3 ms·

I wonder what other infections and substances we'd find that cause these sorts of issues if we looked hard enough?

lampshades 5y ago
I wonder that also. At this point, a lot of this seems like a situation of damned if you do damned if you don't. I saw a TikTok of a guy being able to show that whatever your preference, you can prove it through scientific papers. Seeing as COVID has been here for 2 years and even long haul COVID is exceedingly rare, I'm not too worried about any of it.
BoxOfRain 5y ago
I'd love more data on this kind of thing in general. I developed a neurological disorder as a teenager with no apparent cause that affects me to this day, it's not like some bitter life-long crusade of having to know but I've always had a vague hunch it was a genetic disposition triggered by some external event and I'd be so curious to have that confirmed or debunked. It's one of those ones that doesn't show up on an MRI but an fMRI shows characteristic changes, which suggests something wrong at a lower level I think.
dehrmann 5y ago
We've been studying SARS-CoV2 a lot more than most other viruses, and in humans, it's often associated with confounding variables, so it's good to take studies with a grain of salt because the 200 common cold viruses probably haven't been studied this closely, and you have to be really careful to factor in emotional distress in human studies.
blip54321 5y ago
A lot. It'd be worth addressing. We see growing evidence of this. Many are new too. Viral dynamics... changed with the rise of cities a few thousand years back.
JabavuAdams 5y ago
Yes, this. COVID-19 is topical now, so we're looking hard, here. Is this something we've looked for with other diseases/conditions, in the past? If we go looking now, do we find that other insults that we thought we understood do this too?
- alwillis 5y ago
  Yes, this. COVID-19 is topical now, so we're looking hard, here. I'd say more than 1 million confirmed deaths and over 81 million confirmed cases (in the US) in two years is more than just topical. We are approaching half a billion cases globally with over 6 million deaths. Yes, there have been lots of Corona viruses in the past, some of which result in things as ubiquitous as the common cold. It's called a novel Corona virus for a reason: humans had essentially zero immunity to this virus and its ability to evade the body's defenses and mutate so quickly at this scale is something we haven't seen before. Each major variant is more transmissible and more elusive than the previous one. BA.2 is now the dominant strain and the FDA just authorized another booster [2]. In many ways, we are still coming to grips with what we're dealing with. We don't have a choice but to continue to look hard at COVID-19--the results of allowing it spread so widely are right in our faces and we have to deal with it. [1]: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ [2]: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-second-booster-dose-two-covid-19-vaccines-older-and https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...
  - JabavuAdams 5y ago
    I sense that we may me talking past one another. You seem to be focusing on my word choice and and justifying that we should spend resources studying COVID-19. My post does not dispute this at all. What I'm saying is that to conclude that effect X (demyelination) is a cause for additional concern with respect to disease A (COVID-19), we should go back and see whether effect X is also present with respect to other diseases such as B, C, D (common cold, flu, etc). Because we may have found X linked to A because we are looking so hard at A, and not have found it previously with respect to B, C, D because we weren't looking as hard then.
  - mrmuagi 5y ago
    Topical may imply temporary, which may have struck a chord with you, but this brings a genuine curiosity to the burning question, what are the conditions if any for returning to normal? I chuckle as I write this as living in western Canada, we just recently got the public place mask mandate removed so it's back to "normal" for some people even more, except we are dealing with record high inflation across the board (lumber too) -- c'est la vie... Like, there have been mini-pandemics in the past (Spanish Flu is one I read a bit about), how do we "win" against it instead of just "minimize damage"? Herd immunity? Given headlines like OP, it makes one pause to think.

I wonder that also. At this point, a lot of this seems like a situation of damned if you do damned if you don't. I saw a TikTok of a guy being able to show that whatever your preference, you can prove it through scientific papers. Seeing as COVID has been here for 2 years and even long haul COVID is exceedingly rare, I'm not too worried about any of it.

BoxOfRain 5y ago

I'd love more data on this kind of thing in general. I developed a neurological disorder as a teenager with no apparent cause that affects me to this day, it's not like some bitter life-long crusade of having to know but I've always had a vague hunch it was a genetic disposition triggered by some external event and I'd be so curious to have that confirmed or debunked. It's one of those ones that doesn't show up on an MRI but an fMRI shows characteristic changes, which suggests something wrong at a lower level I think.

dehrmann 5y ago

We've been studying SARS-CoV2 a lot more than most other viruses, and in humans, it's often associated with confounding variables, so it's good to take studies with a grain of salt because the 200 common cold viruses probably haven't been studied this closely, and you have to be really careful to factor in emotional distress in human studies.

blip54321 5y ago

A lot. It'd be worth addressing. We see growing evidence of this. Many are new too. Viral dynamics... changed with the rise of cities a few thousand years back.

JabavuAdams 5y ago

Yes, this. COVID-19 is topical now, so we're looking hard, here. Is this something we've looked for with other diseases/conditions, in the past? If we go looking now, do we find that other insults that we thought we understood do this too?

alwillis 5y ago
Yes, this. COVID-19 is topical now, so we're looking hard, here. I'd say more than 1 million confirmed deaths and over 81 million confirmed cases (in the US) in two years is more than just topical. We are approaching half a billion cases globally with over 6 million deaths. Yes, there have been lots of Corona viruses in the past, some of which result in things as ubiquitous as the common cold. It's called a novel Corona virus for a reason: humans had essentially zero immunity to this virus and its ability to evade the body's defenses and mutate so quickly at this scale is something we haven't seen before. Each major variant is more transmissible and more elusive than the previous one. BA.2 is now the dominant strain and the FDA just authorized another booster [2]. In many ways, we are still coming to grips with what we're dealing with. We don't have a choice but to continue to look hard at COVID-19--the results of allowing it spread so widely are right in our faces and we have to deal with it. [1]: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ [2]: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-second-booster-dose-two-covid-19-vaccines-older-and https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...
- JabavuAdams 5y ago
  I sense that we may me talking past one another. You seem to be focusing on my word choice and and justifying that we should spend resources studying COVID-19. My post does not dispute this at all. What I'm saying is that to conclude that effect X (demyelination) is a cause for additional concern with respect to disease A (COVID-19), we should go back and see whether effect X is also present with respect to other diseases such as B, C, D (common cold, flu, etc). Because we may have found X linked to A because we are looking so hard at A, and not have found it previously with respect to B, C, D because we weren't looking as hard then.
- mrmuagi 5y ago
  Topical may imply temporary, which may have struck a chord with you, but this brings a genuine curiosity to the burning question, what are the conditions if any for returning to normal? I chuckle as I write this as living in western Canada, we just recently got the public place mask mandate removed so it's back to "normal" for some people even more, except we are dealing with record high inflation across the board (lumber too) -- c'est la vie... Like, there have been mini-pandemics in the past (Spanish Flu is one I read a bit about), how do we "win" against it instead of just "minimize damage"? Herd immunity? Given headlines like OP, it makes one pause to think.