11 ms·

I've been very dismayed at the non-existent data between "dead" and "not dead". This has been guiding pretty much everyone's decisions, everybody's counterpoint

I've been very dismayed at the non-existent data between "dead" and "not dead". This has been guiding pretty much everyone's decisions, everybody's counterpoints on all parts of the political spectrum, and it is pretty annoying when you know that they aren't operating on the same information as you are. Its just not as simple as "hm only 10% of 90 years olds are the ones dying in my municipality, I'll play along because nobody is inviting me out anyway", encephalitis lethargica had very debilitating side effects for decades afterwards. Covid is a blood clotting neurological disease. It strips blood of the ability to carry oxygen, debilitates the ability for your body to even get oxygen from air, and damages many organs (probably due to the worsened oxygen delivery). What do people think the loss of smell, taste, and ability to think clearly is? Many of the same people consider themselves asymptomatic because they didn't get a hard dry cough. I just don't get the impression that others are putting two and two together here. I am all for getting data! Good investment.

throwaway5752 6y ago
In all fairness it's only been around a bit over a year (and MERS/SARS were rare enough to have limited data). The dead/non-dead distinction has been the top priority. And I don't think the data is non-existent, but on an educated guess I'd say the top minds have more been on developing treatments, vaccines, and generally reducing mortality and morbity - and the balance of research reflects it. Sadly there will be time to measure the long term consequences. For now what more can they do than tell everyone to socially distance and wear masks, and get vaccinated as soon as possible?
- vmception 6y ago
  At first I was going to say that I wasn't arguing for anything, but really everyone has dropped the ball here. The same places that did the tests had the infrastructure to follow up with people and could have been doing this 6 months ago, and that has nothing to do with the "top minds" at all. That, alongside the failed, poorly implemented or nonexistent contact tracing methods have made getting this metadata much more difficult to do.
burlesona 6y ago
I agree. The neurological aspect of things concerns me the most. How many diseases do we know that cause long term cognitive damage? Even if the cognitive loss was small at the individual level, given the number of people who were exposed, that would be pretty terrible at the level of long-term societal impact.
exclusiv 6y ago
Agreed. My brother in law's dad got COVID. He had heart surgery before. They had him on blood thinners for some time and his doctor said that it was a very real possibility that it saved his life as he was already on something they would have probably prescribed to him. He's in his 60s. Will he experience long term effects? Who knows. I'm starting to get invited to meet in person for business and some are like "I get tested every week". And I just say sorry I don't make exceptions. I live with someone with a rare respiratory condition. A weekly test - what does that even tell me anyway? I know you're running your business and have employees coming in. Everything is much easier with data. But when there is still so much to learn everyone weighs their risks differently. Many of us here are extremely fortunate and can afford to pay for delivery and stay home. So we need to understand that some people's perspective IS a real calculated risk tolerance. If we can get data to understand long term effects, that will help with educating those that are really only weighing the risk of them dying.
- sneak 6y ago
  > I'm starting to get invited to meet in person for business and some are like "I get tested every week". And I just say sorry I don't make exceptions. Make a list now, so that you remember who the idiots are after everyone is vaccinated. I've already had to re-plan my reintroduction to retail after finding out a few of my preferred shops weren't obeying mask mandates, or in one case actively flouting them. It will be easy to forget and put it all behind us. Don't. We're lucky to receive such useful side-channel data.
  - vmception 6y ago
    I've actually been thinking about doing this. Because its the same people that have moved the goal post to new forms of idiocy after their various "it doesn't exist" "its just the flu" "nothing you can do to stop it anyways" "5G over the air microchips" "dna-rewriting vaccines" ideas fell apart and were just led to other wacky ideas.
    - sneak 6y ago
      https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-endemic-mindset/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-endemic-mindset/
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
refurb 6y ago
Covid is a blood clotting neurological disease. It strips blood of the ability to carry oxygen, debilitates the ability for your body to even get oxygen from air, and damages many organs (probably due to the worsened oxygen delivery). What do people think the loss of smell, taste, and ability to think clearly is? Unless you can provide a source that proves loss of sense of smell is due to “blood clotting depriving oxygen and resulting in organ damage” your statement sounds like pure bunk. Plus, severe influenza can result in similar organ damage so Covid is not unique in that aspect.
- vmception 6y ago
  regarding smell, some research says it is olfactory support cells and not neuron damage. just have a conversation bro you know what would be even cooler, a US health agency investing $1B to investigate
- ericbarrett 6y ago
  > Plus, severe influenza can result in similar organ damage so Covid is not unique in that aspect. I used to work with somebody who was never the same after a bad case of flu in their 50s, so this kind of research—regardless of which virus—is very welcome.
  - Pokepokalypse 6y ago
    well, yeah, high school buddy of mine, 50 yrs old, was never the same after a bad case of flu. He was never the same because he was dead. He got sick, then three days later, dead. Our whole class was in shock. But apparently, it's not as uncommon as people think.
    - beagle3 6y ago
      Most people confuse the common cold and flu. Flu is a very serious disease that kills many including children. Common cold rarely has complications, and when it does it is almost only with the very frail and very old.
timr 6y ago
> Covid is a blood clotting neurological disease. It strips blood of the ability to carry oxygen, debilitates the ability for your body to even get oxygen from air, and damages many organs (probably due to the worsened oxygen delivery). Literally everything in this quote is speculation, or factually incorrect. Covid-19 is not a "neurological disease" -- SARS-CoV2 is a virus that infects epithelial cells. Epithelial cells are not neural cells. Blood clotting is observed in some patients, but the mechanism is unclear. Blood clotting is a common result of inflammation -- triggered by any disease. It does not "strip blood of the ability to carry oxygen". This is simply wrong. Inflammation associated with SARS-CoV2 infection damages the ability of the lungs to absorb oxygen. The claim that it "damages many organs" is at least an overstatement -- the vast majority of Covid-19 patients have no such damage. Patients with severe inflammatory responses clearly do have some damage. It's not yet clear if the damage is due to the virus, or the response of the host's own immune system. The claim that organ damage is caused by "worsened oxygen delivery" is speculation on speculation. > What do people think the loss of smell, taste, and ability to think clearly is? The loss of smell is believed to be due to infection of of supporting cells in the olfactory epithelium. Not the nerves. Taste is lost because smell plays a huge role in the perception of taste. "Loss of ability to think" is so vague as to be pointless to debate. Depression and anxiety are likely causes of the same symptom.
- vmception 6y ago
  Thanks I agree, I was just looking up the other day whether “brain fog” was an accepted term and reached the same conclusion as you For me, the poor leadership and lack of consensus is enough for me to avoid exposure. When everyone can articulate what you said, instead of the reductive things they do say, I’ll be more comfortable But I’ll likely be vaccinated before then, which is just as fine for my risk analysis
  - nullserver 6y ago
    Had severe brain fog for a few years. Blood thinners gave me my mind back.
    - 6y ago
bsder 6y ago
> I am all for getting data! Good investment. This will also flag long-term effects from other virii, as well. One thing that Covid drove home is: "Infection with a virus can do a LOT of extra damage that we don't track very well." There are lot of people who get diagnosed with "Lyme" (aka the modern equivalent to "hysteria" in many ways) who may very well just be "You had a bad cold/flu/other virus and your body took a lot of damage and now its going to take quite a while to clean up." Modern medicine is amazing, but it has a gigantic blind spot around chronic conditions.
- beagle3 6y ago
  Do you have reason to believe that Lyme is not a real disease, despite a known bacteria and very distinct symptoms including red “target” marks? Or are you just referring to “long Lyme” (which is not well characterized, but has extremely high correlation with a prior real Lyme diagnosis?)
  - bsder 6y ago
    I fully believe that "Lyme disease" certainly exists. I also believe that "Lyme disease" became a medical/medical insurance bucket for "We don't know what's wrong with you, and you're annoying enough that we can't just ignore you, but we don't want to spend any more time or money on you figuring out what is really wrong."
mssundaram 6y ago
A lot of assertions here for which are perspectives still actively being researched, i.e. not yet conclusive.
qbasic_forever 6y ago
I hope they can start to get to the bottom of some of the clotting issues. Just in my anecdotal circle of friends and acquaintances I know at least 3 sudden anueryisms or strokes post-covid infection--some months after recovery. These were healthy 30-somethings with no pre-existing conditions and none of them even had infection symptoms bad enough to warrant a hospital trip. If nothing else there needs to be a lot more awareness about recognizing the signs and symptoms of clot, stroke, or heart attacks.
- sdeep27 6y ago
  Let me confirm - you know 3 separate healthy people that are in their 30s that have had aneuryisms of strokes this past year?
  - vmception 6y ago
    Narrator: at least two were obese.
  - qbasic_forever 6y ago
    Yes, one of them was my best friend. Him and I climbed mountains together. Now he's dead--thanks for asking.
vmchale 6y ago
> I've been very dismayed at the non-existent data between "dead" and "not dead". Feels like we went with the Chinese "it lasts for two weeks or you die" that doctors discovered like 1-2 months in.

throwaway5752 6y ago

In all fairness it's only been around a bit over a year (and MERS/SARS were rare enough to have limited data). The dead/non-dead distinction has been the top priority. And I don't think the data is non-existent, but on an educated guess I'd say the top minds have more been on developing treatments, vaccines, and generally reducing mortality and morbity - and the balance of research reflects it. Sadly there will be time to measure the long term consequences. For now what more can they do than tell everyone to socially distance and wear masks, and get vaccinated as soon as possible?

vmception 6y ago
At first I was going to say that I wasn't arguing for anything, but really everyone has dropped the ball here. The same places that did the tests had the infrastructure to follow up with people and could have been doing this 6 months ago, and that has nothing to do with the "top minds" at all. That, alongside the failed, poorly implemented or nonexistent contact tracing methods have made getting this metadata much more difficult to do.

burlesona 6y ago

I agree. The neurological aspect of things concerns me the most. How many diseases do we know that cause long term cognitive damage? Even if the cognitive loss was small at the individual level, given the number of people who were exposed, that would be pretty terrible at the level of long-term societal impact.

exclusiv 6y ago

Agreed. My brother in law's dad got COVID. He had heart surgery before. They had him on blood thinners for some time and his doctor said that it was a very real possibility that it saved his life as he was already on something they would have probably prescribed to him. He's in his 60s. Will he experience long term effects? Who knows. I'm starting to get invited to meet in person for business and some are like "I get tested every week". And I just say sorry I don't make exceptions. I live with someone with a rare respiratory condition. A weekly test - what does that even tell me anyway? I know you're running your business and have employees coming in. Everything is much easier with data. But when there is still so much to learn everyone weighs their risks differently. Many of us here are extremely fortunate and can afford to pay for delivery and stay home. So we need to understand that some people's perspective IS a real calculated risk tolerance. If we can get data to understand long term effects, that will help with educating those that are really only weighing the risk of them dying.

sneak 6y ago
> I'm starting to get invited to meet in person for business and some are like "I get tested every week". And I just say sorry I don't make exceptions. Make a list now, so that you remember who the idiots are after everyone is vaccinated. I've already had to re-plan my reintroduction to retail after finding out a few of my preferred shops weren't obeying mask mandates, or in one case actively flouting them. It will be easy to forget and put it all behind us. Don't. We're lucky to receive such useful side-channel data.
- vmception 6y ago
  I've actually been thinking about doing this. Because its the same people that have moved the goal post to new forms of idiocy after their various "it doesn't exist" "its just the flu" "nothing you can do to stop it anyways" "5G over the air microchips" "dna-rewriting vaccines" ideas fell apart and were just led to other wacky ideas.
  - sneak 6y ago
    https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-endemic-mindset/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-endemic-mindset/

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

refurb 6y ago

Covid is a blood clotting neurological disease. It strips blood of the ability to carry oxygen, debilitates the ability for your body to even get oxygen from air, and damages many organs (probably due to the worsened oxygen delivery). What do people think the loss of smell, taste, and ability to think clearly is? Unless you can provide a source that proves loss of sense of smell is due to “blood clotting depriving oxygen and resulting in organ damage” your statement sounds like pure bunk. Plus, severe influenza can result in similar organ damage so Covid is not unique in that aspect.

vmception 6y ago
regarding smell, some research says it is olfactory support cells and not neuron damage. just have a conversation bro you know what would be even cooler, a US health agency investing $1B to investigate
ericbarrett 6y ago
> Plus, severe influenza can result in similar organ damage so Covid is not unique in that aspect. I used to work with somebody who was never the same after a bad case of flu in their 50s, so this kind of research—regardless of which virus—is very welcome.
- Pokepokalypse 6y ago
  well, yeah, high school buddy of mine, 50 yrs old, was never the same after a bad case of flu. He was never the same because he was dead. He got sick, then three days later, dead. Our whole class was in shock. But apparently, it's not as uncommon as people think.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    Most people confuse the common cold and flu. Flu is a very serious disease that kills many including children. Common cold rarely has complications, and when it does it is almost only with the very frail and very old.

timr 6y ago

> Covid is a blood clotting neurological disease. It strips blood of the ability to carry oxygen, debilitates the ability for your body to even get oxygen from air, and damages many organs (probably due to the worsened oxygen delivery). Literally everything in this quote is speculation, or factually incorrect. Covid-19 is not a "neurological disease" -- SARS-CoV2 is a virus that infects epithelial cells. Epithelial cells are not neural cells. Blood clotting is observed in some patients, but the mechanism is unclear. Blood clotting is a common result of inflammation -- triggered by any disease. It does not "strip blood of the ability to carry oxygen". This is simply wrong. Inflammation associated with SARS-CoV2 infection damages the ability of the lungs to absorb oxygen. The claim that it "damages many organs" is at least an overstatement -- the vast majority of Covid-19 patients have no such damage. Patients with severe inflammatory responses clearly do have some damage. It's not yet clear if the damage is due to the virus, or the response of the host's own immune system. The claim that organ damage is caused by "worsened oxygen delivery" is speculation on speculation. > What do people think the loss of smell, taste, and ability to think clearly is? The loss of smell is believed to be due to infection of of supporting cells in the olfactory epithelium. Not the nerves. Taste is lost because smell plays a huge role in the perception of taste. "Loss of ability to think" is so vague as to be pointless to debate. Depression and anxiety are likely causes of the same symptom.

vmception 6y ago
Thanks I agree, I was just looking up the other day whether “brain fog” was an accepted term and reached the same conclusion as you For me, the poor leadership and lack of consensus is enough for me to avoid exposure. When everyone can articulate what you said, instead of the reductive things they do say, I’ll be more comfortable But I’ll likely be vaccinated before then, which is just as fine for my risk analysis
- nullserver 6y ago
  Had severe brain fog for a few years. Blood thinners gave me my mind back.
  - 6y ago

bsder 6y ago

> I am all for getting data! Good investment. This will also flag long-term effects from other virii, as well. One thing that Covid drove home is: "Infection with a virus can do a LOT of extra damage that we don't track very well." There are lot of people who get diagnosed with "Lyme" (aka the modern equivalent to "hysteria" in many ways) who may very well just be "You had a bad cold/flu/other virus and your body took a lot of damage and now its going to take quite a while to clean up." Modern medicine is amazing, but it has a gigantic blind spot around chronic conditions.

beagle3 6y ago
Do you have reason to believe that Lyme is not a real disease, despite a known bacteria and very distinct symptoms including red “target” marks? Or are you just referring to “long Lyme” (which is not well characterized, but has extremely high correlation with a prior real Lyme diagnosis?)
- bsder 6y ago
  I fully believe that "Lyme disease" certainly exists. I also believe that "Lyme disease" became a medical/medical insurance bucket for "We don't know what's wrong with you, and you're annoying enough that we can't just ignore you, but we don't want to spend any more time or money on you figuring out what is really wrong."

mssundaram 6y ago

A lot of assertions here for which are perspectives still actively being researched, i.e. not yet conclusive.

qbasic_forever 6y ago

I hope they can start to get to the bottom of some of the clotting issues. Just in my anecdotal circle of friends and acquaintances I know at least 3 sudden anueryisms or strokes post-covid infection--some months after recovery. These were healthy 30-somethings with no pre-existing conditions and none of them even had infection symptoms bad enough to warrant a hospital trip. If nothing else there needs to be a lot more awareness about recognizing the signs and symptoms of clot, stroke, or heart attacks.

sdeep27 6y ago
Let me confirm - you know 3 separate healthy people that are in their 30s that have had aneuryisms of strokes this past year?
- vmception 6y ago
  Narrator: at least two were obese.
- qbasic_forever 6y ago
  Yes, one of them was my best friend. Him and I climbed mountains together. Now he's dead--thanks for asking.

vmchale 6y ago

> I've been very dismayed at the non-existent data between "dead" and "not dead". Feels like we went with the Chinese "it lasts for two weeks or you die" that doctors discovered like 1-2 months in.