A Tale of Two Studies

I was confronted yesterday with the ubiquitous claim, "Lockdowns destroyed kid's ability to socialize. Now they're committing suicide because of it!!" Let's have a closer look again:

I posted this mini-thread a couple weeks ago that helps to understand the role media plays in propping up this claim:

"A tale of two studies: One study (October 2024 in School Psychology), picked up by the Toronto Star, gauged classroom incivility from anecdotal reports by teachers pre- and post-covid (handy they had data form Fall 2019) to conclude that lockdowns for three months in 2020 destroyed kids' socialization skills in 2022. The other study (October 2024 in an international medical journal), NOT picked up by the Star, assessed kids pre- and post-INFECTION, and against a control to find, 'more severe symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity-impulsivity, opposition, a wide range of emotional and behavioural problems, and poor school function.' Many studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 affects the prefrontal cortex, which affects behaviour. Until mainstream media starts reporting on better studies, our children will suffer. A timeline of some studies on Covid's effects on the brain are here." 

Claims that doing school online, for a length of time slightly longer than summer break, almost five years ago is causing the problems in kids today beggars belief. Not only does it ignore the very real cognitive effects from this virus that continues to circulate freely (based on wastewater data, 1 in 28 in Ontario is likely infected right this minute), but it ignores all the others things that have happened in the last decade. 

The original speaker noted that a few kids in his local university had committed suicide recently, but, although American, he didn't seem to think it could have anything to do with the political climate that has some people very scared of deportation, for instance, which could have dramatic effects on international students, many of whose families spent a fortune to get them this far. 

The claim misses that even without Long Covid, kids are having to cope with getting significantly ill several times each year. 

It misses that, even if the kids are perfectly healthy, many of them have watched others get very sick. Instead of kids losing grandparents, which is common, they're losing parents and siblings, which used to be very rare. That takes a toll. 

It misses that, for kids trying to stay healthy, or trying to avoid another infection, it is increasingly difficult to stand up to a mocking crowd. 

It misses that kids' socialization changed dramatically over the last few decades due to a mix of technology and helicopter parenting. Well before the lockdown, I had discussions with several classes about nobody going out to parties or hanging out in person anymore. A lot of kids played online long before they had to. They don't know how to just hang out. I tried to get a class to organize a game of Manhunt in the park: just text everyone to meet at 7 pm, then get a game going and include whoever shows up. Nobody would do that. It's too scary to talk to people you don't know. They don't have the skills to say, "Okay, here are the parameters of play; the three of us are the fugitives; give us 5 minutes, then the rest of you come find us!" They wanted a teacher to come organize it for them and stick around to make sure everyone's safe and gets home okay. They needed to be led. The loose kid-organized play of my youth is disappearing. A mom was recently arrested for letting her 10-year-old son walk alone less than a mile from home. Our entire culture is coddling children, wary of letting them explore and discover on their own.  

It misses that the culture also changed dramatically when Trump was first elected and publicly used vile and antagonistic language and gestures that permeated classrooms. Suddenly I was having to quash racist, ableist, and sexist terms. Most recently, schools have to deal with boys yelling, "Your body, my choice," to girls on the playground.  

It also misses that we can't generalize conclusions from local data. Here are recent suicide rates in Canada:

Suicides tend to cluster. When one person in a school goes, others follow, so it's not necessarily indicative of a national phenomenon. 

I'm so fucking BORED of this pronouncements that lockdowns are the cause of everything. Save the kids by letting this bullshit claim die. 

On Trust and Justified Disgust

Pete Buttigieg gave a great interview last week. He believes that "in moments like this, salvation really will come from the local and state levels. . . that aren't captive to some wacky ideological project. They're just focused on getting things done." Then at 1:05, he addresses the issue of trust when asked what more he would add to his 2020 book: 

"One theme that was in the book that I think we need to spend a lot more time thinking about is how we get information. I wrote up a little about these studies on vaccine misinformation and the fact that Russia didn't just push anti-vax messages. Often what they would do is to push an anti-vax message and a pro-vax message at the same people because the point was just to get you at each other's throats. I think a lot of that's happened recently. Yes, they had a preferred presidential candidate, but their biggest objective wasn't to have for one side to win, it was to break down our trust. It turns out all the nuclear weapons in the world are not capable of doing what this information vector into our society did with shocking efficiency. And we're behind. I don't just mean those who are on my side of the political spectrum are behind. I think America's behind. 

New and Improved Propaganda Machines

We carry propaganda machines in our pockets. Propaganda isn't just to misinform, but to distract us and exhaust the capacity for critical thinking. When you're struggling to decide between 25 types of cereal or what colour to paint the kitchen, you can miss the bigger picture. Chomsky's been saying that for years. Propaganda destroys the quest for truth, and it's worse than ever.

Pat Loller has a quick explainer about how we're ignoring the huge shift in how propaganda operates now:

"Go make a new account or reset your algorithm on any app and see how many swipes it takes to get right-wing propaganda. . . . There are all these studies coming out saying Americans are functionally illiterate . . . you don't read, you don't get critical thinking skills, and then the propaganda that you're consuming, you don't think about. You just go, 'Oh, okay, I guess that's true,' especially if you've been consuming it since you were 15 years old. . . . These kids congregate around these figures and they play video games together. Go and look at any popular video game, and Control F search for 'woke' or 'DEI', and you'll see that the gaming sphere has been a cesspool for decades. . . .  There's all these angry young men with no critical thinking skills who are being fed a constant diet of propaganda that is literally dished up to them on their phones the moment they open an account. Is it any wonder that they're going to fall Pied Piper behind this guy who's just like, 'Hey, all of those complex challenges in your life? It's this guy's fault. Stop centering you as the protagonist in every single video game and every single movie and TV show ever made?? Girls say they'd rather meet a bear in the woods than you?? Get mad and vote for the guy who is going to hurt those people.' 

The Pandemicene

 Bird Flu is still not officially a pandemic concern, but there are some convincing arguments that it should be:

Lazarus Long wrote about the teenager who contracted H5N1:

"The Canadian BC teenager is in a hospital that barely uses surgical masks, under Bonnie Henry who screwed up SARS1, then COVID. She thinks aerosols only come in cans. Trigger warning: I am going to lay out the worst case for you. Going to get dark. 

Roundup of Election Views

There are tons of explanations for it. Here's a roundup of a few perspectives that helped me wrap my head around it all. 

Last January, British journalist George Monbiot predicted this possibility as a result of the American culture:

"People with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in universal rights and equality, and protective of other people and the living world. People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likey to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration , dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour. 

Everyone Seems Fine ≠ Long Covid is a Myth

Lots of people still really don't believe that some people have had their lives destroyed by Long Covid, and that they might too. And their loved ones. And sooner than they think!

Someone online posted this exchange: 

"I met a woman today. She started talking about Covid and how glad she is it's all behind us. I said, but it's not. Well it's mostly gone. No. She said it's not serious anymore. I said Long Covid is serious. She doesn't know anyone with Long Covid."

Me: "This is almost every single real life conversation I've had about Covid in the last two years."

Random dude popping in to argue: "I know no one with LC not in my crew, not with my wing. I work directly with nearly 1000 people. The way you all go on about 10-40% of society with long covid only makes you look more stupid."

Me: "There's an inability to understand science and stats. People look around to make an assessment of risk anecdotally instead of looking at the overall rate of Long Covid cases relative to the number of acute infections, which is pretty consistently showing that over 30% get Long Covid after three infections."

More Studies on Covid Harming Children -- How many do we need to act??

What do smoking, drinking, rollercoasters, and Covid have in common? They should all be avoided during pregnancy. 

One recent study found that when moms have Covid-19 during their pregnancy, their children have a significantly higher risk of serious growth and developmental delays and gastrointestinal malformations. They looked at children between 11 and 13 months (around their first birthday), and found a significant decrease in height and weight, a dramatic increase in the need for antibiotics in the first year (83% vs 10%), and the presence of malabsorption syndrome (can't absorb nutrients properly) in children whose moms had Covid while pregnant.

An RN commenting on the study online said,

"We have seen three babies born with imperforated anuses in the last year. That was something most nurses would maybe only see once in a 30+ year career."

Break the Chain of Transmission!

BC's deputy provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, actually announced to the public, "If you've had Covid recently, you've had a boost to your immunity. So that's a good thing." Many scientists in the field are responding with, more or less, "No it absofuckalutely isn't!!" A recent study of marines supports the objectors.

Prognostic Chats wrote about the study:

"Are you a US Marine? Or as fit as one? Scared of a silly little thing like Covid? That nothing-burger of a mild virus, no worse than a cld or flu?! A super fit young adult with no co-morbidities, nothing to worry about, right? The Lancet has got some bad news for you (all). 

In this population of healthy young (median age 18) US Marines with mostly either asymptomatic or mild acute Covid, ONE QUARTER of those infected with Covid reported physical, cognitive, or psychiatric long-term sequelae of infection (PASC). The Marines affected with PASC showed evidence of long-term decrease in functional performance suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 infection may negatively affect health for a significant proportion of young adults. 

Propaganda vs Real Risk Scenarios: Sickness is health.

Arijit Chakravarty is a biologist who uses biotech and math to understand and write about Covid. He wrote a very long thread that I'll abridge here:  

"Over the last five years, we as a society have developed a set of norms about Covid. As someone who's been actively publishing on the subject, I notice it very strongly. People will ask, 'Why are you still masking?', then wince when they hear my reply. . . . My reply is obviously not what they want to hear, so I often get the 'that was too much' look from my wife and kids. This plays out in the public sphere as well. 'Expert' opinion that's soothing or reassuring is platformed, even if it's repeatedly wrong. This is a form of propaganda (calm-mongering) and distracts us from the reality. 

Calm-mongering serves to form an Overton Window about what futures are - and are not - discussable in polite conversation when it comes to The Virus That Must Not Be Named. 'Experts' have debated seasonality, herd immunity, hybrid immunity, and viral attenuation for years. Much of this is closer to fantasy in the context of Covid. The chance this virus will attenuate (evolve to become milder), to pick one example, is very low. . . . But still, the oft-baffled experts wax (and wane) lyrical about these possibilities.

Saving You Time

 ...but destroying the environment and likely killing some cyclists in the process. That's Doug Ford's new Bill 212: Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act. 

Despite all research, knowledge and reality to the contrary, Ford is trying to convince people that RIPPING UP bike lanes will save them time on their way to work. This is, without question, another in a long line of tactics of pitting one group of citizens against another in order to get away with a giant grift, stealing billions from the province! He's giving us all $200 in hope we like him and take our rage and frustrations out on our neighbours!! Hate the cyclists, the maskers, the environmentalists, the science centre nuts, the tree huggers, but love the gov! 

But I digress.

Masking in Hospitals

Toronto's UHN hospitals (Princess Margaret, Toronto General...) are reinstating masking requirements. BUT medical masks. N95s are allowed, but not required. AND masks are not required in lobbies and common areas. So you're fine to go up the elevator with a crowd of people without a mask despite that elevators are one of the easiest places to catch Covid. But it's way better than this other tactic:

Amazing that we got to this place that hospitals turn away sick people!!

But we're still just getting breadcrumbs.

Barry Hunt commented on the new mask measures, 

"Hospitals have set a pretty low bar for protection. Mandating 'masks' instead of 'respirators' for respiratory protection is like recommending sneakers instead of work boots on a construction site. Yes, better than flip flops, but give me a break."

The hospitals also explain that it's about avoiding seasonal illnesses, despite also saying, elsewhere, that Covid is NOT seasonal. 

Capitalism's Effect on Bird Flu

If you think Covid is bad (or even if you don't), if H5N1 starts passing from human to human, it could be worse. It's not just about the virus's effect on us, but on our food supply. Another four agricultural workers caught it where 800,000 chickens had to be euthanized.

Here are some highlights from Katherine Eban's recent article:

"They stumbled upon hellish scenes out of a horror movie: Feverish cows in respiratory distress producing trickles of milk. Dying cats. enough dead barn pigeons and blackbirds to suggest a mass poisoning. Living birds with twisted necks, their heads tilted skyward. . . . This should be a story of heroism, cooperation, and an all-hads effort to defeat a wily virus. . . . Instead, it is a story of intimidation and obfuscation. The vets who sounded the alarm have been silences. . . . 

The interspecies nature of the outbreak makes combating it a unique challenge that requires a different response form that of Covid-19. We're focused on protecting human and animal health, as well as the food supply. Perhaps the biggest wild card has been the USDA's other mandate, to serve as the government's chief dairy lobbyist. . . . Looming over the USDA's reluctance to conduct a more transparent and proactive campaign against H5N1 in dairy cows are export agreements worth more than $24 billion each year. . . . Rather than moving forcefully to contain and eradicate the virus in dairy cows, critics say, the USDA has tried to control the narrative and spread the message that everything is just fine. . . . Dairy operators are essentially capital asset managers. It's so consolidated. For family farmers, there are only one or two buyers of your milk. If you don't go along with the playbook, your market access is cut off and you go bankrupt. And H5N! was not in the corporate playbook. Dairy farmers, afraid their cows would be quarantines or that they would not be able to sell their milk, simply opted not to test. Some forced veterinarians off their property. "Everyone is so scared shitless." . . . Meanwhile, the USDA was sitting on details about infected farms. . . . 

Most cows that contract H5N1 eventually recover with treatment. The same cannot be said for chickens. . . . With poultry being treated as less important than dairy, the mental health issues that come with killing animals for disease control, the substantial economic impact--to just allow it to continue with no end in sight, that's an untenable situation. . . . It is unclear whether the virus, as it continues to spread and evolve, will ultimately pose a serious threat to human health. But if it does, thre could be a battle no less intense than the one still being fought over who should be held responsible for Covid-19. Looking back at the events of 2019, one thing almost everyone agrees on is that China should have been much more transparent about what it knew and when it knew it. . . . Now only have we not learned, we have regressed.

Leafs are Falling

There's a lovely man that works where I rent a car to go camping in the summer. When I walk in with my N95 in place, he starts wiping the shit out of the counter and applying sanitizer liberally to his own hands and the car keys before passing them over to me in order to keep me safe. So thoughtful! 

But he doesn't wear a mask. 

That's what bad public health comms does to people. It keeps people unaware that Covid lives in the air more than the counter.

And that's what's happening to the Leafs, as they succumb, one by one, to a mysterious illness. 

Mark Ungrin gives us a good analogy for the baffling nature of officials and media today: 

"Remember that kids' show where there's always a mystery and it's totally obvious but the townspeople can't figure it out, and then after half an hour of a toddler shouting clues at the TV, the dog finally puts it together and solves the mystery?"

It's not just from bad comms, although that's where it started. At this point in the game, shifting sides on this means letting in some pretty painful shit. 

Whenever acknowledging what is true can provoke feelings of guilt or shame for what we believed was true in the past, we will fight to stay ignorant. 

Long Covid Resources

Three -- SIX Covid resources to bookmark. 

This Educational Toolkit for Long Covid has a series of videos explaining Long Covid in children, how to return to school safely, the impact on the family, and how to support kids in the classroom. There's also a 31-paged handbook with scripts for the videos and more to help walk parents through having kids with Long Covid. 

A group of scientists created an interactional infographic on how Covid becomes Long Covid, who's likely to get it, and all the ways it can affect the body. 

And filmmaker, a scientist, an artist, and a father got together to make this 16 minute film, The Unravelling. They discuss the problem with how we understand it and what Long Covid is really like. The Vimeo embedding isn't working worth shit here, so check it out at the link!

AND, UC Davis College of Engineering created a series of videos about Indoor Air Quality and disease prevention and control!

AND Dr. Lucky Tran wrote a really concise Covid explainer that can be easily shared: Why it's still a good idea to avoid Covid!

AND Maria Gillespie wrote a FREE book about masking in class.

Masks or Longterm Illness in Children - It Shouldn't be a Difficult Decision

Sara Novak recently wrote about the study that found 20% of children have Long Covid, aka PASC (Post Acute Sequelae of Covid) that I discussed in August, but Novak brought in further backing from additional studies:

“In the most expansive study of its kind, researchers have for the first time shown serious and prevalent symptoms of Long Covid in kids and teens. The August study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association . . . which followed 5367 children, found that 20% of kids (ages 6-11) and 14% of teens met researchers' threshold for Long Covid. . . . By enrolling children who had been infected with acute COVID-19, as well as those who had not, researchers were able to isolate Long Covid symptoms in kids and teens. 'It allowed us to separate symptoms related to Long Covid with those that may have resulted from changes in a child's environment during the pandemic.' . . . For example, learning loss and mental health changes that were caused by the pandemic vs those that were caused by prolonged symptoms associated with Long Covid. . . . The new research found Long Covid affected nearly every organ system in kids and teens. And experts contend that pediatricians need to be on the lookout for GI complaints in kids as well as complaints of extreme fatigue and cognitive deficits or perceived changes in mental acuity in teenagers. . . . 

On Burnout: "Can" is the New "Should"

I started reading about burnout when I walked away from teaching earlier than expected. Suddenly, I couldn't bring myself to open that door after over thirty years of bounding to work. A series of events wiped away any sense of agency, fairness, or shared values. Their wellness lunch-and-learns didn't help me, and I soon discovered I'm not alone.

An article published in JAMA last June looked at rising rates of burnout in healthcare, where 40% of physicians surveyed intended to leave their practice. They suggest, "To prevent a health care worker exodus, experts argue that the emphasis needs to shift from individual resilience to broader system-level improvements." They are looking for standardized methods to affect organizational management with "evidence-based interventions."  

Over 25 years ago, Michael Leiter and Christina Maslach came to the same conclusion. They identified six areas of worklife affecting burnout and created a specific assessment for educators. They determined the cause to be a "mismatch" between employee expectations and employer behaviours leading workers to be closer to the bleak end of a continuum from burned out to engaged. They suggest that "the task for organizations and individuals is to achieve a resolution." This is not just a matter of throwing wellness initiatives or resilience-speak into the mix, but addressing any reasonable expectations of employees with appropriate employer interventions in all six interrelating areas. 

click for clarity

Feels vindicating, right?!

We Can Prevent Chronic Illness in Children, But It's Kinda Inconvenient

Another NEW study shows, yet again, that SARS-CoV-2 is harmful to kids. Who knew?!?

This was a three-year study that followed 1319 children after a first infection. Almost all of the kids had a mild (89%) or asymptomatic (9%) initial infection. Almost 80% were unvaccinated. At 3 months post acute infection, almost a quarter of the kids had Long Covid. From 1-2 years 7 to 8% continued to have Long Covid. Some of the kids infected at the very beginning of the study, still had Long Covid at the 3 year mark. We're generally being told the chance of Long Covid is somewhere between 7 and 10% (the CDC pegged it at 20% earlier), but that misses the reality that many more kids are sick for months before recovering. 

Important to note: only 67% had a fever as part of their acute infection, yet that is STILL the only symptom we look for to determine if kids should go to school. Having a runny nose was the next most common symptom, but fewer than half had that (46%). Covid shows up in a multitude of symptoms. The current variant goes for the GI system, so diarrhea is an important sign. 

Who gets Long Covid? They found that teenagers (kids over 12) are significantly more in danger. And girls tend to get it slightly more than boys. They indicate that vaccination was protective, but I'm confused by their data, which make it seem like it isn't at all: They compare all patients to unvaccinated, and the unvaccinated numbers with Long Covid are lower across the board, but I must be misunderstanding something there.  

At any rate, Covid really, really damages kids. A quarter will lose out on at least three months of school and life at a very pivotal age, and 7-8% will lose years of their lives, possibly the rest of their lives to a chronic illness. I'm not sure how many more studies we need before schools will overtly and regularly start at least encouraging masks in class and before hospitals will mandate them everywhere. How bad does it have to get?? We know that kids (and adults) with a mild infection can go on to develop organ failure. Our only tool right now is prevention with good quality masks while we wait for the clean air revolution to kick into gear. 

Yesterday I posted this article, explaining that it's up to parents to take the lead, but I didn't summarize the tragic story it contained: A 16-year-old girl, Cara, who always masked at school to protect her mom dealing with chemo, was convinced to finally take it off. She got Covid, and brought it home, and her mother died, and now she has to cope with the guilt of that on top of her grief. The article says she was bullied as the only person masking in the school, but then explains that she stopped when she heard a child psychotherapist on the radio say that girls wear them to hide their acne. That was the last straw for her.

 From the article,

"In 2022, over six times as many children died from Covid than from flu in the US. The UN Convention on the Rights of a Child requires states to 'recognise the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health' and to fully implement this right. Children's rights to education include a safe environment not harmful to their health. Cara and her parents fought for these rights. They were denied, with devastating consequences." 

I can do absolutely everything I enjoy publicly with a mask on except to eat in a restaurant. So I order in for special occasions. Once you get used to it, masks don't hamper the pleasure of the event, AND you don't get or inadvertently spread a disabling, fatal virus to anyone!! It's win/win!! I understand that a tiny percentage of people actually can't wear a mask, but I cannot accept the argument that mask are uncomfortable or feel suffocating when the alternative to wearing a mask is children and their parents getting sick like this or dying.  

Grow. The fuck. Up. 

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. . . . 

Pitting Health Against Education as We Debilitate a Generation

Covid is definitely causing a variety of longterm illnesses and public health still can't manage an effective PSA that undoes damage caused by their previous misinformation: teaching people how easily we can get infected, how harmful the virus is, and how to prevent it with N95s and cleaner air. And in many places, like my old school, people are still not allowed to bring in CR boxes or open windows if it's cold out or teach about Covid, and in some places masks are flippin' illegal! And children are in the middle of all this mess. 

from here 

It says, "Forcing families to choose between biosecurity and education is one of the great injustices of our time, violating children's fundamental human rights to life, health, safety, and education.

LONGTERM ILLNESS

In this 20 minute INET podcast with Dr. Phillip Alvelda, they explain that we are effectively debilitating a generation: 

"The danger is clear and present: Covid isn't merely a respiratory illness; it's a multi-dimensional threat impacting brain function, attacking almost all of the body's organs, producing elevated risks of all kinds, and weakening our ability to fight off other diseases. Reinfections are thought to produce cumulative risks, and Long Covid is on the rise. Unfortunately, Long Covid is now being considered a long-term chronic illness -- something many people will never fully recover from."

The Heart Research Institute in the UK wrote about the recent paper showing that even a mild or asymptomatic case can increase stroke, heart attack, and heart failure.  

AIRBORNE AIDS

If that's not enough to be concerned, the World Health Network wrote about Covid's overlap with AIDS:

Why Novavax: Choosing the Tortoise Over the Hare

Dr. Michael Lin explains what makes Novavax different from mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines. It's not in block quotes because this is all from him. It's comprehensive, but complex, and just one thing missing: MASKS are a great way to prevent infection.

I made this graphic to show how different vaccine types work (back in 2021). We can just look at line 1 (protein vax like Novavax) and line 3 (RNA vax). In protein vax, antigen-presenting cells take up the antigen to activate B cells and T-helper cells. In RNA vax, your muscles cells take up RNA and translate it into antigen. This process tends to be a bit inflammatory (apparently that's inherent to RNA uptake) so some cells die and release proteins that are also taken up by antigen-presenting cells. The main differences between protein and RNA vax in practice are threefold: