Finding Covid

There's been quite a bit of Covid-related news lately. Here's a run-down. It's a lot on how we can't use standard methods for finding the markers of disease, but new methods are being created. But there's virtually nothing on preventing this continuing brain-invasive disease! That's no longer on people's radar, although I still meet up with fellow maskers here and there. Numbers are very low right now, but just starting to rise, so if you're generally caution but really want to hit a restaurant or bar, and you think it's worth the risk, this might be the time!

One article discusses a study discussion from July 2026 that found evidence of injury to the dopamine system in the brain of Long Covid patients: 

"What cannot be seen is too often considered uncertain. Long Covid illustrates this difficulty. Many patients report disabling fatigue, brain fog, cognitive inefficiency, apathy and psychomotor slowing; yet conventional investigations, including structural MRI, often fail to capture the biology underlying these symptoms. Absence of a conventional MRI signature, however, does not imply absence of brain pathology. Parkinson's disease, for example, has no reliable individual diagnostic signature on routine MRI; yet is recognised as a neurochemical disorder."

Covid Study References

I sometimes write without linking to studies because I've posted all the studies so many times already, but here's a bunch of useful ones when evidence is necessary.

THE PROBLEM:

Covid isn't a cold at all; it's a vascular disease (affecting the circulatory system) that produces microclots, which can lead to blood vessel damage, strokes, and loss of brain tissue (Frontiers in Microbiology, 2021, Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, 2022, Cardiovascular Diabetology, 2022). Heart disease risk soars after even a mild case (Nature 2022), as well as the risk for heart attacks (Journal of Medical Virology, 2022). Dr. Funmi Okunola explained how Covid causes hypercoagulability, which damages the endothelium, increases strokes, pulmonary embolisms, and deep vein thrombosis, and Professor Danny Altmann explained how clearly mild Covid can be seen to affect the brain in a 2024 video. After an acute case, it hibernates in the body (like chicken pox and HIV), then can cause worse effects years later: the "SARS-CoV-2 spike protein accumulates and persists in the body for years, especially in the skull-meniges-brain axis" (Cell Host & Microbe, 2024). We still know relatively little about Covid, how long it can last, and all the things it can do to the body. HIV started out looking like a bad flu lasting a few weeks, then ten years later, people started dying of AIDS. Nobody knows for sure what the 2030s will look like. It currently still kills more people than car accidents, even as it adds to the number of collisions (Neurology, 2024). It might be wise to continue to take precautions. 

59% of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is from people who don't have any symptoms: 35% from people who are presymptomatic and 24% from people who are carrying it without developing symptoms, like Typhoid Mary (JAMA, 2021), so only masking when around people who are visibly sick, like my doctor does, avoids less than half of the potential transmission in the room, especially in primary health care. 

The Brave and Stalwart

As a quick reminder, well-fitting N95s/FFP3s work amazingly to avoid measles, the flu, and covid. I haven't been sick in years, and I love it!! The only inconvenience is not eating food with people who aren't cautious. I throw on a mask before going inside a public building. It's second-nature now, like putting on a seatbelt when I get in a car. Pretty simple and effective. Really, it's a no brainer.

But Jon Stewart (with Jon Favreau and Tim Miller) saw fit to make fun of people like me: crazy people who continue to avoid getting sick. In case you've forgotten, or if this is news to you, unlike the flu, which is brutal this year, Covid stays in the system, hibernating and attacking internal organs, the brain (sticking glial cells into clumps), and the immune system. The only other virus that attacks the immune system like this, causing lymphopenia, is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). So, call me crazy for avoiding getting a virus with similar effects as AIDS. 

Not Just a Health Issue

Professor Lidia Morawska just won a quarter million dollar science prize for her work in proving that Covid is airborne, against the WHO's public announcement to the contrary back in March 2020. Her efforts saved lives.

"A renowned expert in air quality and health, Morawska, of the Queensland University of Technology, began contacting international colleagues. She eventually gathered 239 scientists globally to highlight the risk of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The public pressure eventually prompted the WHO and other authorities to update their public health guidelines. ... 'Science and scientists are nowhere near as listened to as in the past, and decisions are not based on science.' It is a problem she hopes to tackle by bringing scientists together as she did during the early years of the pandemic."

That feels like a lifetime ago, long forgotten by many, yet illnesses and death from Covid haven't retreated. 

A US study tracked 150 million workers and absences "since the end of the so-called public health emergency in 2023" to find that absences continue to be 12.9% higher than before the pandemic. "Absences were highest in occupations with the greatest exposure to the public." And last month a global insurance firm "pegged that number of excess deaths at 2% above the pre-pandemic annual mortality rate. ... That's roughly the equivalent of two fully loaded standard commercial jets crashing and killing everyone aboard every day." They cited long Covid as a significant factor. Andrew Nikiforuk reports in The Tyee, 

New Air Quality Guidelines

Health Canada published new Guidance for Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Professionals that acknowledge that Covid can be spread through airborne transmission. 

"Indoor air quality is considered an important environmental determinant of health. ... Good indoor air can often be achieved using the following three strategies: reducing or eliminating the sources of air contaminants, ventilating by replacing contaminated indoor air with filtered air from outside, filtering the indoor air ... and education of occupants and building staff on best practices for maintaining good indoor air quality. ...

Epidemiological studies on CO2 concentrations and health effects showed that individuals exposed to CO2 concentrations greater than 800 ppm were more likely to report mucous membrane or respiratory symptoms than those exposed to lower CO2 levels. ... Installing demand-based ventilation relying on CO2 sensors may also be an effective strategy. ... Avoid overcrowding indoor environments with more people than the HVAC system can accommodate. Increase natural ventilation by opening windows. ...

The concept of using indoor CO2 levels as an indicator of ventilation has been discussed for decades. With increased public awareness of the importance of ventilation and commercial-availability of CO2 monitors, there is a renewed interest in using CO2 monitoring as a method for quantifying ventilation. ... Continuous measurements can also be used to see how levels change over the course of the day and whether there are certain locations or certain times of day that are more problematic. ...

With some viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, transmission was also found to occur from particles remaining suspended in the air and travelling longer distances, hence the benefit of wearing masks, effective ventilation and building air filtration, and stand-alone air purifiers that utilize high efficiency particulate air filters when and where appropriate to reduce the risk of transmission. ... There are no exposure limits for the range of microbial agents found indoors that can cause disease, as these are dependent on the infectious dose needed to cause an infection. Levels should be kept as low as possible. ... Effective ventilation is important for reducing indoor transmission of respiratory infectious diseases and includes ... increasing indoor/outdoor air exchange with exhaust fans and mechanical ventilation systems, filtering air efficiently, and opening external windows and doors. Ventilation can help reduce viral transmission in indoor spaces by preventing the accumulation of potentially infectious respiratory particles in the air. Good ventilation, combined with other personal protective measures, can further reduce the risk of infection.

They're Heeeerrrrrreeee!

You might be able to book a Covid shot in Ontario right now with priority given for people who are high-risk, and on October 27th for the general public. That high-risk priority category is significantly looser than it is for who gets a second shot per year, maybe acknowledging how few come out for this shot in the first place. It includes anyone who is at high risk, but also anyone who has significant exposure to birds or mammals, anyone racialized or part of an "equity-denied" community, health-care workers, and more. 

It's still here and still causing damage. In the US, the current wastewater rates are about 2/3rds of last winter's peak. It's baffling that they want to wait for the general public until after our Thanksgiving!! In the past, uptake is so low that it's curious they still stagger the appointment openings for a month later. In the states, people have been getting shots for weeks. We're in the upward trend of very high infection rates coupled with very low immunity in the population since we're almost all a good six months from our last vaccination. That's a deadly combination. 

Safe Schools and Hospitals

We're starting the school year with high levels of Covid in Ontario, and kids are still getting sick from a disease that, unlike the flu or a cold, has potential long-term consequences, leaving behind micro-clots that can lead to strokes, as well as increase chances of diabetes, brain damage, and more as it runs through the bloodstream and can affect every organ. 

Vaccinations don't entirely prevent illness and spread, but they CAN keep most people out of the hospital from the acute illness. Unfortunately they wane after several months and most of us are only allowed to get one once/year. If you're going to do it, now is the time. Also unfortunately, they're not ready yet. The government keeps putting them out with the flu shot despite that Covid is not seasonal; it spreads when people congregate. The best time to get the shot might be one in mid-August in time for school, and then early December in time for all the celebrations in late December and winter travel. Then open the windows in the spring and summer! But the powers that be will likely not release this one until next month.

Yup, Still Writing About It

Covid is still here and still killing more people than car crashes. The highest vehicle fatality rate in Canada in the past decade was in 2023, with 1,964 deaths with over 8,000 serious injuries. For Covid, counting less than the last year (about 11 months) and only from participating provinces, we've had 2,248 deaths and over 33,000 serious illnesses that required hospitalization. So, more. 

In some places, it's way more right now!

California is experiencing a surge, and Honduras is experiencing such a spike in illnesses that they're mandating face masks again in hospitals, airports, shopping centres, schools, public transport, and other enclosed or crowded paces. A recent study suggests that LongCovid may be far more common than currently estimated at about one in ten people, with non-human primates studied reaching 90% of the population with bio-markers: 

"Even if you started off lean and healthy, this study shows it won't protect you from some of the worst consequences of Covid."

I compare Covid rates to car crashes because we still, pretty much all of us, take precautions whenever we get in our car, and most of it don't even think about it any more. Some precautions are imposed on us, like I had to ditch my car because apparently the MTO would take it off the road for rust that could enable exhaust to get inside the vehicle. Air bags and driving laws are imposed on us. But we willingly strap ourselves in our cars, for most of us, even when no cops are around. I do it automatically before I start the car. It became second nature.

Vaccinate Against Variant Soup

Some weird new federal SARS-CoV-2 vaccine guidance - in layman's terms.

Variant soup ingredients from April 2025

But first, remember that, when it comes to vaccinations, Covid is like the flu, not like measles or polio. It's not one and done because the virus mutates so easily and quickly. Every few months we permit new variants to add to the mix by letting them spread and mutate, and only sometimes does anyone important mention the variety of variants out there. (By contrast, for rates of illness and death, Covid is a lot like measles and polio in the unvaccinated death and disability rate. It's a serious disease!) 

Like the flu, we need regular access to vaccinations. If people ask how many Covid shots you've had, ask them how many flu shots they've had. It's the same silly question.

If you've never been vaccinated for it, get two shots this year.

If you have been getting shots, the guidelines say you should get one a year if you're pregnant, over 65, in congregated living, a health care worker, part of a listed racialized group, or have an underlying medical condition that's associated with more severe infection, which includes diabetes and cancer and other medical conditions, but also obesity, and disabilities like ADHD, and mental health disorders like depression (but not anxiety).

Luckily, you don't have to prove you have an underlying condition because anyone may (is allowed to) get one shot. They'll come out with a new shot this fall, but who knows when that will be!

The vaccination is protective for less than six months, so you might want two shots a year. But good luck with that! 

According to their collective wisdom, you should get two shots if you're over 80, in congregated living, or moderately to severely immunocompromised due to an underlying condition. I don't think claiming severe ADHD will work, but no harm trying! You may get two shots if you're 65 to 79. 

So despite that most infections come from schools, all those kids spending their days in a school building, from junior kindergarten to university, can get a shot in September, but then are just sitting ducks come February. Make it make sense!

A good N95 is still your best bet to avoid this preventable disease!

ETA: Ontario guidance says, 

"Ontario's Covid-19 vaccine program has transitioned to an annual program in alignment witih expert recommendations from the NACI. ... If you already completed your initial series, it is recommended you receive an updated dose starting in the fall when the vaccine becomes available in Ontario, if it has been 6 months (168 days) since your last dose."

So even thought you can only get one/year, if your last one was in early March, you can still get one now - as soon as they come out. No word on when that will be, though. 

Covid Causes Clots!!

 A headline in the New York Post: "Why so many people are having strokes in their 20s, 30s, and 40s: We've never had patients so young." 

They report that, "Between 2020 and 2022, there was a 14.6% increase of strokes among people aged 18 to 44." Many of whom were "by all common standards, healthy." Their theories about the increase include birth control pills, stress, long working hours, physical inactivity, caffeine especially from energy drinks, and Adderall (although they add that most studies don't show a strong association between Adderall use and strokes). None of these have been shown to have increased that dramatically since 2020, but something else has. I stupidly read the comments on the article, which are all about "the jab" killing us. IT'S NOT THE VACCINE!!

There is, of course, absolutely no mention about an unmitigated brain-invasive virus doing the very type of damage researchers and doctors warned us about years ago. We knew that Covid stays in the body and forms blood clots since at least 2021, and it became widespread in 2022, which is why some wise doctors ask for a D-dimer test after a patient has problems post-Covid infection to check for clotting issues. Here are just a few: 

Protect Your Neurons from Nimbus!

The latest Covid variant has the same name as a big looming rain cloud. The more we let Covid spread, the more it will continue to mutate, and this one is even more easily transmissible. 

It's provoking people to mask up in parts of Asia, and governments are encouraging updated vaccinations in parts of Europe, and it's definitely in the states, but they're not doing much to stop it. Will we?? My kids and I still can't get another Covid shot until it's been a year since our last, and we can't access Paxlovid if we need it. But thankfully there are no mask bans being proposed here.

In the states, the FBI is treating Covid as a crime to be investigated instead of a public health matter to be mitigated:

New Covid Strain Causing Razor Blade Throat

Several news venues have been reporting on Covid in the last few days. An ABC News headline says: "Why are more than 300 people in the US still dying from Covid every week?" 

The article explains,

"Public health experts told ABC News that although the U.S. is in a much better place than it was a few years ago, Covid is still a threat to high-risk groups. 'The fact that we're still seeing deaths just means it's still circulating, and people are still catching it.' ... The experts said there are a few reasons why people might still be dying from the virus, including low vaccination uptake, waning immunity, and not enough people accessing treatments."

That last sentence is infuriating because vaccines wane in effectiveness after a few months, and vaccinations here are restricted to yearly except for people over 65 and anyone moderately to severely immunocompromised, such as organ transplant recipients, anyone HIV+, and anyone taking immunosuppressants. Furthermore Paxlovid, our only treatment option here, is only available to people over 60 or at high risk of complications from Covid. Otherwise, you're on your own.

Dancing with Viruses

There are several measles cases in Waterloo Region. As of last week there were currently over 60 cases in nearby Wellington/Guelph, and over 1,300 in Ontario since October.

Measles is like Covid in that there's an incubation period in which people have no symptoms but are contagious. Viruses are stealthy! For measles, it's 7-12 days from exposure to symptoms like fever or cough, so it's really important to track cases and isolate if potentially exposed. For Covid, it can be 5-7 days before it's picked up by a rapid test, and you can have it and spread it without any symptoms at all. Both cause serious complications, including brain infection, and leads to death in about 1 or 2 in 1,000 people. 

Both can be prevented with an N95.

The biggest difference between these viruses is that getting vaccinated is extremely good protection for measles, but not for Covid. If you got your measles shots, you're very likely completely protected. Unfortunately, vaccination rates are plummeting. We need to have at least 94% of the population vaccinated to create herd immunity and keep measles at bay, and Ontario has been hovering in the 70s since Covid started and anti-vaxx nonsense got a platform. Vaccination against Covid does a lot to keep people out of the hospital, but it doesn't prevent getting and spreading the disease because, like the flu, Covid mutates all the flippin' time. Measles is just measles, but Covid could be delta, or alpha, or one of many omicron variants, or whatever's going on now. It changes so much I stopped keeping track. The more it spreads, the more it mutates, and we're doing nothing to stop the spread. 

Over Five Years of Covid

David Wallace-Wells has a piece in the New York Times about hitting the five-year mark with Covid (although it started in 2019, and the first case in the US was reported on January 21st). 

He seems to blame Covid for making America more divisive, but that didn't happen everywhere. Curious. He says Covid turned Americans into hyper-individualists: 

"Isolated, we saw one another first as threats and then as something less than real. Covid unfolded on screens for most Americans, and although the experience was in many ways collective, everyone's screens were different: Some showed overflowing morgues, others revealing a sham. Soon, we began to worry less about how our actions affected others and more about how their affected us--a sense of interdependence giving way to anomie, atomization and entitlement."

Norms are for Breaking

Anonymous is urging me to move on away from precautions and towards prior norms of society in a string of comments on a previous post. I had too much to say to the most recent comment, so I moved it here.

from Catherine Flynn

Anon responded for a third time (or a third Anon -- who's to say) to this point from a week ago in which I borrowed the analogy that sharing air unprotected with someone likely carrying Covid is about as wise as having sex unprotected with someone likely carrying chlamydia:

"Analogies often fail with covid. This isn’t really like seatbelts or smoking which are additions to our base state in the world. If we’re going to play analogies, then perhaps this is like setting the right speed limit for cars. People die in crashes every year. We have speed limits to limit harms. What should these speed limits be? Some might want cars abolished. Some might want German autobahns. But here we’ve set certain norms based, ostensibly, on some sort of cost/benefit ratio. The pandemic was like a pile up on the 401. Everyone had to slow down and for a while we were all stuck. But now we're back to normal speeds. Some, though, are shell shocked. “I’m not driving again!” Some are now petitioning to lower the speed limits and to educate others to the dangers of driving. It’s all good. But life goes on and things go back to the norms that were.

Still with the Immunity Debt Claims?

Two competing claims were made in the past few days on whether Long Covid should be a concern for parents of children or if children actually develop greater immunity from getting sick. Still.

In one corner, two Canadians and an American:

Dr. Lyne Filiatrault, Arijit Chakravarty, and T. Ryan Gregory wrote this week on immunity debt: 

"Infections do not build a stronger immune system. There is no lasting immunity to RSV. If you get infected one year, it does not mean you avoid it the next. ... With influenza, the virus in circulation this year is not the same as last year. ... You can get infected over and over with SARS-CoV-2. ... In the absence of public health measure to limit transmission, repeated waves of infection will continually surge through the population driven by the evolution of new variants and the waning population immunity from infection and vaccines. If you are lucky, your most recent vaccine will offer you some protection against being infected, but this protection varies from one person to the next and lasts only for a few months. ... Long-term effects [of SARS-CoV-2] are shockingly common. ... Evidence is accumulating that the virus damages our immune system."

We're Not Invincible

If an attractive person flirted with you, but then mentioned, just by the way, "I've been sexually active with someone with chlamydia, but don't worry because I don't have any symptoms," would you have unprotected sex with them??

Hopefully you're aware that people can carry and transmit chlamydia without having any symptoms of it themselves. That's true of tons of diseases. It's very true of Covid, in which almost 60% of infections come from people without symptoms (pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic). 

Hopefully, you'll also recognize that it doesn't matter how healthy you are, how many supplements or micro-nutrients you take, how much you exercise, or how smart and well-educated you are when it comes to catching an infectious disease. We have a weird association between diseases and people living in filth and squalor and ignorance, but that's likely from poverty making it very difficult to avoid exposure to other people. It's exposure to a virus that determines whether or not you catch it, not your diet. 

And just maybe you're aware that Covid isn't like a cold. It's more like polio or HIV+ or chicken pox or any number of other viruses that hibernate in the body to come out later. With polio, only 0.5% of infected people were disabled by it; most people just felt a little unwell for a bit, yet we went to town to prevent even that small number from lifelong difficulties. I'm not entirely sure why we just don't give a shit about the lowest estimate of possibly 5% of people being disabled by Covid, but there it is. 

Dr. Noor Bari further takes down the invincibility some people feel they have and believe that they can somehow bestow upon their precious children: 

"Here’s the thing. There is a neat pyramid of wood, and a pile of kindling soaked in gasoline at the base. I’m telling you it will burn, and they are telling you “there’s no evidence yet”. That is how obvious the data pointing to blood and blood vessel damage, plus brain inflammation, plus immune system damage etc of C19 looks to me. That it will cause problems. That it is even now causing problems. 

I didn’t need the data we have even now to know this would happen because we already had decades of data from other conditions that do similar things. You tell me something has activated macrophages? I’ll tell you there’ll probably be fibrosis. It really is as simple as that. We did not need to infect the world to count how many fibrosed organs there are. Endless examples (here and here). Upsetting the triad of clotting regulation is another one. 

Anyway. COVID-19 is still a problem, and it’s going to remain a problem, and pretending that your qualifications are going to protect your kid is not going to work unless you use those qualifications wisely and appreciate the whole picture. The whole picture is that humans are not well designed to tolerate chronic C19 exposure or infection. We don’t have the antioxidant and tolerance systems to deal with it for the most part. Our big delicate brains aren’t designed to be assaulted like this."

It doesn't have to be like this. 

Spike Proteins Sticking Around

 Yet another study indicates the brain is negatively affected by Covid, yet we're still okay with children getting it repeatedly. 

Ali Max Erturk explained his recent study published in Cell Host and Microbe on Twitter. I love when researchers explain their work in plain English like this!

Our new study shows that SARS-CoV-2 spike protein accumulates and persists in the body for years after infection, especially in the skull-meninges-brain axis, potentially driving long COVID. mRNA vaccines help but cannot stop it. Summary: We found SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the skull-meninges-brain axis in mouse models and human post-mortem tissues long after their COVID, which was associated with vascular, inflammatory changes in the brain along with neuronal damage. Approach: To discover all tissues that are targeted by SARS-CoV-2, we used unbiased DISCO clearing technology and mapped tissues hit by coronavirus spike vs. Influenza HA proteins (flu).

CAN-PCC Survey

CAN-PCC has put out a survey on its draft of recommendations for Long Covid (PCC = Post Covid Condition) that anyone can comment on. They're asking us for evidence of any claims we have, and it closes Wednesday night (Nov. 27).

Their recommendations are a whole lot of diet, exercise, and CBT and virtually nothing promoting any type of tests to help determine if someone has Long Covid, not even a d-dimer test, or any kind of medications to try. It explicitly says NOT Taurine based on a study that tests hand strength with and without use, completely ignoring studies that show a significant improvement in tinnitus, with some implications for neurological improvements after Long Covid. It's a curious inclusion in the survey. Nothing about Metformin or Paxlovid. And definitely nothing about prevention with N95s or cleaner air.  

I commented that offering CBT to someone with a physical illness is patronizing. Would they suggest it to heal a broken leg, too?? Long Covid is a PHYSICAL illness. The body is invaded by a virus wreaking havoc in so many different places that it will take a concerted effort to create a simple and effective test for it. So, apparently, they're just going to skip that initiative.

Brian Hughes posted his comments - and some of the questions - in The Science Bit. Check it out, then craft your own responses. They're asking for feedback, so we should chime in. BUT isn't it curious that an official body financed by the Public Health Agency of Canada is seeking out random public comments through Cochrane Reviews instead of, you know, getting the best scientific advice possible from teams of scientists?? Public policy on health initiatives for a serious illness shouldn't be determined by a majority rule by the public, but, if it is, then we have a duty to comment.

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."