News about Long Covid including its relationship to ME/CFS 2020 to 2021

Ah, that's the one. I thought he had tried to make t-cell and therapy alliterate in a rhyme, my bad I made him seem more clever than he is.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/12/long-covid-trial-britain-short-term-virus

 

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health/what-causes-long-covid-symptoms-clues-under-microscope

 

Just saw psychology professor Jonas R. Kunst share this article on twitter commenting that Russian flu was also associated with inflammatory conditions and fatigue reminiscent of Long Covid.

The article is paywalled, so don't know if this is prof. Kunst's thoughts, or if the article is about long term effects of Russian flu.

Anyway, here's the link if anyone with access want to take a look.
The Telegraph Was the Russian flu a "coronavirus"? What the 1890's pandemic tells us about how Covid might end

 

This is the only mention of Long Covid:

Wow:

That medicine (and the Lancet) still has a fixation with pseudoscience over a hundred years later is pretty appalling.

Moreover, this goes to show that the nonsense from modern-day charlatans about so-called cultural illnesses and mass hysteria (spread via the internet) isn't even original.

Article can be read in full here.

 

RollingStone What the Long Covid Numbers Aren't Telling Us

Quote:

Although the current definitions of Long Covid are incredibly broad, before they existed, there was even less certainty about what “counted” as Long Covid among patients, researchers, and medical professionals. “Long Covid means different things to different people,” says Jaime Seltzer, director of medical and scientific outreach for #MEAction, an advocacy organization for people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) — including the estimated 10 to 12 percent of those with Long Covid who will develop the condition. “Studies are measuring Long Covid at different intervals and capturing different populations within Long Covid, which may explain the discrepancy in the statistics.”

For example, a study that includes a large number of people who were hospitalized, may be capturing a segment of people who are dealing with post-intensive care syndrome, Seltzer explains. Or, data gathered soon after a person’s acute Covid-19 infection may identify people with post-viral fatigue that is recoverable, while missing people who develop ME/CFS months later.

 

I think a low-level of naive T cells in blood is quite hard to interpret. My immediate reaction is that the most likely explanation is that the immune system is busy. If people are buying lots of umbrellas because of unusual rain the shops will be short on umbrellas but that is just because they are doing their job.

The citation mentions IFN-beta so it may be that they are looking at a situation where lymphoid tissue has unregulated signals needed for busy responses and the naive T cells are all getting snapped up by the responsive tissue via unregulated endothelium.

It would be very useful if this sort of trafficking change could be documented in a post-viral state like post-Covid. I very much doubt that any of this adds up to dysregulation though. It would be quite consistent with the immune response going on being busy according to normal rules.But the puzzle with ME is that the usual activation-related. cytokines do not seem to be showing up. The one most often mentioned is TGF=beta which is mostly a down regulator.

 

This may not be the original context but it seems at home here

https://twitter.com/user/status/1481982810764234755

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1482028619065143297

 

Trial By Error: French Dogs on the Trail; Impact of Long Covid on the US Job Market

https://www.virology.ws/2022/01/14/...id-impact-of-long-covid-on-the-us-job-market/

 

Member of US Congress asking about Long Covid. Got a lot of replies.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1481737054484586498

 

Does anyone know if patients developed LC after being fully vaccinated (x2 or x3)?

 

Said before but worth saying here and elsewhere again. One common thread among the changes in perception of LC and ME is a person now coming into contact with the illness either themselves or someone they know well.

Otherwise the default position is the one the Wessely school has pushed so hard. That only the weak-willed and fearful succumb. It. is. incorrect. And based on nothing but prejudice.

ETA: Just for a change, to show a little positivity, I have to say there is a crack forming in that BPS wall of illness denial and it is letting the light in.

 

Some people on twitter have definitely reported LC after being x2 dose vaccinated. Of course we haven't yet seen such cases associated with Omicron, it is possible the risk is lower since the Omicron spike protein behaves differently.

 

As the threat of catching Covid begins to recede people will inevitably adopt this attitude. There is only a window of opportunity to get LC taken seriously before this view becomes the norm. With no longer a personal threat to themselves they will dismiss it as only affecting the 'weak/undeserving' in society and in doing so patting themselves on the back for being so strong/deserving to not having been affected. 'Long Covid' will become the new 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome'.

 

Stuff The narrative of Omicron as a 'milder' variant is dangerous, given what we know about long Covid, experts warn

quotes:
Otago University’s Emeritus Professor Warren Tate is a biochemist who has been studying myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) for more than 30 years.

In 2020, his team proved that ME/CFS is not psychosomatic but has a biological basis. The research identified changes in important physiological and biochemical pathways and systems in affected patients when compared with healthy people.

Tate is now collaborating with Brooks to study long Covid and post-viral illnesses more comprehensively.

Both have been working with the team led by Resia Pretorius, a professor of physiological sciences at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, whose lab has found significant microclot formation in the blood of long Covid patients.

...

Kurt Krause, a professor of biochemistry at Otago University and a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, is hopeful the focus on long Covid will lead to increased funding and awareness for post-viral illnesses generally.

He says while some post-viral complications are obvious and easy to document (if HIV is not treated, for example, it can target and weaken the immune system, leading to AIDS), others are harder to quantify.

“These are more functional complaints: inability to concentrate, low energy, brain fog. We’ve seen these symptoms for decades, but I can’t draw blood to confirm them.”

Thanks to research done on ME/CFS, it’s well-established that functional complaints are “real” and work is being done to figure out causes and treatments.

“In previous conditions like this, there was always this initial struggle that people who were suffering were dismissed. I’m hoping we won’t have that this time. I’m hoping we’ll be wise enough to realise people could very well be having long-term effects from Covid. And then, do our best to take care of those people.”