Autopsies Reveal the Terrible Damage COVID-19 Can Inflict On the Human Brain (sciencealert.com) 162
"As COVID-19 relentlessly infects more and more of us, scientists are getting a close look at the strange and frightening damage it can inflict on our bodies," writes Science Alert (in an article shared by long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo):
We've known since early in the pandemic this disease wreaks havoc on more than just the respiratory system, also causing gastrointestinal conditions, heart damage and blood clotting disorders. Now, a year into the pandemic, in-depth autopsies of COVID-19 patients have revealed greater details of widespread inflammation and damage in brain tissues. This may help explain the deluge of neurological symptoms that have manifested in some patients, from headaches, memory loss, dizziness, weakness and hallucinations to more severe seizures and strokes.
Some estimate that up to 50 percent of those hospitalised with COVID-19 could have neurological symptoms that can leave people struggling to do even common daily tasks like preparing a meal. "We were completely surprised. Originally, we expected to see damage that is caused by a lack of oxygen," said physician and clinical director at National Institute of Health (NIH), Avindra Nath. "Instead, we saw multifocal areas of damage that is usually associated with strokes and neuroinflammatory diseases...."
Their report was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The article also remembers a September remark by a University of Liverpool neurologist to Nature magazine back in September who had also suggested possible neurological symptoms from COVID-19. "We've seen this group of younger people without conventional risk factors who are having strokes, and patients having acute changes in mental status that are not otherwise explained."
Some estimate that up to 50 percent of those hospitalised with COVID-19 could have neurological symptoms that can leave people struggling to do even common daily tasks like preparing a meal. "We were completely surprised. Originally, we expected to see damage that is caused by a lack of oxygen," said physician and clinical director at National Institute of Health (NIH), Avindra Nath. "Instead, we saw multifocal areas of damage that is usually associated with strokes and neuroinflammatory diseases...."
Their report was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The article also remembers a September remark by a University of Liverpool neurologist to Nature magazine back in September who had also suggested possible neurological symptoms from COVID-19. "We've seen this group of younger people without conventional risk factors who are having strokes, and patients having acute changes in mental status that are not otherwise explained."
Not surprising, this virus attacks blood vessels (Score:5, Insightful)
This is completely expected, the virus attacks and degrades blood vessels. This has been known for almost a year.
The danger here is that it is disproportionally stupid people who choose to expose themselves and their families to the virus. So they'll get even dumber. Red states are choosing to become literal Idiocracies.
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This is completely expected, the virus attacks and degrades blood vessels. This has been known for almost a year.
The danger here is that it is disproportionally stupid people who choose to expose themselves and their families to the virus. So they'll get even dumber. Red states are choosing to become literal Idiocracies.
Indeed. It came up as 8 months ago a result of the New York Times together with other Integrity Initiative outfits peddling the conspiracy theory that the Russians are concealing their death toll - articles in NYT and Novaya (April), Guardian (early May), etc.
They did not (at least in the cities where NYT claimed them to do so) They went and did autopsies some of the "surplus" cases as well as statistical analysis and published the results - a huge spike in cardiovascular deaths including 2-4 times incre
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This is completely expected, the virus attacks and degrades blood vessels. This has been known for almost a year.
The danger here is that it is disproportionally stupid people who choose to expose themselves and their families to the virus. So they'll get even dumber. Red states are choosing to become literal Idiocracies.
Sad that this needs to be quoted against trollish censor moderation. (But it's actually a kind of vanilla FP.)
ANY high fever will fuck you up real good... (Score:2)
https://www.health.harvard.edu... [harvard.edu]
When To Call a Professional
Adults and children should seek immediate medical attention for any fever of 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40C) or higher or for any fever accompanied by one or more of the following:
Convulsion
Loss of consciousness
Confusion
Stiff neck
Difficulty breathing
Severe pain anywhere in the body (especially the head, chest or abdomen)
Swelling or inflammation of any part of the body
Vaginal discharge that is discolored or foul-smelling
Urinary tract symptoms (pain on urination, foul-smelling urine)
Call a doctor immediately if an infant younger than 3 months develops any fever.
For a lower fever of unexplained origin, call your doctor if it does not improve after two to three days. Call sooner if you develop additional symptoms.
Prognosis
For most fevers caused by common infections, the person either recovers on their own or the doctor is able to identify and treat the cause.
Sustained body temperatures of 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41.1C) or above can cause brain damage.
And that's just the FEVER ALONE. The symptom, not the actual health problem.
Or other health issues, like secondary bacterial infections of heart and lungs due to the disruption of bodily homeostasis.
Which, again, high fever will cause all on its own.
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California, and especially southern California, is home to a huge number of white supremacist racist goons. Orange county, for example, has been extremely badly hit by covid, thanks to the fact that the mouth breathers there won't wear masks.
Yes, I rejoice when traitors die. "The tree of liberty must, from time to time, be watered with the blood of tyrants." And yes, anyone who still supports Trump is a traitor.
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We've seen what a mob of zombies can do in the cinemas and on 01/06.
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The virus itself does no such thing. The misguided immune response to it is the real culprit for the blood vessel and organ damage.
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To me the most important thing to take away here is that we won't get back to normal this year.
At the rate we can vaccinate people and the effectiveness of the vaccine (70-90% depending which one you get) you aren't going to be safe from COVID this year. You still need to take care, stay away from the office and other crowded places.
If you don't you risk brain damage.
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Summary is missing the meat of the issue, what happens and why it happens which is odd to say the least when the scientists have a good idea what is going on, an article about it was posted here previously.
The mumps part of the MMR jab happens to give a lot of immunity to COVID19. https://mbio.asm.org/content/1... [asm.org] Strong inverse-correlation between the vaccine titers and COVID symptom severity. There has also been shown to be strong correlation between Vitamin-D deficiency and Zinc deficiency and COVID-19 s
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The idiots vying for the Darwin Award, Biological Edition will just as likely as not take the rest of civilization down with us.
Unless the brain damage caused by COVID-19 makes you hornier, it will, as you say, be a wash.
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Just really sick and tired of people being s
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You can get sick with it more than once.
There have been 32 confirmed reinfections [bnonews.com] out of almost 92,000,000 COVID cases worldwide.
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You've got the wrong denominator. The question is not how many cases worldwide, the question is how many cases are there where the infection occurred in a situation with sufficient modern medicine available to identify a reinfection, the original infection was symptomatic, was detected, was DNA sequenced and then was confirmed clear followed by a subsequent infection which was also symptomatic, detected and DNA sequenced and the DNA sequence turned out to be sufficiently different that it clearly showed re
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So, numerator.
So what I mean is he has only 33 cases out of the millions world wide, which is the numerator, but we are missing the denominator.
However let's imagine that there are only really 70 cases worldwide that were checked out to his standard. This would mean that 33/70, or almost 50% of the cases that were sampled turned out to have a reinfection. Now, I guess the real number is several thousand cases where a reinfection would have been found if there was one which would mean that the chance of reinfection is 33
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You've got the wrong denominator.
What's the right denominator?
The question is not how many cases worldwide, the question is how many cases are there where the infection occurred in a situation with sufficient modern medicine available to identify a reinfection
The source I cited show the countries where the reinfection took place. The source shows the US, obviously the hardest hit nation, has had 3 confirmed reinfections. 3 out of ~22,000,000 cases. If reinfections ÷ cases is not an appropriate calculation to show the approximate risk of reinfection, what calculation would you use?
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You've got the wrong denominator.
What's the right denominator?
The correct denominator is the number of cases that would have shown up in your count of reinfections if they had been reinfected but where, apart from the ones you enumerated, the rest of them didn't turn up in the list because they weren't reinfected. Unfortunately it may be very difficult to get to this number because the data wasn't gathered in a statistically useful way.
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I've read that three times and I still can't figure out what you're trying to say. "The rest of them didn't turn up in the list because they weren't reinfected"? Why would people who weren't reinfected turn up on a list of people who were reinfected? What's the basis of your assertion that the data wasn't gathered in a statistically useful way?
Health officials all over the world are watching out for reinfections. It's an extremely important aspect of the disease. There have been papers published on t
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I've read that three times and I still can't figure out what you're trying to say. "The rest of them didn't turn up in the list because they weren't reinfected"? Why would people who weren't reinfected turn up on a list of people who were reinfected? What's the basis of your assertion that the data wasn't gathered in a statistically useful way?
The point is that you are trying to use the 'thirty something' confirmed re-infections to tell us that re-infections are very rare. In fact what is very rare is a case where there's enough data to check if the person got re-infected. The gathering of cases here is done differently in each country. For example the UK has many more sequences than almost any other country. Most countries have none. OTOH, the UK has not been testing mild cases at all for much of the time. There is no way to know about most case
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Most if not all infectious diseases can be caught twice. For some it is much rarer than others. A legitimate question a year ago was how likely was getting COVID-19 to give you immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Now with tens on millions of infections around the world with only a handful of confirmed reinfections and a slight larger number of possible reinfections, then doing the Bayesian thing we can update our posterior probability and say the chances of getting reinfected in at least the short term are ver
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The point is that you are trying to use the 'thirty something' confirmed re-infections to tell us that re-infections are very rare.
I absolutely am telling people COVID reinfections are rare. So is the CDC. [cdc.gov] So is the European CDC. [europa.eu] So is the WHO. [cnbc.com] So are the [seattletimes.com] scores [forbes.com] of media outlets [nytimes.com] and medical organizations [clevelandclinic.org] quoting scientists [nih.gov] saying reinfections [the-scientist.com] are rare. [prevention.com]
What do you offer in support your claim(s)? Nothing.
In fact what is very rare is a case where there's enough data to check if the person got re-infected.
That statement flies in the face of common sense, particularly for nations
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The Mexico paper you reference says:
Second, since no mass screening has been performed in Mexico, we were unable to identify second-time asymptomatic cases of SARS-COV-2 infection. Moreover, an undetermined fraction of patients that are currently being identified as primary COVID-19 may correspond to subsequent infections and the related public health implications are unknown.
That doesn't back up my understanding which was that
there have been 285 "probable" reinfections out of 1.5M total cases
I thought you had something else? I am not disputing that cases are rare. I am
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I am not disputing that cases are rare. I am disputing that you had evidence that cases are rare. I already stated I believe that it's true.
WHAT!? Holy crap...am I reading this correctly? You come now saying that all along you've believed COVID reinfections are rare, and you've stated as much somewhere in this exchange? That your only argument this whole time has been that the evidence I've cited doesn't support a conclusion on which we both agree? Have I got that right?
Wow. I'm speechless. What is it my dad used to say? Oh yeah, flabbergasted. I'm flabbergasted, and I'm gonna need a moment to recover...
...
OK let me ask you this the
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That number is definitely lower than reality. Likely by orders of magnitudes. I can't provide proof (since I was unable to get tested the first time), but my initial infection was Mid-March. My mother had it at the same time. She suffered from loss of sense/taste, and trouble breathing, among other symptoms. We both came down with it again mid November. She again suffered a lost of sense and taste among other lesser symptoms. Neither of us got tested the second time, what was the point? We stayed home and q
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That number is definitely lower than reality. Likely by orders of magnitudes.
You could indeed be correct. However, even if the number of reinfections is off by a factor of 10K, you're still looking at a 0.35% reinfection rate.
I am by no means a COVID denier. People should absolutely be more vigilant with COVID precautions now more than ever. Even though we've got vaccines being distributed, we are still a long, long way from being out of the woods.
But I have a problem with people like the OP who furiously wave a giant red flag yelling - in bold letters - that people are going t
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Re: I'd call it 'evolution in action', except this (Score:2)
Yes, and we had it a long time coming.
I mean we are literally an explosion of a deadly pathogen for almost all life on the planet.
Exponential growth within limited resources .... of almost a monoculture ... of lifeforms that become less and less self-sustainable and smart the more they can share the burden between them.
It's a clear recipe for disaster.
And all we have to do to fix it, is to have real human interaction again (the one with the empathy) and use contraception (to reduce overpopulation).
Franky, w
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No, it's more like Idiocracy. Some very smart people will perform heroic feats of medicine to keep these people in the gene pool.
Re:Not surprising, this virus attacks blood vessel (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics and scientific research are inextricably linked.
Scientific research *should* inform public policy, and it does in places like New Zealand... which has had a total of *25* deaths from COVID. Twenty-five.
Now, NZ has a population of 5 million people, while the US has 330 million... but if we scale the death toll to account for that difference, the US should be at 1,650 right now.
But because we have an anti-science administration in place, 370,000 have died. By my math that makes for over 368,000 needless deaths, caused entirely because of the anti-science mindset of this administration (and especially, Mr. 45).
Speaking of 45... he got COVID a few months ago. This research suggests at least a 50% chance that he may have suffered neurological damage as a result. His behavior has also been radically different since he "recovered".
He still has the nuclear launch codes for the next 12 days.
Research like this should (combined with observation of 45's behavior over the last few months, and particularly the past few days) should be enough grounds for any responsible Vice President and Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and protect us all.
We can deal with accountability for the needless COVID deaths later.
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Speaking of 45... he got COVID a few months ago. This research suggests at least a 50% chance that he may have suffered neurological damage as a result.
Very interesting. Today, does his launch request go through other people or a "WOPR"? I suspect no human would obey to such a peace-time request, in light of what's going on.
Re:Not surprising, this virus attacks blood vessel (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I know, the request still goes through humans. Nancy Pelosi was asking about this after the events on Wednesday and at least she seems reassured by the answers she got.
I'm not sure I'm entirely reassured, though.
The main reason Trump has been fighting the election results so much is because he knows that as soon as he's no longer President, a lot of civil and criminal charges are going to come home to roost (I'm not including anything added to this this week).
He might be able to pardon himself from federal charges (mayyybeee) but there are state charges likely to be filed very soon, and he can't pardon himself from those.
And given the magnitude of the charges, jail is likely.
As we get closer to reckoning day (January 20), the more desperate he is likely to become. January 6 was a shocking day, but I'm not sure we've seen the worst of it yet.
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He might be able to pardon himself from federal charges (mayyybeee)
I don't know the answers, but hoping someone smarter than me does. Is a president able to pardon future charges? If so, must the future charges be based on criminal actions that occurred before the pardon? And does a pardon necessarily acknowledge that a crime was committed?
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Is a president able to pardon future charges?
I am speaking about future charges for crimes that were already committed prior to the pardon.
The answer to that is yes. Nixon was pardoned well before any charges were brought against him.
However, it remains unclear whether president could self-pardon. The consensus seems that it won't hold, but would have to go to supreme court as there is no precedent.
If so, must the future charges be based on criminal actions that occurred before the pardon?
There is definitely no precedent on a pardon that covers future crimes. I hope not.
And does a pardon necessarily acknowledge that a crime was committed?
Yes.
After Ford left the White House in 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stated that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt.
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Very interesting. Today, does his launch request go through other people or a "WOPR"? I suspect no human would obey to such a peace-time request, in light of what's going on.
The request still goes through a person and believe it or not, there is nothing to stop a president from ordering a nuclear launch any time they so choose. Regardless of what the military says, if a president says launch, they have to launch.
RadioLab rebroadcast [wnycstudios.org] a show about this very topic [businessinsider.in].
The Radiolab episode explores the question of who or what - if anyone or anything - can stop a US president today from launching a nuclear weapon. And their answer is not comforting."The system is set up so that only the president has the authority to order a nuclear war. Nobody has the right to countermand that decision," William J. Perry, the 19th Secretary of State who served under former President Bill Clinton, from 1994 to 1997, told Radiolab.
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Now, NZ has a population of 5 million people, while the US has 330 million... but if we scale the death toll to account for that difference, the US should be at 1,650 right now.
This assumes a simple linear relation between population count and COVID infection / death rate. That is possibly a misleading over-simplification.
I do agree that scientific research and politics overlap and inform each other especially in the realm of public health.
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You're right about that, it's not necessarily a linear relationship.
New Zealand had an easier time closing its borders than most countries, given its remoteness. And certain populations might be more vulnerable than others.
But... the US is pretty favorably positioned geographically as well, with oceans on the east and west, Canada to the north (and that border has been mostly closed throughout the pandemic). The border to Mexico has also been technically closed, but it's a bit more... porous, shall we say.
Re:Not surprising, this virus attacks blood vessel (Score:4, Interesting)
The US-Canadian border is pretty porous too. I can travel to Peace Arch Park, and walk into America, visit Americans and even get a selfie taken by the nice American park ranger. There's the Alaska loophole, an American just has to claim to be traveling to Alaska to get across the border. And of course the essential traffic, trucks, healthcare workers and such who regularly cross the border.
The big hole is air travel, Canada has been pretty shitty about forcing travelers to quarantine, with basically a promise being good enough. I assume America is similar. Quickly looking I can't find the earlier article I saw with something like 45 flights recently with sick people on board and while looking, there's an article about the 4,253 Canadians who holidayed in Hawaii between Dec 1 and Jan 7.
Shitty border controls here and I'm sure in America.
One interesting factoid I saw earlier in the pandemic was how female leaders were much more likely to shut down the economy to save lives, like New Zealand did, and counter intuitively a hard shutdown leads to a quicker reopening. Here, and America, the economy has been a major worry, along with being careful not too intrude on rights.
Re:Not surprising, this virus attacks blood vessel (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics and scientific research are inextricably linked.
I'm so tired of hearing people say this. Anything and everything can be inextricably linked to politics.
Sorry, AC is correct. Politics have swamped this site. It's brought into damn near every topic, and too many times it causes the discussion to devolve into a blue v red, liberal v conservative, R v D, shitshow that has little to do with the submitted story.
You know that could be a sign of something else (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think you're right, people are placing more importance on politics these days. And well they should, given the systemic problems our society is experiencing and the complete lack of political will among our asinine leadership to do anything about them. Hopefully there'll be some positive change on that front with the incoming administration.
But it's one thing to give politics a higher priority in our lives, and completely another to give politics such a dominant position that it's A-OK for the first po
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What do you mean this site? The world is now like this, predominantly because party politics have devolved into this. People have always held political opinions, but they used to be moderate and centrist. As the parties have become more extreme in their hatred to each other people have become more vocal as well.
The other thing that has changed is the political opinion of the internet. What once was a freely ignored quirk of technology is now an active political debate in itself. It stands to reason that a n
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My world isn't anything like Slashdot, and I hope other people's worlds are like it either. I've never in my entire life hung out with a circle of friends where someone who started talking about the latest iPhone led someone else to immediately rant about Trump's latest tweet. Even when politics are discussed directly, I've never witnessed tempers flare to the point where people started flinging the crassest of personal insults at one another. That's the world of Slashdot.
I guess my world isn't the norm
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All in all (despite politics being involved) this actually seems like a pretty civil and thoughtful thread, and I've enjoyed reading and participating in it. Here are some additional thoughts.
Twenty years ago, technology wasn't linked into the core of most people's lives the way it is now. Tech geeks were mostly viewed in the same light as model train or ham radio geeks.
I think things really started to change during the dot-com boom. People started to realize that you could make good money in tech. Still, A
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Well, one of the reasons that politics comes up so often is that developers have awakened to the idea that any system that requires every individual to do the right thing is a broken system. That idea is inherent in most of the automation and testing that we build.
And when you look at human systems with that in mind, you realize that you can't expect individuals to individually make the right decision every time. Some decisions need to be made once and observed by everyone. And that's called "regulation"
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Bruh, your math sucks, like really bad, google comorbidities and think a little harder. But don't worry, I am sure Pres Biden and Dr. Fauci will save you. I wonder did New Zealand also experience "A Year's Worth of Suicide Attempts in Four Weeks"? Lockdowns are not a zero co
Re: Not surprising, this virus attacks blood vesse (Score:2)
So how do you explain the tens of thousands of deaths in Europe where Trump isnâ(TM)t President? New Zealand is a small island nation with easily secured borders. Thereâ(TM)s no comparison with the US or Europe. It also helps not having governors forcing nursing homes to take in COVID positive patients.
Re: Not surprising, this virus attacks blood vesse (Score:2)
Your comparison is asinine.
NZ completely - completely - blocked travel into the country march 18.
So I can assume therefore that you would have been fully in support of the United States doing this as well? Simply locking down the borders, refusing entry to anyone?
Maybe throwing unaccompanied children in their own detention facilities? Or just kicking them back across the border to fend for themselves?
Because if not, then you TOO bear responsibility for some of those 368k "unnecessary" deaths, you hypocrit
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Politics and scientific research are inextricably linked.
Scientific research *should* inform public policy, and it does in places like New Zealand... which has had a total of *25* deaths from COVID. Twenty-five.
Now, NZ has a population of 5 million people, while the US has 330 million... but if we scale the death toll to account for that difference, the US should be at 1,650 right now.
But because we have an anti-science administration in place, 370,000 have died. By my math that makes for over 368,000 needless deaths, caused entirely because of the anti-science mindset of this administration (and especially, Mr. 45).
This is cherrypicking. Not to defend the US covid policy or the current administration, your diagnosis there is spot on: They are fact resistant, just as most of their voters. This is beyond scary, even more so than Covid in the long run. That being said: New Zealand is an extreme outlier, also among other countries basing their Covid-policies on science. They have a huge natural advantage in being a relatively small, remote island. Cut international travel to about 0, have strict measures at a few contro
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The US also shares land borders with other countries, which NZ does not have. The closest neighbor to NZ is Australia, at over 5 hours away by air.
The US has a massively larger population than NZ.
The US has a more decentralised system of government. Many decisions are made by the individual states.
The US has a more fractured political system. Whatever action the state or federal leadership takes will be heavily criticised - ban flights and you're xenophobic or trying to destroy the economy, don't ban flight
Re: Not surprising, this virus attacks blood vesse (Score:2)
Typical 2020 with the Internet hate machine.
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Strange that you don't keep up with the news. Or you're just lying.
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You are stating lies you unamerican traitor. You don't yet understand how badly your side fucked up, and how much the country hates you. But you will. For the rest of your life, you will regret your choices.
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Is this incoherent word salad supposed to mean something? Did you forget your psych meds today?
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I lived in California at the start of 2020. Worked in SF, at a company with an open floor plan and lots of Asians (mainly Chinese) who traveled back and forth a lot.
There's some evidence that COVID had already arrived in California during December 2019. I was really sick during January 2020 for a couple of weeks, and I wonder if I might have had it then.
I had an antibody test done at the end of April and it came up negative, but I've since learned that that test is somewhat unreliable and (even in a best-ca
Is that why the world's going insane? (Score:4, Interesting)
If COVID can have these kinds of effects on the brains of younger people, imagine the damage it could do to the brain of an obese 74-year-old man (hypothetically speaking, of course).
Re:Is that why the world's going insane? (Score:5, Insightful)
Say what you will. Biden isn't the greatest public speaker, but he's a lot more coherent than 45. He's in better shape, too, and that fact that he's managed *not* to catch COVID says something about his higher reasoning ability remaining intact.
I'm not at all worried about Biden having the nuclear launch codes. I am, however, quite worried about the person who currently does.
Re:Is that why the world's going insane? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's telling that the only "defense" of Biden is "he's not quite as bad as Trump". The same could be said of a ham sandwich, after all.
I hate to break this to you, but that is not the only defense of Biden. Nor is it even accurate.
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A ham sandwich from, say, Subway wouldn't exactly be my top choice of meals, given all possible options. But it is, as you put it, "not quite as bad" as a shit sandwich drenched in week-old cum and cyanide.
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"At one point he thought he was running for the Senate"
No, no he didn't. Full clip with context here.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/el... [bbc.com]
I don't know where you get your news from, but it needs an upgrade.
Re:Is that why the world's going insane? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody who has listened to them both speak and has concluded DT is the better public speaker should primarily be worried about their own cognitive fitness.
Re: Is that why the world's going insane? (Score:2)
I think if they had the cognitive fitness to worry about congnitive fitness ... ;)
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Frankly, Trump's speech is rapidly becoming indistinguishable from fluent aphasia.
Biden's tendency to stammer is perhaps a bit more perceivable when you're not listening closely, but it's much less of an impediment to effective communication to people actually listening.
Trump is the better speaker (Score:2)
It's showmanship. What we need is a citizenry that ignores showmanship when they vote. Take Reagan & Schwarzenegger. Both were positively ghastly policy-wise, doing massive damage in office. But man did if they didn't make you *feel* great about yourself, your country and the future.
Oh one last thing (Score:2)
Re: Is that why the world's going insane? (Score:2)
You mean we'd have TWO Trumps? ;)
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Biden has always been a garrulous rambler who veered off into endless thickets of anecdotes. It's not age, and it's not strictly speaking an disability, it's just an irritating quirk. My late father-in-law was like that, and he designed the guidance systems for the Apollo missions.
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He can barely form a coherent thought as it is
The past 4 years and the entire Bush administration proved that having a coherent thought is not only *not* a requirement for holding the office of POTUS, it's almost a hindrance to getting elected.
So many jokes ... (Score:2)
1) Huh, so they all had Covid!
2) Thank Jeezuz I don't have a brian!
3) Causes terrible damage on the human brain... like you know who.
They just write themselves!
We should talk about this more (Score:5, Insightful)
We are going to solve that this year, but will be dealing with many millions of people permanently injured for a generation.
If we can drive the fact that one may not die but be permanently maimed into people's thick heads, maybe they would wear an effective mask properly at all times in public.
This is your brain - this is your brain on Covid.
Re:We should talk about this more (Score:5, Informative)
Except that the cited study never actually concludes that the observed brain damage can be definitively linked to Covid-19. In fact, it says the opposite: they aren't really sure.
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See: https://www.mayoclinic.org/dis... [mayoclinic.org]
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Yeah, the public health concerns are somewhat like the viral encephalitises, for example Eastern Equine (EEE). A major EEE epidemic in a state might be twenty or thirty cases, half of which die, so if you go by death rate per 100,000 population it's insignificant. But the cost of dealing with the survivors is staggering. Sometimes you have young people who have to spend the rest of their life institutionalized.
Here there's a broad spectrum of "sequelae", few cases as bad as EEE, but in vast numbers.
Not covid... it's the blood clot! (Score:2)
I bet people will argue covid isn't to blame unless it directly kills your lungs; refusing to blame other direct damage let alone indirect harm... because of politics...
I know two people who "recovered" with issues:
1 is old and acts like she had a stroke; nearly a vegetable right now but she "recovered" from 3 weeks hospitalized from covid. Less than 1 week after then a bad stroke and was on blood thinners already.
1 without symptoms: died from a heart attack recently. "natural death" except it was just week
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Everyone I know is very aware of possible permanent damage. That's what scares me - not dying.
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Re: We should talk about this more (Score:2)
What about controls and other conditions? (Score:3)
So how do we know these changes are from COVID and from COVID alone?
Were they brain scanned just before getting COVID, too? Could any of the other conditions also have contributed to the changes?
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So how do we know these changes are from COVID and from COVID alone?
Were they brain scanned just before getting COVID, too? Could any of the other conditions also have contributed to the changes?
No worries, with the covid petri dish that is called America, we have now at least 20 million samples across the whole population that scientists can study in the coming decades to careful tease out exactly how bad covid-19 can damage human beings.
The rest of the world should thank Americans for volunteering to participate in this huge experiment.
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That's not necessary. Given a large enough pair of samples you can isolate just the COVID damage - either taking into account confounds or sufficient sample sizes so there's no need to.
in other news (Score:3)
Re:Can't be true (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Can't be true (Score:3)
You argument is a good one, but only in the box of an already insane implication that it being a flu relative (which it is) couldn't mean it is very bad.
We only got lucky with the flu mutations up until now, boys and girls! "It's like he flu!" is not an argument for it being harmless!
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that it being a flu relative (which it is)
Is it? They're both in the same kingdom, orthoviridae, and that's where the relation ends. Saying they're relatives is like saying humans and comb jellies are relatives. I mean that's true in an evolutionary sense, but so distant that there's not an immense amount to be discovered from the comparison. Even if you're studying commonalities at that point you'd be better off with other model organisms that are easier to handle.
Anyhoo
I think a big bit of the problem i
The rate of serious complications (Score:2)
COVID is very, very much not "the flu". A bad flu season kills 60,000. A bad COVID season... well we don't know, but even with all the lock downs and precautions we're gonna top 400k.
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9 out of 10 people confuse the Flu and the common cold. The other 1 person has had the Flu and can never confuse the two again.
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Just a reminder to keep the flu in check then, because as it is, covid is pretty darn bad.
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So, since a cold causes a fever and the black death causes a fever, they're exactly the same.
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Colds don't cause fevers.
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Rhinovirus doesn't cause a fever. Many other things cause what people call a cold and do cause a fever. But you're deliberately missing the point aren't you?
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Coronaviruses frequently cause colds, I believe they're the second most common cause after rhinoviruses.
Re: How do they know the damage is from the virus? (Score:2)
Why not both? :D
Re:How do they know the damage is from the virus? (Score:4, Informative)
Isn't it plausible that prior damage causes the infection? People act like it for sure.
Well, yes. You do have a point. The media articles are quick to suspect a link between COVID-19 and the brain damage, but the original researchers do not make any such claim. They examined 19 patients with ages from 5 to 73 years. From their abstract (linked in TFS):
Images were obtained from the brains of 13 patients [...] Abnormalities were seen in the brains of 10 patients. [...] We performed conventional histopathological examination of the brains of 18 patients. Fourteen patients had chronic illnesses, including diabetes and hypertension, and 11 had been found dead or had died suddenly and unexpectedly. Of the 16 patients with available medical histories, 1 had delirium, 5 had mild respiratory symptoms, 4 had acute respiratory distress syndrome, 2 had pulmonary embolism, and the symptoms were not known in 3.
[...] Because of the limited clinical information that was available, no conclusions can be drawn in relation to neurologic features of Covid-19.
[emphasis mine]
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And, this being slashdot, the parent post, that debunks the entire story, sits down here, modded to 2.
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Well you blew their thorough medical study right out of the water with that one!
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Isn't it plausible that prior damage causes the infection? People act like it for sure.
Definitely. It's also true that coronavirus increases your lifespan!
Don't believe me? In the UK the average age of people dying without coronavirus is about 80, whereas the median age of people dying with coronavirus is 82.
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Thank you for not posting an affiliate link.