9 ms·

> 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

by 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.
  - aksss 6y ago
    Like what, aspirin?
    - nullserver 6y ago
      Xaralto elequis, Pradaxa
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Thank you so much for the clarity and levity. The person you're responding to is understandably scared and is ignorantly propagating the sensationalism that the news has been hammering into our brains. The news is not science..people need to realize. It's a business and even the biggest news companies peddle sensationalism. Even if only one person has some strange side effect like 'covid toes'...the news media can prey on humans emotional response which overrides statistical reasoning to lay claim that it's a possible Covid outcome. And while it's not an outright lie...it's extremely disengenuous and very sensational. And they do it all the time. We need to teach people statistical reasoning in school and we need to hold news agencies accountable for statistically irresponsible news.
- vmception 6y ago
  I've relocated twice during this pandemic and have no qualms going out and making judgements for my personal probability of exposure. "Scared and unable to derive statistics" is a large inaccurate stretch of the imagination, I'll make my own stretch of the imagination and say you were probably pasting this response a year ago on things that turned out to be real threats for 500k Americans that didn't even know they had a meaningful pre-existing condition. We don't have statistics on who has the "inflammatory response" or any other side effect.
  - konjin 6y ago
    I have a stone that keeps covid away, you can't afford to not buy it.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    At the end of this month when the eviction moratorium ends, there's about to be tens of thousands of people relocating to the streets. Apologies that you had to switch houses during this trying time. My heart goes out to you and your struggle. 80% of the population is under the age of 55. That age group has more of a chance of dying of a car accident than they do of Covid. 40% of all money in the money supply has been printed in the past year, building supplies are already up by two to four times and are showing signs of inflation. America just went 1.9 trillion dollars more into debt. Tens of thousands of small businesses have closed and thier business has been absorbed by large companies increasing inequality. The price we're about to pay for this economically is going to be significant. Poor people and future generations will probably have to pay it though. #yolo
latch 6y ago
> Literally everything in this quote is speculation, or factually incorrect. Neither one of you provided sources. I think that you're right, but how's a layperson to know?
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  Google actual science instead of 'the news'. The patho-physiology of Covid is well known.
  - Layke1123 6y ago
    In stead of a blithe comment, you could directly link evidence and instead you chose the less productive of two routes. It makes you look like an ass and doesn't contribute to the conversation.
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      You're wrong. It's hard science that's easily Googleable. References are only needed for something debatable. You don't need to link references that gravity exists either.
      - Layke1123 6y ago
        I'm not wrong. My comment was that you could choose to blithely remark OR post links to support your claim, which would be the more productive route. Instead, you have doubled down and chose to continue making blithe remarks like "gravity doesn't need a reference."
        nickthemagicman 6y ago
        You are wrong because it's not a claim. The pathophysiology of Covid is hard science. Gravity existing is not a claim either. No need to support either of those with ref's is because they are easily googleable. It's a waste of people's time.
chakalakasp 6y ago
Just FYI, there is some real weird stuff going on in the brains of quite a few people who died of COVID. COVID is far from a fully understood disease. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210217/autopsies_may_explain_brain_fog_from_covid#1 https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210217/autopsies_may_expla...
nullserver 6y ago
I have a blood clotting disease. Factor 5 Leiden. Basically destroyed my life once it activated. I mostly had it under control with blood thinners. If I went off for a few days I would have issues, then a stroke. ( I hate side effects of Pradaxa) Got covid. Sucked, but got over it. However now I can’t miss any pills. If I skip tonight’s, Tomorrow one side of my body will go numb. I get severe brain fog, Plus a host of other issues that take days to weeks to resolve. Same crap as before covid, but I have no margin for error now. Oh and now I piss blood, because blood thinners, yeah.
- LilBytes 6y ago
  This is fucking brutal. My ex-girlfriend had Polycythemia. I realise it's very different to what you're explaining here, but her symptoms when she didn't take her medication, or when she got hot, or did anything strenuous were very similar to what you listed. In addition to pissing blood. Is this a disease that you've always had? Came later in life? If this is asking too much or prying to deep, don't answer my questions. I empathise as much I can with you, as much as I can.
  - nullserver 6y ago
    2 parts. Genetic disorder factor 5 Leiden. Not aa problem until a few years ago. Also have an Autoimmune disorder. Had it since I was a teen. Made worse by my teenage love of mountain dew. It’s a risk factor for clotting, and probably contributes. It also causes inflammation and neuropathy. It was was annoying and a slow but growing problem. Then I got exposed to a LOT of natural gas from a mega rental company house. Well dormant gene for factor 5 activated and I my blood went crazy. Lots of clots. Autoimmune also went nuts and decided that nervous system and various organs needed to die in a most painful way possible. Took a few years to get it under control..ish. Covid has clearly made it worse.
- timr 6y ago
  I'm sorry. That really sucks. Clotting clearly does happen for a subset of patients. But it's wrong for the OP to claim that this is because the virus is doing something to the blood. That's a leap too far. Other infections cause similar sorts of issues -- sepsis, for example. The distinction matters, because if the clotting is mediated by a runaway inflammatory response (e.g. an over-reaction of the innate immune system), it's inherently a problem that will affect a subset of people who are infected (for reasons we don't really understand). Whereas if the virus attacks some component of the blood, it would be expected to affect most people the same way.
trevelyan 6y ago
Parent is correct about COVID attacking the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen. This has been known for a while. Many sources if you search. Here is one: https://chemrxiv.org/articles/preprint/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173 https://chemrxiv.org/articles/preprint/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8...
- timr 6y ago
  This is a paper that used a computer simulation method ("docking") of computer-generated protein structures to arrive at the conclusions you're citing. I did my PhD in this area. Docking methods are not anywhere near reliable enough to make this sort of claim. This is little more than a story told with software.
  - cthalupa 6y ago
    One side is producing research papers and other sources. You are saying you have a PhD in this area so trust you. I do not know you, I do not know if the PhD in question actually qualifies you to speak on the subject, and I do not know if it did that you would actually be fully up to date on the subject. I do not necessarily want to dismiss this out of hand as an appeal to authority, but as a layperson, you do not making a convincing argument when it boils down to "Listen to me, I have a PhD, trust me over these other people who have PhDs who are also publishing peer reviewed papers that disagree with me."
    - timr 6y ago
      > One side is producing research papers and other sources. You are saying you have a PhD in this area so trust you. That's not a paper. It's a pre-print. It isn't peer-reviewed. It isn't published. Literally anyone can push a document to a pre-print server. I'm saying I have a PhD in this exact discipline, and this document isn't proof of what it claims. You certainly don't have to believe me, but saying "this is a paper, and therefore it is likely to be correct" is not a standard of evidence that exists.
dpatrick86 6y ago
At least in the case of the heart, there’s the beginnings of evidence that is suggestive of the fact that the damage is not simply incidental to systemic inflammation. https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/covid-19-can-kill-heart-muscle-cells-interfere-with-contraction/ https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/covid-19-can-kill-heart-musc...
- timr 6y ago
  That's interesting, thanks. But as you note, an in vitro study is still a long way from proof of claim -- just because something can happen does not mean that it does happen in actual people, and it certainly doesn't mean that it happens often. I would characterize this as evidence suggestive of a plausible mechanism. One thing missing, for example, is why this doesn't appear to happen frequently. Most of the highly touted claims of cardiac involvement from summer 2020 have been debunked (e.g. in athletes).
esalman 6y ago
What do I do with this response? Should I take covid seriously or not?
Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
On the taste/smell thing- people I know who've had that symptom say that it is qualitatively different from the loss of taste/smell you get with a bad cold. In particular, they also lost the ability to taste things like salt and sugar, which people with a cold can still taste. My understanding of this may be outdated, but I thought that tasting those wasn't an olfactory thing- am I wrong, or is the ability to taste salt and sugar dependent on different epithelial cells that are also damaged? (Interestingly, these people did retain the ability to sense the 'heat' of chili peppers...)
mschuster91 6y ago
> SARS-CoV2 is a virus that infects epithelial cells. Unfortunately, there are strong indicators that Sars-CoV-2 is capable of infecting more than just epithelial cells: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0390-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0390-x > The claim that it "damages many organs" is at least an overstatement -- the vast majority of Covid-19 patients have no such damage. The problem: assuming a (made up, just for the argument here) 0.1% rate of coronavirus cases that end up in long-covid / systematic organ failures, and you have 1k of infections, that's not many total cases. Assuming you have 116 millions of infected people however, suddenly even a 0.1% rate translates into hundreds of thousands of affected people. The actual rate is possibly in double-digit percentage area (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7533045/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7533045/), so ... yeah. This is why combatting infections is so important, not just because of mutation risk...

by timr 6y ago

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.
- aksss 6y ago
  Like what, aspirin?
  - nullserver 6y ago
    Xaralto elequis, Pradaxa

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Thank you so much for the clarity and levity. The person you're responding to is understandably scared and is ignorantly propagating the sensationalism that the news has been hammering into our brains. The news is not science..people need to realize. It's a business and even the biggest news companies peddle sensationalism. Even if only one person has some strange side effect like 'covid toes'...the news media can prey on humans emotional response which overrides statistical reasoning to lay claim that it's a possible Covid outcome. And while it's not an outright lie...it's extremely disengenuous and very sensational. And they do it all the time. We need to teach people statistical reasoning in school and we need to hold news agencies accountable for statistically irresponsible news.

vmception 6y ago
I've relocated twice during this pandemic and have no qualms going out and making judgements for my personal probability of exposure. "Scared and unable to derive statistics" is a large inaccurate stretch of the imagination, I'll make my own stretch of the imagination and say you were probably pasting this response a year ago on things that turned out to be real threats for 500k Americans that didn't even know they had a meaningful pre-existing condition. We don't have statistics on who has the "inflammatory response" or any other side effect.
- konjin 6y ago
  I have a stone that keeps covid away, you can't afford to not buy it.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  At the end of this month when the eviction moratorium ends, there's about to be tens of thousands of people relocating to the streets. Apologies that you had to switch houses during this trying time. My heart goes out to you and your struggle. 80% of the population is under the age of 55. That age group has more of a chance of dying of a car accident than they do of Covid. 40% of all money in the money supply has been printed in the past year, building supplies are already up by two to four times and are showing signs of inflation. America just went 1.9 trillion dollars more into debt. Tens of thousands of small businesses have closed and thier business has been absorbed by large companies increasing inequality. The price we're about to pay for this economically is going to be significant. Poor people and future generations will probably have to pay it though. #yolo

latch 6y ago

> Literally everything in this quote is speculation, or factually incorrect. Neither one of you provided sources. I think that you're right, but how's a layperson to know?

nickthemagicman 6y ago
Google actual science instead of 'the news'. The patho-physiology of Covid is well known.
- Layke1123 6y ago
  In stead of a blithe comment, you could directly link evidence and instead you chose the less productive of two routes. It makes you look like an ass and doesn't contribute to the conversation.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    You're wrong. It's hard science that's easily Googleable. References are only needed for something debatable. You don't need to link references that gravity exists either.
    - Layke1123 6y ago
      I'm not wrong. My comment was that you could choose to blithely remark OR post links to support your claim, which would be the more productive route. Instead, you have doubled down and chose to continue making blithe remarks like "gravity doesn't need a reference."
      - nickthemagicman 6y ago
        You are wrong because it's not a claim. The pathophysiology of Covid is hard science. Gravity existing is not a claim either. No need to support either of those with ref's is because they are easily googleable. It's a waste of people's time.

chakalakasp 6y ago

Just FYI, there is some real weird stuff going on in the brains of quite a few people who died of COVID. COVID is far from a fully understood disease. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210217/autopsies_may_explain_brain_fog_from_covid#1 https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210217/autopsies_may_expla...

nullserver 6y ago

I have a blood clotting disease. Factor 5 Leiden. Basically destroyed my life once it activated. I mostly had it under control with blood thinners. If I went off for a few days I would have issues, then a stroke. ( I hate side effects of Pradaxa) Got covid. Sucked, but got over it. However now I can’t miss any pills. If I skip tonight’s, Tomorrow one side of my body will go numb. I get severe brain fog, Plus a host of other issues that take days to weeks to resolve. Same crap as before covid, but I have no margin for error now. Oh and now I piss blood, because blood thinners, yeah.

LilBytes 6y ago
This is fucking brutal. My ex-girlfriend had Polycythemia. I realise it's very different to what you're explaining here, but her symptoms when she didn't take her medication, or when she got hot, or did anything strenuous were very similar to what you listed. In addition to pissing blood. Is this a disease that you've always had? Came later in life? If this is asking too much or prying to deep, don't answer my questions. I empathise as much I can with you, as much as I can.
- nullserver 6y ago
  2 parts. Genetic disorder factor 5 Leiden. Not aa problem until a few years ago. Also have an Autoimmune disorder. Had it since I was a teen. Made worse by my teenage love of mountain dew. It’s a risk factor for clotting, and probably contributes. It also causes inflammation and neuropathy. It was was annoying and a slow but growing problem. Then I got exposed to a LOT of natural gas from a mega rental company house. Well dormant gene for factor 5 activated and I my blood went crazy. Lots of clots. Autoimmune also went nuts and decided that nervous system and various organs needed to die in a most painful way possible. Took a few years to get it under control..ish. Covid has clearly made it worse.
timr 6y ago
I'm sorry. That really sucks. Clotting clearly does happen for a subset of patients. But it's wrong for the OP to claim that this is because the virus is doing something to the blood. That's a leap too far. Other infections cause similar sorts of issues -- sepsis, for example. The distinction matters, because if the clotting is mediated by a runaway inflammatory response (e.g. an over-reaction of the innate immune system), it's inherently a problem that will affect a subset of people who are infected (for reasons we don't really understand). Whereas if the virus attacks some component of the blood, it would be expected to affect most people the same way.

trevelyan 6y ago

Parent is correct about COVID attacking the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen. This has been known for a while. Many sources if you search. Here is one: https://chemrxiv.org/articles/preprint/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173 https://chemrxiv.org/articles/preprint/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8...

timr 6y ago
This is a paper that used a computer simulation method ("docking") of computer-generated protein structures to arrive at the conclusions you're citing. I did my PhD in this area. Docking methods are not anywhere near reliable enough to make this sort of claim. This is little more than a story told with software.
- cthalupa 6y ago
  One side is producing research papers and other sources. You are saying you have a PhD in this area so trust you. I do not know you, I do not know if the PhD in question actually qualifies you to speak on the subject, and I do not know if it did that you would actually be fully up to date on the subject. I do not necessarily want to dismiss this out of hand as an appeal to authority, but as a layperson, you do not making a convincing argument when it boils down to "Listen to me, I have a PhD, trust me over these other people who have PhDs who are also publishing peer reviewed papers that disagree with me."
  - timr 6y ago
    > One side is producing research papers and other sources. You are saying you have a PhD in this area so trust you. That's not a paper. It's a pre-print. It isn't peer-reviewed. It isn't published. Literally anyone can push a document to a pre-print server. I'm saying I have a PhD in this exact discipline, and this document isn't proof of what it claims. You certainly don't have to believe me, but saying "this is a paper, and therefore it is likely to be correct" is not a standard of evidence that exists.

dpatrick86 6y ago

At least in the case of the heart, there’s the beginnings of evidence that is suggestive of the fact that the damage is not simply incidental to systemic inflammation. https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/covid-19-can-kill-heart-muscle-cells-interfere-with-contraction/ https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/covid-19-can-kill-heart-musc...

timr 6y ago
That's interesting, thanks. But as you note, an in vitro study is still a long way from proof of claim -- just because something can happen does not mean that it does happen in actual people, and it certainly doesn't mean that it happens often. I would characterize this as evidence suggestive of a plausible mechanism. One thing missing, for example, is why this doesn't appear to happen frequently. Most of the highly touted claims of cardiac involvement from summer 2020 have been debunked (e.g. in athletes).

esalman 6y ago

What do I do with this response? Should I take covid seriously or not?

Ichthypresbyter 6y ago

On the taste/smell thing- people I know who've had that symptom say that it is qualitatively different from the loss of taste/smell you get with a bad cold. In particular, they also lost the ability to taste things like salt and sugar, which people with a cold can still taste. My understanding of this may be outdated, but I thought that tasting those wasn't an olfactory thing- am I wrong, or is the ability to taste salt and sugar dependent on different epithelial cells that are also damaged? (Interestingly, these people did retain the ability to sense the 'heat' of chili peppers...)

mschuster91 6y ago

> SARS-CoV2 is a virus that infects epithelial cells. Unfortunately, there are strong indicators that Sars-CoV-2 is capable of infecting more than just epithelial cells: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0390-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0390-x > The claim that it "damages many organs" is at least an overstatement -- the vast majority of Covid-19 patients have no such damage. The problem: assuming a (made up, just for the argument here) 0.1% rate of coronavirus cases that end up in long-covid / systematic organ failures, and you have 1k of infections, that's not many total cases. Assuming you have 116 millions of infected people however, suddenly even a 0.1% rate translates into hundreds of thousands of affected people. The actual rate is possibly in double-digit percentage area (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7533045/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7533045/), so ... yeah. This is why combatting infections is so important, not just because of mutation risk...