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What an interesting thing! I can comment in a somewhat informed way about both. In flying, you file flight plans. Air traffic controllers make sure they are fo

What an interesting thing! I can comment in a somewhat informed way about both. In flying, you file flight plans. Air traffic controllers make sure they are followed and orderly. All passengers are highly screened before entering secure areas and employees/food is similarly screened before making it to a terminal. Some flight officers need thousands of hours of experience. When planes are repaired the procedures are exhaustively documented, need to be done by qualified staff, and the replacement parts need to be traceable. In the case of neurological side effects of COVID , it's largely an unknown and it can be reduced immensely by wearing a $0.10 piece of cloth, modified social interactions, and contact tracing (see most developed nations outside of the US and Sweden). COVID risk mitigation is much easier. To quantify it a little: the article indicates a roughly 4x increase in a particular severe neurological condition (ADEM) over background incidence rate, and serology indicates < 5% of population exposure in most places. The 4x rate is on adult ADEM cases, and is very likely just [a subset of] cases that pass a threshold on a distribution. It's reasonable to spitball a 50-100x increased risk of neurological side effects. It's probably much higher because of the well documented clotting disregulation and the spectrum of mild to lethal strokes, and the structural damage strokes cause beyond that. Ultimately, since the scientists in question are experts, I trust them instead of thinking I know better. I was wrong about mask efficacy early in the year, and that was humbling. Most of the scientists have studied this stuff for decades and the best strategy is to just listen.

koheripbal 6y ago
There's a lot of unknowns in those numbers - and a 50-100x increase in a somewhat rare condition isn't particularly helpful. We need solid number to make informed decisions about risk. This isn't about whether to wear a mask or not (anyone with a brain wears a mask) - this is more about whether to shut down schools and the economy. > the scientists in question are experts, I trust them Agreed, but they still aren't giving us NUMBERS.
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  I don't know what you expect. This disease is about 8 months old and everyone is still learning a lot. First of all, you're being kind of demanding. Why don't you collect the numbers? The authors, in many cases, are busy on the side treating waves of critically ill covid-19 patients. Also, this is from the journal "Brain". It's not in a epidemiology journal. They are just neurologists describing a possible tie between a new virus and a constellation of neurological symptoms. https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awaa240/5868408 https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awa... They call for further study in their abstract. This is a new discovery and you want population statistics? They want population statistics, too. The NUMBERS don't exist yet, because they published this on THURSDAY.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    Perhaps Reuters should have waited for more information before writing this article. Warning about a "potential wave of Covid-linked brain damage" when it's likely to be a rare complication is not responsible journalism.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - modmans2nd 6y ago
      Why? Because people shouldn’t know about something scientists are investigating or because you think Covid19 is over blown and this is just another thing in the bucket of “it’s not over blown” and you don’t like that?
      - gremlinsinc 6y ago
        Some people have a really bad day if you hurt their bucket of cognizant dissonance. They have an image of the world if you chip at it in any way, it just pisses them off. You can't convince these people. I'd like to say I've given up.... but my facebook feed says differently lol.
- fzeroracer 6y ago
  > this is more about whether to shut down schools and the economy. Can you give me any reason why schools should not be shutdown? What happens when teachers catch the virus? Is the expectation that they should come to work? If they're supposed to quarantine for 3ish weeks, who fills in for them? And what do you think happens when large portions of the school catch the virus, or kids catch it and bring it home to their parents and family?
  - rurban 6y ago
    The reasons to keep schools open are simple: Kids from 1-10 are immune against COVID-19 and they don't spread the virus. The risk for kids 11-18 is lower than the risk to survive the traffic to school. The risk to transmit from those older kids to their parents or grandparents are higher, esp. with comorbidity factors. So parents need to decide by their own. Note that parents need to decide that for every years flu season. This year's flu season is pretty soft on kids, and higher risks on normal age groups - in the US only, everywhere else the risk is lower. Most countries are below the normal morbidity rates this flu season. next year's flu season will be H1N1, which has a much higher morbity, but vaccines.
    - koheripbal 6y ago
      Kids from 1-10 are not immune. They still carry and spread the virus. They just don't get very sick. There was a recent case locally where an infected child spread it to her entire daycare, infecting all the kids, and in turn infecting all the parents - one of whom died.
      - mrfusion 6y ago
        Do you have a link to that study?
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Because kids not going to school means parents can't go to work - which means they cannot pay their mortgage/rent. There are a lot of horrible things that happen when the economy shuts down.
andrenotgiant 6y ago
I don't think the OP is saying we should walk around without a mask. They're just saying: - Normally, one in 5.5 million UK residents tests positive for ADEM each year - Since COVID-19, those odds are looking more like one in 1.4 million
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  We have a highly infectious virus in populations with no immunity. Across age ranges it has led to an increase in hospitalizations for ischemic stroke. This is completely in line with observed covid associated coagulopathy damage to other organs. It is likely that there is a high incidence of sub-acute cases that might lead to measurable population level cognitive deficit by the time this is done. Until we have more hard numbers, this is really bad and it would be smart to react conservatively.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    >>> It's reasonable to spitball a 50-100x increased risk [of ADEM]. >> Normally, one in 5.5 million UK residents tests positive for ADEM each year If those statements are accurate, the new spitballed risk of ADEM would only be 1 in 55,000. That's not going to lead to measurable population level cognitive deficit. Nor should it change our perception of how dangerous COVID is, compared to a roughly 1 in 200 risk of death. >>> It's probably much higher because of the well documented clotting disregulation and the spectrum of mild to lethal strokes, and the structural damage strokes cause beyond that. Perhaps, but that's just speculation. Where is the evidence?
jjcon 6y ago
> it can be reduced immensely by wearing a $0.10 piece of cloth, modified social interactions, and contact tracing (see most developed nations outside of the US and Sweden). And what about Spain, Italy, Belgium and France? All have worse rates than those two.
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  What about them? Tell me about when the virus started spreading and before they started policy to prevent the spread? What has the spread been like since those policies were put in place? How does that compare to the US? Here are the US and Sweden https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ Here are Belgium, France, Spain, and Italy https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/belgium/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/belgium/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ You can actually look at that within the US, which has NY/New England type curves (including Seattle, Michigan, Chicago, and San Francisco) and the Texas, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana, et al. type spread. All of the examples you noted had large, uncontrolled spread in mid-March that was gradually brought under control in lockdowns, and kept low via social policy (mask wearing, distancing, testing/contact tracing). To answer your question indirectly: Spain, France, Italy, and Belgium all together are currently having fewer new daily cases than just Arizona on its own. And Arizona has less cases daily than Georgia, California, Texas, and Florida. The US would be the laughingstock of the world if it weren't so sad. The US response is too tragic to laugh at.

koheripbal 6y ago

There's a lot of unknowns in those numbers - and a 50-100x increase in a somewhat rare condition isn't particularly helpful. We need solid number to make informed decisions about risk. This isn't about whether to wear a mask or not (anyone with a brain wears a mask) - this is more about whether to shut down schools and the economy. > the scientists in question are experts, I trust them Agreed, but they still aren't giving us NUMBERS.

throwaway5752 6y ago
I don't know what you expect. This disease is about 8 months old and everyone is still learning a lot. First of all, you're being kind of demanding. Why don't you collect the numbers? The authors, in many cases, are busy on the side treating waves of critically ill covid-19 patients. Also, this is from the journal "Brain". It's not in a epidemiology journal. They are just neurologists describing a possible tie between a new virus and a constellation of neurological symptoms. https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awaa240/5868408 https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awa... They call for further study in their abstract. This is a new discovery and you want population statistics? They want population statistics, too. The NUMBERS don't exist yet, because they published this on THURSDAY.
- leereeves 6y ago
  Perhaps Reuters should have waited for more information before writing this article. Warning about a "potential wave of Covid-linked brain damage" when it's likely to be a rare complication is not responsible journalism.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - modmans2nd 6y ago
    Why? Because people shouldn’t know about something scientists are investigating or because you think Covid19 is over blown and this is just another thing in the bucket of “it’s not over blown” and you don’t like that?
    - gremlinsinc 6y ago
      Some people have a really bad day if you hurt their bucket of cognizant dissonance. They have an image of the world if you chip at it in any way, it just pisses them off. You can't convince these people. I'd like to say I've given up.... but my facebook feed says differently lol.
fzeroracer 6y ago
> this is more about whether to shut down schools and the economy. Can you give me any reason why schools should not be shutdown? What happens when teachers catch the virus? Is the expectation that they should come to work? If they're supposed to quarantine for 3ish weeks, who fills in for them? And what do you think happens when large portions of the school catch the virus, or kids catch it and bring it home to their parents and family?
- rurban 6y ago
  The reasons to keep schools open are simple: Kids from 1-10 are immune against COVID-19 and they don't spread the virus. The risk for kids 11-18 is lower than the risk to survive the traffic to school. The risk to transmit from those older kids to their parents or grandparents are higher, esp. with comorbidity factors. So parents need to decide by their own. Note that parents need to decide that for every years flu season. This year's flu season is pretty soft on kids, and higher risks on normal age groups - in the US only, everywhere else the risk is lower. Most countries are below the normal morbidity rates this flu season. next year's flu season will be H1N1, which has a much higher morbity, but vaccines.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Kids from 1-10 are not immune. They still carry and spread the virus. They just don't get very sick. There was a recent case locally where an infected child spread it to her entire daycare, infecting all the kids, and in turn infecting all the parents - one of whom died.
    - mrfusion 6y ago
      Do you have a link to that study?
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Because kids not going to school means parents can't go to work - which means they cannot pay their mortgage/rent. There are a lot of horrible things that happen when the economy shuts down.

andrenotgiant 6y ago

I don't think the OP is saying we should walk around without a mask. They're just saying: - Normally, one in 5.5 million UK residents tests positive for ADEM each year - Since COVID-19, those odds are looking more like one in 1.4 million

throwaway5752 6y ago
We have a highly infectious virus in populations with no immunity. Across age ranges it has led to an increase in hospitalizations for ischemic stroke. This is completely in line with observed covid associated coagulopathy damage to other organs. It is likely that there is a high incidence of sub-acute cases that might lead to measurable population level cognitive deficit by the time this is done. Until we have more hard numbers, this is really bad and it would be smart to react conservatively.
- leereeves 6y ago
  >>> It's reasonable to spitball a 50-100x increased risk [of ADEM]. >> Normally, one in 5.5 million UK residents tests positive for ADEM each year If those statements are accurate, the new spitballed risk of ADEM would only be 1 in 55,000. That's not going to lead to measurable population level cognitive deficit. Nor should it change our perception of how dangerous COVID is, compared to a roughly 1 in 200 risk of death. >>> It's probably much higher because of the well documented clotting disregulation and the spectrum of mild to lethal strokes, and the structural damage strokes cause beyond that. Perhaps, but that's just speculation. Where is the evidence?

jjcon 6y ago

> it can be reduced immensely by wearing a $0.10 piece of cloth, modified social interactions, and contact tracing (see most developed nations outside of the US and Sweden). And what about Spain, Italy, Belgium and France? All have worse rates than those two.

throwaway5752 6y ago
What about them? Tell me about when the virus started spreading and before they started policy to prevent the spread? What has the spread been like since those policies were put in place? How does that compare to the US? Here are the US and Sweden https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ Here are Belgium, France, Spain, and Italy https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/belgium/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/belgium/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ You can actually look at that within the US, which has NY/New England type curves (including Seattle, Michigan, Chicago, and San Francisco) and the Texas, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana, et al. type spread. All of the examples you noted had large, uncontrolled spread in mid-March that was gradually brought under control in lockdowns, and kept low via social policy (mask wearing, distancing, testing/contact tracing). To answer your question indirectly: Spain, France, Italy, and Belgium all together are currently having fewer new daily cases than just Arizona on its own. And Arizona has less cases daily than Georgia, California, Texas, and Florida. The US would be the laughingstock of the world if it weren't so sad. The US response is too tragic to laugh at.