Long Covid in the media and social media 2022

https://twitter.com/user/status/1558741557213372417

 

'Frances Williams, a professor of genomic epidemiology and part of the team running the Zoe Covid Symptom Tracker app — the world’s largest study of the disease — says in this scepticism we can see parallels with the myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) community, who also deal with a wide range of symptoms including extreme tiredness. “The notion that [illnesses] are ‘all in your head’ is 30 years out of date,” she says. “Part of the problem the ME community has had is [people] trying to split physical and mental illness — the two are intimately related.” Williams believes that expanding our comprehension of ME could be “very insightful” for understanding long Covid, and vice versa. “I don’t see anything that tells me it’s a completely different beast.”



The article may be clearer about Long Covid but on ME the quote from Frances Williams is same old same old.

"Extreme tiredness". "...physical and mental illness - the two are intimately related".

How the hell is calling ME "tiredness" progress? It's not, it's going backwards.

What happened to PEM? An abnormal response to exercise. Why won't scientists and journalists use that term. How has the word "Tiredness" taken hold of minds in relation to ME to the extent that journalists (and it appears some scientists) just can't stop parrot-repeating it.

 

@Lou B Lou you just beat me to it. I'll just editorialise with a "yeah... nah."

 

There so much to unpack here that I don't even know where to start.

https://brownstone.org/articles/how-masking-contributes-to-long-covid/

Symptoms Long Covid link to MIES

At this point there has been limited attention for a possible relation of Long Covid and exposure to chemicals in masks, nasopharyngeal tests and disinfectants. In a meta-analysis by an interdisciplinary team of German physicians, a potential risk of Mask Induced Exhaustion Syndrome (MIES) has been found. The most frequently observed symptoms (fatigue, headaches, dizziness, lack of concentration) as described for MIES overlap with important symptoms for Long Covid syndrome.

The lack of smell and taste during Covid-19 seems to be different as compared to symptoms during the flu. A lack of taste and smell are frequently observed after chemotherapy in cancer treatments and has been linked to malnutrition, inflammation and depression. Also, brain fog is a symptom occurring after chemotherapy. It seems likely that harmful effects by long-term mask-wearing and frequent nasopharyngeal testing with increased exposure to chemicals (not naturally found products) can accelerate symptoms and contribute to Long Covid.

Up to now, the safety of long-term and frequent wearing of masks and taking nasal swab samples in a delicate area in the nose, often by hardly experienced persons, have been poorly investigated. Severe nose bleedings (epistaxis), cerebrospinal fluid leakage , vomiting, dizziness and fainting have been reported. Most frequently used masks and nasopharyngeal tests are derived from China with less strict controls and measures for the presence of hazardous materials.

In several countries masks and nasopharyngeal tests delivered by governments were taken from the market. Microplastics, nanoparticles (graphene oxide, titanium dioxide, silver, ethylene oxide, coloring compounds, fluorocarbon (PFAS) and heavy metals have been found in masks and nasopharyngeal tests. Unfortunately, not all masks and tests used during the pandemic are controlled. A report from the Dutch Public Health institute (RIVM) released in November 2021 stated “the safety of masks cannot be guaranteed.”

The short- and long-term impact of frequent exposure on the physiology and physical and mental functioning of the human body is unknown. Harmful effects for children, who are less able to detoxify, could result in a compromised immune and nervous system resulting in repeated and rare infections with more chronic diseases during aging and less healthy future generations.

Microplastics and nanoparticles withdraw proteins, vitamins and minerals forming bio- corona (microclots), accumulating in important organs (blood, liver, gut, lung tissue), and disturb important physiological and immunological processes

The liver, lungs and gut are important organs in energy metabolism, detoxification and surveillance by the innate immune system. Disrupting a delicate gut-liver-brain axis can relate to fatigue and exhaustion.

 

Some background about the author Carla Peeters

https://www.carlapeeters.com/

https://twitter.com/CarlaPeeters3

 

So...according to her, LC is caused by doing exactly what people were instructed to do, what in most cases they were legally mandated to do?

Of course, if the problem is use of substandard and non approved equipment, applied by untrained persons, then obviously absolutely no medical staff will have LC.....


If this is 'fact' then;

1
2
3

Everyone sue the Government, and all of it's departments/agents.

Obviously the Government will also have to sue itself, as people who work for it, and followed all the rules, if any government employees indeed did, may also have LC.

 

Quick! Someone please alert the surgeons, firefighters, painters, chemical workers, etc!

 

Two interesting twitter threads, one by the Scottish royal astronomer and by an immunologist with MS who notices the similarities in his struggle getting diagnosed, how this problem is systemic:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1558394932699840518

https://twitter.com/user/status/1558619316274089985


It sure would be great if people who know nothing about the topic, like Frances Williams, would stop opining out of ignorance and especially lying about verifiable things. Especially in the media. The amount of shameless lying in healthcare is completely out of control, it's clearly been normalized for so long that no one even thinks twice about it, it's a daily standard now.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1558485610628890627

 

In every other profession and industry, experts act before disasters happen, at least try to prevent them. I don't understand how it's OK for healthcare industry to operate on the basis of doing nothing unless a problem completely cripples the entire system. Because the message here is very loud and clear: unless you sick people with your complaints completely render healthcare services unable to function, no one cares, no one does anything, sick people are of no concern to anyone in this industry as long as they don't see or hear from them.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1559150624360599552


Meanwhile the thousands of us who warned about this are still completely ignored, no one even acknowledges that people warned about this disaster, warnings that are still ignored.

 

There are plenty of exceptions where a high degree of death and morbidity is tolerated - guns in the USA, motorised/road transport, the airline industry with respect to respiratory infections...

 

SBU (The Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services) has published their final report on their systematic evidence review of treatments and rehab for long covid.

Available in English here:
https://www.sbu.se/en/publications/...d-19--effective-treatment-and-rehabilitation/

Swedish version here:
https://www.sbu.se/sv/publikationer/sbu-bereder/postcovid/

The Swedish Covid Association summarises and comments on Twitter:

 

Merged thread.

https://www.bio-itworld.com/news/20...chronic-fatigue-syndrome-have-a-lot-in-common

 

Article on Long Covid published in the "Le Nouvelliste", newspaper of one of the main cities of the Province of Quebec (Canada). The people interviewed describe well what it is like to live with LC, the major impacts on life and the little information, help and support from the health system and the government. ME is also mentioned, which is quite new here (finally !). It also talks about pacing, current research, and the fact of having neglected research on post-viral diseases for too long ...

https://www.lenouvelliste.ca/2022/0...-vie-bascule-c69f7dc09ccea7af29927a0b5b35487c (French)

*All excerpts are translations from French

 

Articles with low risk of bias: 0.

At least there's some basic sanity here but I don't see a conclusion or findings. This has literally been standard treatment for years and it's on this basis that people want to use it here again. Are they just avoiding admitting it's a waste? It's maddening that we can have both realities at once: not enough evidence to conclude either way, but also it's standard treatment. Good grief the decision paralysis while people's lives are wasting.

 

This led to this article in a national newspaper in Ireland:
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40940651.html

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1559642787800158208

 

https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/17...ovid-get-strength-from-growing-facebook-group

 

A rare news story about long Covid from Norway. No mention of ME.

It's about a study, Symptom burden and immune dynamics 6 to 18 months following mild SARS-CoV-2 infection - a case-control study, 2022 (Bergen COVID-19 Research Group et al) who followed up 233 Covid-19 patients from the start of the pandemic and found that 46% are struggling with different long term symptoms, and that these symptoms can also get worse with time.

Everyone were infected with the first Wuhan-virus, but the researchers say that they see sign of just as much problems with the new variants, even though they usually give milder infections. None of the participants were hospitalised and they had normal health to begin with.

The group includes people with less severe symptoms as coughing and headache, but 39% reported of fatigue after six months. 22% reported of difficulty in concentration and 21% reported of memory problems. Those who struggled with concentration and memory report of deterioration after 18 months.

One of the researchers says that this is bad news particularly for those who are dependent of being mentally on top, as students, pupils and those starting up in new jobs.

Research director from the Norwegian Institute for Public Health, Signe Flottorp, says the study is interesting but that we now know that vaccine protects against persistent symptoms and that Omicron has lower risk of long covid than the previous variants. She worries that people might get scared of something that's not as relevant anymore. It's not good that the participants have been struggling for a long time, but luckily few experience serious symptoms.

She further says that those who are vaccinated are better protected against severe Covid-19 and against persistent symptoms.

The article ends with one of the researchers saying that she's been able to avoid the infection herself and advice people to be careful and try not to get the disease.

TV2 Nedslående funn om lang-covid: - Spesielt dårlig nytt for studenter og skoleelever
google translation Disappointing findings about long-term covid: - Particularly bad news for students and school pupils