Predictable, Incurable, Disabling, Fatal, and PREVENTABLE

It's still here. It's still dangerous. We have the ability to stop it, but we can't wait to be told to because that's just not happening. 

Andrew Nikiforuk wrote in The Tyee about the dangers of Covid. 

"Although the media routinely dismisses all Covid infections as an inconsequential nuisance, that's not what the science says. The virus remains deadlier than the flu and repeated infections can radically change your health. . . . Even a mild bout of covid can leave a legacy of blood clots, heart failure, diabetes, decreased brain funciton, Long Covid (now affecting 400 million people worldwide) and immune damage that increasingly makes peopel more vulnerable to a plethora of infectious diseases and possibly cancers. . . . There is no such thing as a SARS-CoV-2 infection that does NOT have prolonged consequences. . . . There's not a fresh vaccine in sight. In fact, they are weeks away. . . . 

Only 20% of actual deaths from Covid are now reported . . . on an annual basis Covid infections still account for 20 times more deaths than influenza. The data is not complete, but this death toll likely made Covid the second or leading cause of death in the country last month. . . . With little surge capacity, the continued presence of highly infectious Covid variants continues to leave many health-care systems in shambles year after year. . . . Nobody sane really wants to play Russian roulette, but that's how we should view every Covid infection. Although most people will get away with just an unpleasant biological disruption of daily life, others will take a bullet to their heart, brain, gut or immune system for reasons not fully understood. . . . Every time you get a Covid infection, your immune system seems to suffer. It's kind of like a boxer: every fight takes a little bit more out of them. . . . 

Beating back Covid requires hard work, communal wisdom and clear policies that markedly reduce the level of infection in society. To date we have chosen viral denial, dirty air and a triumphant reign for LongCovid."

The article makes it clear that LongCovid is predictable, incurable, and disabling. Those facts are not in dispute. David Putrino outlines the five lanes you can take from this point in response to an opinion piece making the rounds (from Putrino Lab):

"Dangerous garbage being presented as 'science writing'. Two actual facts surrounding Covid infection:
1. Your risk of LongCovid, a currently incurable chronic illness, after surviving an acute Covid infection currently sits conservatively at ~6-7%.
2. Your risk of LongCovid increases with each infection.

Now, in the face of this information, there are really five (or so) types of reactions:
1. Disbelief and denial
2. Being unaware or uninformed of the risk
3. Believing appropriate caution is necessary to avoid LongCovid
4. Believing it is worth the risk to yourself AND OTHERS to live your best pre-Covid life
5. Not having the financial freedom to not risky yourself and others by not taking precautions

Regardless of which of these five lanes you live in, won't change the first two FACTS. So, as a person of questionable influence, let me remind you: LongCovid is life-changing and incurable. LongCovid is caused by Covid. We still have no way of predicting who will emerge unscathed from a Covid infection. The only way to avoid getting LongCovid is to not get Covid. Let me also remind you that while Clare Wilson ridicules people 'putting sticks up their nose', if you should, god forbid, get LongCovid, and you don't have evidence of infection, things get harder for you to access good care. They shouldn't, but they do. 

So since the 'science writer' who penned this opinion didn't lay it all out honestly in favor of publishing a bit of clickbait that hurts public health, next time you hear drivel like this, think about the five lanes of people and which lane you want to be in. Think about the fact that those minimizing Covid have been minimizing it since 2020 and have been consistently wrong since 2020. Magical thinking doesn't make you safe, and speaking realistically and quantifiably about risk stratification doesn't make you a fearmonger. Writing junk like this DOES make you dangerous."  

Finally, Dr. Noor Bari was interviewed by Covid Safety For Schools to discuss the myths of Covid. Below are her self-explanatory slides, but click the link for the full 60 minute interview. The gist: It's airborne, it's very transmissible even outside and beyond six feet, and about a third of all transmission happens before having any symptoms at all. It's often called a cold because it seems familiar and harmless now, but it's NOT harmless. We have to use excess deaths to know the true number of deaths from Covid, and it's well above the number claimed on death certificates. As we reduced access to testing, official deaths reduced, but excess deaths increased. About 10% have or will have Long Covid, costing the economy over a trillion US dollars. Every organ is affected by Covid. The infection doesn't just come in and leave again, it develops inside the body. So far it's affected over 50,000 children under age 4 in just Australia, leading to tons of absences from school. 

Cleaning the air and wearing masks doesn't just help avoid Covid, but also RSV and other viruses. Good quality masks, well-fitted and worn at all times when in public, dramatically protect from viruses. Studies that say they don't work include participants who wear them only 1% of the time when in public (and the Cochrane Review was misinterpreted and then retracted). They only work when they're worn. Masks aren't just about protecting the wearer, but protecting everyone else in the room. You never know who will end up disabled or dead. Illness was reduced by 20% in classrooms with air filters. Anyone who can read a watch can read a CO2 monitor - over 500 ppm means open a window. Anything over 1,000 ppm means get out of there. CR boxes don't affect that number, but they do affect how much virus is in the room. It's hard to tell when we're pre-symptomatic because RATs get a lot of false negatives in the early days of the infection. If a RAT is positive, then you're infectious and what you're exhaling is growing virus even if it's been a couple weeks. Schools might talk about hand washing, not ventilation or masks because science evolved rapidly, and schools are still stuck on original claims made. Change in industry is a deliberate, slow process costing a lot of money, and everyone appears to want to do their own studies instead of relying on the best evidence. We need to start moving! If your government hasn't started making a move, then we have to move on our own.