

yeah, I am just about done with this shit.

Take this shit to the irrational covid confidence thread.

oh ok, that's how science works. thanks for the lesson. i didn't know anything about science but now i am educated.

just be honest and say that you think people with long covid are faking it, stop dancing around it with all this ‘hmmm my science brain needs data’ like an antivaxxer pretending he’s scrutinising every published vaccine paper