9 ms·

This sort of thing is one of the more disturbing things to me about COVID-19, and why I wish there was a less exclusive focus on death in talking about the pand

This sort of thing is one of the more disturbing things to me about COVID-19, and why I wish there was a less exclusive focus on death in talking about the pandemic. Clearly that's important but there's these hugely significant problems not captured by focusing solely on death.

gotoeleven 5y ago
Is there some reason to expect that covid-19 is different in long term effects than a flu? This study is saying it causes substantial brain damage, right? What possible mechanism is there for this?
- api 5y ago
  Inflammation?
- undoware 5y ago
  Unlike the flu, SARS-CoV-2 causes micro-clots, which damage tissues that are capillary-heavy. This doesn't matter so much for, say, your liver, which (given time, and luck, and otherwise decent health) can recover, but matters greatly for your slow-growing brain, or your lungs (dat popcorn scan)
- ajross 5y ago
  Lots of diseases result in nerve damage. Polio was famous for this, after all. Different viruses infect different tissues. This is why we don't like getting sick, and push vaccines where we can. Infectious diseases that don't have long term effects are actually comparatively few in numbers -- those are the ones we tend to "get sick" with, for the simple reason that they aren't worth the effort of trying to control. This "flu" thing just won't die. No one expert EVER likened covid to "the flu", beyond pointing out that, like Influenza, it presents as an upper respiratory infection. Everyone knew from that first cluster in Wuhan that this was much, much more dangerous. Everyone told you that. Everyone trustworthy, anyway. So why do you continue to insist, after nineteen months, that this is just "the flu"?
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    Adding onto this comment. A lot of viruses do really shitty things to you. HIV, HPV, etc etc And we've seen covid pass the BBB in mice. So expect more info like this.
  - dotcommand 5y ago
    > Everyone knew from that first cluster in Wuhan that this was much, much more dangerous. Everyone told you that. Everyone trustworthy, anyway. I hope you find the CDC to be trustworthy because the CDC says on their website that the flu is more dangerous than covid for young people. "For young children, especially children younger than 5 years old, the risk of serious complications is higher for flu compared with COVID-19." "However, for adolescents, the risk of serious COVID-19 illness is less than in children younger than 5." https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm I agree with you that there are people who cavalierly dismiss the dangers of covid. But there are also people who oversell and exaggerate the dangers as well. Both are doing a disservice to people and society in general in my opinion. Perhaps you meant covid is much more dangerous to some portions of the population while the flu was more dangerous to other portions of the population? Though I guess things could change in the future with more data and information.
    - ajross 5y ago
      > I agree with you that there are people who cavalierly dismiss the dangers of covid. Don't call it the flu. It's not the flu. It's killed 20x more people than the flu even in the fact of pervasive society-changing mitigation strategies (all while the flu itself has all but gone extinct, remember! All that masking and distance learning actually worked!). It's not the flu. Beyond that, nitpick with my phrasing all you like. This is HN, after all. It's not the flu.
      - wanderingmind 5y ago
        Not disagreeing that Covid19 is a much more lethal disease, can you point to some reference that compares covid death to flu related death (prior to covid).
- davidcbc 5y ago
  Is there some reason to expect covid is similar to the flu in long term effects? It's a different disease, why would it be the same?
- Izkata 5y ago
  > What possible mechanism is there for this? Free-floating spike protein is capable of crossing the blood/brain barrier. It's one of the reasons some people are wary of the long-term side-effects of the vaccines.
  - rrock 5y ago
    I guess it’s a good thing that the vaccine makes spike protein within your deltoid muscle cells, so it can’t float over to your brain. And it all gets quickly degraded anyway.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sonicggg 5y ago
  Of course there is. Sars-Cov-2 has been labelled by one paper as "The Autoimmune Virus" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7598743 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7598743). There's way more molecular mimicry between this virus and our tissues than any flu virus. This is a recipe for long term autoimmune diseases.

gotoeleven 5y ago

Is there some reason to expect that covid-19 is different in long term effects than a flu? This study is saying it causes substantial brain damage, right? What possible mechanism is there for this?

api 5y ago
Inflammation?
undoware 5y ago
Unlike the flu, SARS-CoV-2 causes micro-clots, which damage tissues that are capillary-heavy. This doesn't matter so much for, say, your liver, which (given time, and luck, and otherwise decent health) can recover, but matters greatly for your slow-growing brain, or your lungs (dat popcorn scan)
ajross 5y ago
Lots of diseases result in nerve damage. Polio was famous for this, after all. Different viruses infect different tissues. This is why we don't like getting sick, and push vaccines where we can. Infectious diseases that don't have long term effects are actually comparatively few in numbers -- those are the ones we tend to "get sick" with, for the simple reason that they aren't worth the effort of trying to control. This "flu" thing just won't die. No one expert EVER likened covid to "the flu", beyond pointing out that, like Influenza, it presents as an upper respiratory infection. Everyone knew from that first cluster in Wuhan that this was much, much more dangerous. Everyone told you that. Everyone trustworthy, anyway. So why do you continue to insist, after nineteen months, that this is just "the flu"?
- aaomidi 5y ago
  Adding onto this comment. A lot of viruses do really shitty things to you. HIV, HPV, etc etc And we've seen covid pass the BBB in mice. So expect more info like this.
- dotcommand 5y ago
  > Everyone knew from that first cluster in Wuhan that this was much, much more dangerous. Everyone told you that. Everyone trustworthy, anyway. I hope you find the CDC to be trustworthy because the CDC says on their website that the flu is more dangerous than covid for young people. "For young children, especially children younger than 5 years old, the risk of serious complications is higher for flu compared with COVID-19." "However, for adolescents, the risk of serious COVID-19 illness is less than in children younger than 5." https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm I agree with you that there are people who cavalierly dismiss the dangers of covid. But there are also people who oversell and exaggerate the dangers as well. Both are doing a disservice to people and society in general in my opinion. Perhaps you meant covid is much more dangerous to some portions of the population while the flu was more dangerous to other portions of the population? Though I guess things could change in the future with more data and information.
  - ajross 5y ago
    > I agree with you that there are people who cavalierly dismiss the dangers of covid. Don't call it the flu. It's not the flu. It's killed 20x more people than the flu even in the fact of pervasive society-changing mitigation strategies (all while the flu itself has all but gone extinct, remember! All that masking and distance learning actually worked!). It's not the flu. Beyond that, nitpick with my phrasing all you like. This is HN, after all. It's not the flu.
    - wanderingmind 5y ago
      Not disagreeing that Covid19 is a much more lethal disease, can you point to some reference that compares covid death to flu related death (prior to covid).
davidcbc 5y ago
Is there some reason to expect covid is similar to the flu in long term effects? It's a different disease, why would it be the same?
Izkata 5y ago
> What possible mechanism is there for this? Free-floating spike protein is capable of crossing the blood/brain barrier. It's one of the reasons some people are wary of the long-term side-effects of the vaccines.
- rrock 5y ago
  I guess it’s a good thing that the vaccine makes spike protein within your deltoid muscle cells, so it can’t float over to your brain. And it all gets quickly degraded anyway.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sonicggg 5y ago
Of course there is. Sars-Cov-2 has been labelled by one paper as "The Autoimmune Virus" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7598743 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7598743). There's way more molecular mimicry between this virus and our tissues than any flu virus. This is a recipe for long term autoimmune diseases.