Long Covid in the media and social media 2022

https://twitter.com/user/status/1562516661692874752


Just saw that the CLOCK long covid researcher tweeted about that article.

 

Wearable technology and COVID-19

"Hirten noted that as machine learning approaches are applied to the large quantities of information extracted from wearables, they will start to tease out the subtle physiological signals that hint at the presence of an infection or other disease state. “We have a proof-of-concept that we are able to predict inflammatory events, such as respiratory viruses like SARS-CoV-2 and influenza, but the approaches are not specific to one infection or aetiology”, explained Hirten. Combining data taken from wearables with self-reported symptoms could prove productive, although users might not have the time or inclination to continually provide updated information.

“Having your own personalised baseline can help you understand your health better and raise the red flag when things move outside the baseline”, added Julia Moore Vogel, Program Director of The Participant Center, All of Us Research Program at Scripps Research (La Jolla, CA, USA). She has had long COVID for over 2 years. “I had brain fog for around 6 months after the initial infection, and it still occurs when I do too much. Daily, I have fatigue, headaches, and some chest pain”, said Vogel. Individuals with long COVID, including Vogel, commonly find that up to 72 h after overexerting themselves, they experience a flare-up of their symptoms. Carefully choosing when to be active and when to rest, a process known as pacing, can help to manage the condition."

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(22)00351-4/fulltext

 

Long COVID: Dramatic consequences seen among top German athletes

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/29/mvly-a29.html

 

This is a good thread querying the numbers cited by Brookings and their data analysis. https://twitter.com/user/status/1562526567875502081


Katie Bach responds on twitter, with responses from Ben Mazer.
https://twitter.com/user/status/1563664822654619648


Worth reading both threads.

 

Thread reporting upcoming Phase II RCT using monoclonal antibody Temelimab in Long Covid. Trial based in Geneva, paid for by Swiss govt. The drug works against the protein HERV-W-Env which effects the microglia in brain, and is in development for MS also.

https://twitter.com/HerbertoDhanis/status/1564258369208213505?s=20&t=3ofBGI4ocoW11ZhSvR9RvQ

 

Financial Times The growing evidence that Covid-19 is leaving people sicker

quotes:

As he started to see a rise in certain conditions in the first year of the pandemic, Strain assumed it was the result of people being unable or unwilling to access healthcare. Only as the pandemic entered its second year did he begin to suspect that Covid itself could be increasing vulnerability to other serious illnesses. He now sees it as an inversion of the huge drop in respiratory illness doctors saw from the 1980s onwards, when millions either stopped or reduced smoking. “The level of damage that’s been done to population health [during Covid], it would be as if everybody suddenly decided to take up smoking in one go,” Strain says.

...

Given the many challenges healthcare professionals are facing “it’s impossible to square the circle unless we are prepared to very fundamentally rethink how we deliver healthcare,” says Jeremy Lim, director of the Leadership Institute for Global Health Transformation at Singapore’s NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.

 

We've been there for decades. We've been saying that for decades. And would you look at that: for the very same problem that is happening to us. Almost like we know what's happening to us.

So how do we get the medical profession to get there? Because we are already so there, we're definitely not the ones holding this up. Most articles and papers about LC talk about working with patients but it's still not happening, because this is roughly what would happen as a result.

The move from supply-side medicine towards a stakeholder model, where the people affected by decisions are part of the entire process and have actual enforceable rights, is what this move is about in a nutshell. Medicine is not willing to do this yet. People say it, but they aren't doing it.

 

In a Swedish local paper:

Nästan bara kvinnor på postcovid-doktorns lista
https://www.mitti.se/nyheter/nastan...doktorns-lista/repvhr!s6J8cgq08AAVBP82QRBLdA/

 

Why does it always seem to come across as a surprise to so many people that a woman's immune system works differently to a man's immune system? Babies? Does anyone remember them? Can only be produced by biological females?

I think it would be more surprising if men and women had an immune system that worked in exactly the same way.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/31/good-news-long-covid-uk-cases-scientists

 

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/first-diagnostic-test-long-covid-070000516.html

This post has been copied to:
First test for long Covid gets EU approval, August 2022 - IncellDx incellKINE Long COVID test

 

Yes..well......it looks like what's needed here is a round object, possibly fitted to an axle.

Maybe some should invent it.

 

Press release from the Swedish Covid Association: "Five out of eight parliamentary parties: a national knowledge centre for post-covid is needed"

Fem av åtta riksdagspartier: Ett nationellt kunskapscentrum för postcovid behövs
https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/svens...unskapscentrum-foer-postcovid-behoevs-3200624

 

See post on Sex differences in immune responses (2016)

 

Science News Who has the highest risk of long COVID? It's complicated

“There are a variety of different kinds of ways that people can have long COVID. It’s not just the one thing,” says Leora Horwitz, an internal medicine physician at New York University Langone Health. “That’s what makes it so hard to study.”

...

Examining health conditions that raise the chances of long COVID could provide answers for both diseases, says Nancy Klimas, an immunologist at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. That’s in part because researchers can more easily identify people who developed lingering symptoms after a bout of COVID-19 compared with unknown infections that may precede ME/CFS.

Also, “there’s a huge difference in these two fields and it’s money,” Klimas says.

 

A few finds out there, there is a slow growth in acknowledgement of LC. Very very slow. Still very muted, more of a mutter ("hey, be careful, I guess") than a public health warning, but it's getting harder to ignore given that every effort is made to unwittingly maximize Long Covid.

 

Who knew that ignoring a problem in exactly the perfect way to make it worse was a bad idea?

 

PNAS: Lots of long COVID treatment leads, but few are proven
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2213524119

Not much stands out other than the fact that way more research is needed. At least it's honest. I don't think this is correct, though:

Seems to confuse the $1.15B NIH funding, which did not happen this year, or involve POTUS. The budget mentioned in the fact sheet in reference is closer to $50M. Not sure what that "pledge" is about.

And frankly so far the only information that is making people pay attention is unrelated to healthcare or medicine, it's the economic impact. Accountants count things, all the things, it's literally their job. They don't interpret, they count.

Oddly, there's a lot of talk about the microclots hypothesis without mentioning that the NIH rejected the only proposal. Or I didn't notice it if it's there.