We Need to Backtrack and Explain the Disease

Many people are surprised that Covid is still around, or that it can cause permanent disabilities. It might be time for a refresher.

Kaveri Roy is an Assistant Professor of Nursing, and she explained how Covid works to her first year students last year in very simple terms, like this:

"I teach patho to nursing students. Every semester since spring of 2020, I have taught about Covid. And every semester to have to change my lecture to keep up with new data. I was teaching Covid this semester and I told them that if nothing else, understand the science. 

I explained how Covid attaches to ACE2 receptors in the nose, throat, heart, kidneys, and gut first. That’s why you see a runny nose, sore throat, myocarditis and acute kidney failure first. There aren’t as many ACE 2 receptors in the lungs, so Covid hits the lungs later. That’s why you see lag time between initial infection and respiratory symptoms. More importantly, I explained that Covid is not just a lung disease, it is a massive systemic inflammatory response to the virus. Covid also upregulates a protein called bradykinin, causing clots. If nothing else, I told them to think of Covid as huge inflammatory process that causes injury, scarring and clots to form everywhere. That’s why we are seeing so many strokes, MIs, weird liver failure in peds, bowel ischemia, and long Covid. It all points to chronic inflammation. 

There is no immunity as the variants keep changing, kind of like the flu, which is why we get flu shots every year. We’ve just let this run rampant, so a slew of Covid variants keep popping up, rendering treatments less effective.The worst part of this was when one student said that their parents had gotten Covid and asked how to keep them safe from the complications. Another student piped in and said she had Covid 3 times and was she at risk too? It was my moment of reckoning. I realized that there wasn’t much I could say except to protect themselves with masks, vaccinations, and to try not to get Covid again. I told them that if they had Covid, they were at higher risk of long Covid and latent complications. There was nothing to be done except to protect themselves going forward. 

After that there was silence. 

One of my students then said how disappointed in government and public health leaders he was. Another told me she was disappointed in her professors and her school for not being more vigilant. I told them that as long as they understood the patho of the disease, they could guard against misinformation. I told them to educate their families and patients about the science, not the rumors. This left me feeling so sad. What have we done? If I can teach this to first semester nursing students, why couldn’t we have taught this to everyone? People do not understand the disease and no one bothers to explain it. Perhaps that’s why we have failed so miserably. We need to backtrack and explain the disease before we start talking about immunity debt (a non issue) and endemicity. My students are so young. It’s heartbreaking. 

I have been asked for some basic material on Covid. I made a quick YouTube video. Please forgive all the “umms” in it. This is just meant to be basic knowledge for people. If you find it helpful please share.

One hugely important thing I need to add: getting Covid can lead to autoimmune disease. Covid causes autoantibodies to form. These autoantibodies attack our cells and tissues and cause many of the post Covid symptoms we see, such as shortness of breath, fatigue, and brain fog.Covid also causes B cell (antibodies) and T cell abnormalities and immunosuppression. The rise in RSV and Influenza that we are seeing is likely because of this immunosuppression, NOT immunity debt!! Immunity debt is a myth to cover up the fact that by letting Covid run rampant, we have now caused autoimmune disease and immunodeficiency. Anyone one who has gotten Covid is at risk, not just severe and long Covid."

Then yesterday she added an update:

"A year later, almost all of my students have had COVID by now, some 3 or 4 times, if not more. No one is wearing masks, as the school dropped the requirement and determined we are “post Covid”. I am still wearing my N-95, and I have not tested positive for COVID. 

I’m beginning to see the effects of Covid and long Covid in my students, and it is heartbreaking. Students describe cognitive issues, lack of energy, having to relearn how to study. Attention spans are shorter and there is just so much sickness. I taught my Covid lecture last week. Four or five students out 90 were out sick and a few had just gotten over Covid. The students had so many questions. It shocks me how much we have failed them. 

One student asked if it was really true that Covid was airborne. She said that people were saying it wasn’t airborne. I told her and the rest of the class that Covid was proven to be airborne and any other info was politics, not science. She then told me about a nurse who insisted that Covid was not airborne and all we need are surgical masks. I told them that this was a massive failure of our public health system. I explained how Covid travels through the body and why we see the symptoms we see. I talked a lot more about the autoimmune aspects of Covid, the “mysterious” myocarditis and hepatitis seen. I explained that Covid causes massive clotting, systemic inflammation, and autoimmune disease. When I talk about risk factors for different diseases, I mention Covid a lot. They seemed scared, though not scared enough to put on masks. :(

At the break, a student came to me and said that he was newly diagnosed with asthma. He couldn’t figure out why until he heard the Covid lecture. He had COVID a few weeks before he was diagnosed. After lecture, one of my students came up in tears. She thanked me for the lecture and told me that she had long Covid symptoms and she found the information validating. She told me that no one talked about it or explained all of this to her. 

Inside, I was boiling. Is this what our “esteemed” CDC and NIH have caused? I feel so hopeless at times. But the only thing I can contribute is information. So I will keep trying and I will keep wearing a mask. I will say that for me, one way masking in a class of close to 100 has worked. I asked the class if they had gotten the booster. Only a handful had. We talked about how a vaccine won’t completely prevent Covid, but the disease won’t be as severe. I hope that more of them get vaccinated. I worry about all of them, about all of us. Covid hasn’t gone away, it’s mutated into a completely new form. But our tests and our treatments haven’t changed. All that Covid funding we could have used to update ventilation is gone. We haven’t kept up. Please spread the word."

Then Raffy Flynn posted "100 things that Covid can do," which I'll also save here for anyone who wants lots and lots of proof:

"SARS-CoV-2 can hang in the air for over 12 hours in aerosols. The size of a SARS-CoV-2 particle ranges from 0.07μm to 0.09μm. An aerosol particle the size of 1μm  or less takes 12.2 hours to fall to the ground from a height of 1.5m. Aerosols come from people just breathing; possibly hours before you enter an empty room, as explained here. 

The majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is before symptoms present. In this study, 32.4% of people didn't know that they had the virus when infected. This paper shows that 37% of children aged 0-4 years who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were asymptomatic but still had a high viral load. 

Covid shrinks the brain. It does so by drilling nano-tubes. 100% of these people examined by MRI had brain damage. Covid fuses brain cells together; and it's permanent. Further explained here. Multiple studies have shown cognitive impairment even after a mild initial infection. A study of 1.28 million people, up to two years after Covid, with matched control: 

'The persisting increased risk of post-Covid cognitive deficit, dementia, psychotic disorders, and epilepsy or seizures' and 'similar during the delta and omicron waves.' 

In another study with a sample size of 300,000 people who had experienced mild acute Covid, 161,785 reported concentration/memory problems one to six months later, and 149,618 of those people still reported that symptom six to 12 months later. Accelerated brain aging and here and here and here. And in children. An analysis of nearly one million Danish health records that found Covid-19 patients were more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, as well as Alzheimer's disease, stroke and bleeding in the brain. Another study showed it increases risk of developing Alzheimer's by 50-80% in older adults. The effects on the brain actually changes people's behaviour: 

'SARS-CoV-2 infection affects cognitive processes to induce brain fog and results in behavioural changes that favour viral survival and propagation.' 

In fact, a Covid infection makes a person more trusting of strangers, and therefore more sociable, helping to spread the virus. Meaning it has a toxoplasmosic effect. 

Covid attacks the DNA in the heart. And children's hearts: 60% of children who recovered from asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic Covid-19 still exhibit mild subclinical systolic cardiac impairment. Covid ages arteries, even in young healthy people after a mild initial infection. The virus actually replicates inside the arterial tissue: 

'because the researchers found the virus infects and replicates in the arteries no matter the levels of plaque, the findings could have broader implications for anybody who gets Covid-19.'

Everyone infected with Covid is at higher risk for heart issues--including clots, inflammation, and arrhythmia, and this is a risk that persists even in relatively healthy people long after the illness has passed. Not only does a mild Covid infection cause vascular degeneration and arterial stiffness, but it also appears that both of these conditions are degenerative. 

'The longer the period from Covid-19 infection, the worse the vascular impairment.'

Covid causes blood clots. White cells (monocytes) switch gene expression from an established innate immune profile to a pro-clotting signature in Covid. And another study showing it causes micro blood clots in people's blood. The British Heart Foundation put out a statement on how Covid damages blood vessels. 

It affects lungs. In fact, ALL kids have lung damage after Covid. 60% air/bloodflow match vs normal of 80%. 

This study of 1.2 million children in Germany showed that the risk of diabetes doubles. And it increases the risk of diabetes in adults. 

46% of Covid patient have liver damage as shown in this study. It has been identified as directly causing hepatitis in children. 

Covid actively infects and kills lymphoid cells [cells that help the immune response to pathogens]. Covid damages the immune system, and studies show T-cells do not fully recover. This study showed that they had not recovered at seven months. This study showed that they had not recovered at eight months. And in this study:

'We discovered that a subset of the naïve T-cells from the healthy individuals were absent from the recovered individuals.'

And here. German Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach [January 2023]: 

'It is worrying what we observe in peopel who have had several corona infections. Studies now show very clearly that those affected often have to deal with an incurable immune deficiency.' 

This summarizes it nicely. In fact it has AIDS-like properties as shown here: Deep Phenotyping of Neurologic Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection. And broken down in this explainer here. 

Loss of T-cells raises the chance of cancer later in life as there are fewer T-cells to clean out pre-cancerous cells. This study shows that it does in fact increase the risk of cancer. This study describes the mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 could accelerate cancer growth. And this:

'Our finding suggests that once T cells become exhausted, they remain fundamentally 'wired' to be exhausted--thus it may be hard to get them to become effective virus- and cancer-fighters again.'

Once infected, the virus will never leave. Prof. Diane Griffin: 'Basically, it's hard to get rid of.' It persists in the tonsils. In fact, researchers have found traces of the SARS-CoV-2 virus throughout the entire body, from the brain and the heart to the eyes. It even gets into bone marrow. Reinfection can happen very quickly:

'Our finding indicate that the time between confirmed primary infections and reinfections with different Omicron subvariants is frequently shorter than the 90-day definition of reinfections.'

In fact, there is a documented case of a person being reinfected by different Omicron sublineages just 16 days apart. Multiple infections doubles a person's chance of dying and triples the likelihood of being hospitalised. And repeat infections increase risk of organ failure and death. Higher number of reinfections equal higher the chance of long term effects. Eric Topol shows that the risk of at least one long term health sequelae at 180 days increased from 135% after one infection to 211% after two infections, and 300% after three infections. This study shows that children are at as much risk of Long Covid from reinfection as they are from primary infection. In fact, this review of 31 studies reveals that one in six kids have persistent Covid symptoms for three months after infection. This comparative study showed that children faced a 78% higher risk of new-onset conditions after they had Covid-19. Many children have ongoing post Covid conditions. 

Many children die from it. It is a leading cause of death in children. It increases morbidity in children, as shown in this matched cohort study including more than 157,000 individuals with Covid-19 in Germany.

Studies have reported the persistence of Covid in faecal samples from MIS-C children inferring that Covid leads to MIS-C. Covid reactivates latent viruses. Women experiencing menopause and perimenopause appear to be more likely to experience serious complications from the virus. 

We would like for our sons to be able to have children. Covid causes erectile dysfunction.

Germany's federal minister of health explicitly linked the decline in life expectancy to the impact of Covid on the human body outside of the acute phase. 

And FINALLY, Francois Balloux, Irene Petersen and APS Munro [and Doug Ford and Donald Trump] have said that it's all fine, and that infection is good! And we all know what that means!"