Long Covid Catchall

Provided you never ask about the Covid vaccination history, that is.

It seems like today the bottom fell out of the Long Covid news repository, and now Long Covid accounts for just about anything, maybe with the exception of Iceland volcanos. Should’ve taken that Covid jab when first offered! To wit:

• “Getting Vaccinated May Be Your Best Protection from Long COVID” (Time, 2023.11.22):

  People vaccinated before their first case of COVID-19 are diagnosed with Long COVID almost four times less than unvaccinated people, suggests a large new study published Nov. 22 in the BMJ.

  The study in question says:

  Results: Of 299 692 vaccinated individuals with covid-19, 1201 (0.4%) had a diagnosis of Post-Covid Condition (PCC) during follow-up, compared with 4118 (1.4%) of 290 030 unvaccinated individuals. Covid-19 vaccination with any number of doses before infection was associated with a reduced risk of PCC (adjusted hazard ratio 0.42, 95% confidence interval 0.38 to 0.46), with a vaccine effectiveness of 58%. Of the vaccinated individuals, 21 111 received one dose only, 205 650 received two doses, and 72 931 received three or more doses. Vaccine effectiveness against PCC for one dose, two doses, and three or more doses was 21%, 59%, and 73%, respectively.

  

  Wow! Works like magic? Except to say:

  However, we cannot fully rule out the possibility that vaccinated individuals are less likely than unvaccinated individuals to receive a PCC diagnosis owing to expectations from both patients and healthcare providers about the protective effect of vaccination—although it may be less likely that this bias would increase with increasing number of vaccine doses and show the strong dose-response association in our results.

  A few studies have also investigated the impact of vaccination on existing PCC, showing both no effect as well as alleviation and aggravation of PCC symptoms.

  So, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder? In any case, it’s an interesting piece of information to chew on.

  I’m still on the fence, regarding taking these findings at face value, and would appreciate you weighing in, in the comments section below.

• “Long Covid ‘changes brains of people differently to those who recover from virus’” (Independent, 2023.11.23)

  An estimated 2 million people in the UK reported symptoms of ‘long covid’.

  The study estimated as many as 10-25% of people diagnosed with the virus suffer from long Covid. The group of researchers, led by Dr Alexander Rau, of University Hospital Freiburg, found that people with long Covid exhibit patterns of changes in the brain that are different from fully recovered Covid-19 patients. “We noted gray matter alterations in both patients with long-COVID and those unimpaired after a COVID-19 infection. Interestingly, we not only noted widespread microstructural alterations in patients with long COVID, but also in those unimpaired after having contracted COVID-19."

  Should’ve taken that jab, just saying! Except, the “study” never mentions the saviour Covid “vaccines” - they never enter into the equation, or even into the discussion, as if they never-ever even existed:

  Despite these brain imaging findings, it remains unclear why some people develop long

  COVID while others do not, although previous studies have identified risk factors including female sex, older age, higher body mass index, smoking, preexisting comorbidities, and previous hospitalization or intensive care unit admission.

• “Inside long COVID’s war on the body: Researchers are trying to find out whether the virus has the potential to cause cancer” (Fortune, 2023.11.23)

  “We don’t really understand the virus quite well, so I can only speculate whether SARS-CoV-2 can lead to cancers,” says Akiko Iwasaki, a professor at Yale School of Medicine and co-lead investigator of Yale’s COVID-19 Recovery Study, which aims to understand changes in the immune response in people with Long COVID after vaccination. “We just don’t know yet what this virus is capable of doing.”

  Chronic inflammation, Iwasaki says, “sort of creates a situation for more mutations to accumulate in different cells…and those that proliferate can become cancerous.” Cancer also seldom results from a single event; it typically requires multiple mutagenic events that occur over an extended period.

  …Much less is known about the long-term effects, but one theory is that some long COVID patients experience a sort of continuous low-grade inflammation that can contribute to tissue and organ damage.

  A growing body of evidence suggests that both viral infection and chronic inflammation can be risk factors for cancer and other diseases.

  Nothing works better for “chronic inflammation” than S spikes auto-generated in you for half a year to indefinitely, post jabbination, does it? As to be expected, the word “vaccine” is not mentioned in this Fortune article, out the abundance of caution.

On the bright side (the photo at the top of this post), “10-minute treatment found to restore sense of smell after a Covid infection” (Express, 2023.11.23):

The treatment involves injecting anaesthetic directly into a group of nerves on one side of the neck to stimulate the autonomic nervous system, which is accurately achieved with CT guidance. The minimally invasive procedure takes less than 10 minutes, and no sedation is necessary.

For the study, which is due to be presented at an annual Radiology Society of North America meeting, 37 patients with parosmia were given the injection. Of these, 22 reported improved symptoms at one week post-injection. And 18 reported significant progressive improvement by one month post-procedure.

“We have been surprised at some outcomes, including near 100 percent resolution of phantosmia, a condition that causes people to detect smells that aren’t there, in some patients, throughout the trial. “Other treatments have failed to date, this injection is working.”

In fact, these 18 have significantly, progressively improved to the extent that they have been hired to work at the international airport baggage areas in lieu of the sniff dogs. Kidding! Yet, it’s finally some tangible good news, for a change!

By the way, the speed and efficacy of this simple treatment seems to totally negate the findings of the “Long Covid ‘changes brains of people differently to those who recover from virus’” article:

“Interestingly, we not only noted widespread microstructural alterations in patients with long Covid, but also in those unimpaired after having contracted Covid-19.”

The findings also revealed a correlation between microstructural changes and symptom-specific brain networks associated with impaired cognition, sense of smell and fatigue.

Dr Rau added: “Expression of post-Covid symptoms was associated with specific affected cerebral networks, suggesting a pathophysiological basis of this syndrome.”

If those purported widespread microstructural changes in gray matter are so easy to reverse, maybe esteemed scientists were chasing black cats in the dark room with no actual cats in it? Seems like we shouldn’t trust just any unconfirmed finding, no matter how bleeding edge scientific, in everything Covid.