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."

It's All a Charade

File this under, "Things we already know or ought to know."  

The BMJ just published a feature called, "Why Covid-19 is 'A Vascular Disease Masquerading as a Respiratory One.'" The quotation inside the title comes from Andy Benest, vascular biologist at the University of Nottingham. He further explains, "The virus enters through the airways but exerts its systemic effects through the vasculature. The common denominator in the lungs, heart, kidneys, and brain." (h/t Chantzy)

This personification of a virus, a non-living entity, removes our responsibility as if there's no way we could have known because it's so stealthy. Except we did know. 

Back in August 2020, five and a half years ago, the Journal of Neuroimaging published a study titled, "Covid-19 as a Blood Clotting Disorder Masquerading as a Respiratory Illness: A Cerebrovascular Perspective and Therapeutic Implications for Stroke Thrombectomy." They said, 

"Several reports have been published of patients with ischemic strokes in the setting of coronavirus disease 2019. The mechanisms of how SARS-CoV-2 results in blood clots and large vessel strokes need to be defined as it has therapeutic implications. ... Once SARS-CoV-2 enters the blood stream, a cascade of events unfolds including ... formation of cross-linked fibrin blood clots, leading to pulmonary emboli (PE) and large vessel strokes seen on angiographic imaging studies. There is emerging evidence for Covid-19 being a blood clotting disorder and SARS-CoV-2 using the respiratory route to enter the blood stream. As the blood-air barrier is breached, varying degrees of collateral damage occur. Although antivira and immune therapies are studied, the role of blood thinners in the prevention and management of blood clots in Covid-19 needs evaluation. ... Understanding the mechanisms of blood clotting can potentially help prevent or mitigate end organ damage beyond the respiratory illness in Covid-19."

It took ten years, from 1971 to 1981, for enough people to understand how latently deadly HIV is, and then another five years more to get public health on board on massive education campaigns to prevent the spread. Every bit of educating before the mid-80s was from ad hoc communities of people who were on the front lines, watching friends and family die of the disease, and distributing pamphlets of information by hand. Covid affects all the major organs, including brain functioning. Even mild Covid. I'm curious and a bit terrified at what we'll see in 2030 if we still can't remember that we've known it's a vascular disease since the first year! 

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.

Not Strategy but Symptoms

 So, things are a mess. But here's an interesting take on Trump from Andrew Wortman: 

"Trump's 2 a.m. meltdowns and dictator cosplay aren't part of a predetermined strategy--they're collapse. A malignant narcissist, weak and unhealthy, colliding with the one thing he can't escape: DEATH. And his team knows it, which is why they're going full-fascist now. As a psychologist, I can tell you: when malignant narcissists lose control, they don't fade quietly. They escalate exponentially--rage, smear campaigns, humiliation, projection, even violence. Every move is about punishing those who expose their weakness to claw back control. This isn't 'toughness.' It's disintegration. In my field we call it narcissistic mortification: the sheer terror, shame, and dread of being forced to confront one's own fragility. To them, it feels like annihilation--as the false self they've lived behind for decades shatters. 

Mortification hits with both physical and psychological shock--chest pain, burning, panic, humiliation, obsessive thoughts. They feel exposed, worthless desperate. That desperation is what fuels the meltdowns you're watching play out in real time like an SNL skit or horror film. For Trump, the trigger is being faced with his own mortality. He can't sue death. He can't cheat it, bribe it, or con his way out of it. It's inescapable. And for the first time in his life, he's powerless--and the panic shows in every crazed rant and wild attempt to project control. That's why you see him suddenly fixated on things like getting into heaven, legacy, and being remembered. Humiliation is the narcissist's deepest wound--and nothing humiliates more than colliding with the truth that you can't escape the end.

The Epstein files serve to make this terror far worse. Not only do they expose what he's spent 30+ years concealing, but if they surface after he's gone, he can't spin them. The thought of being defined by that humiliation--with no power to control the narrative--is devastating. When narcissists face both mortality AND exposure, collapse deepens. They don't reflect or accept responsibility. They deflect, rage, lie, smear, and escalate authoritarian grabs. Anything to keep the mask intact just a little bit longer--no matter who gets hurt in the process. 

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. 

The Rise of Unreason

The Ontario Health Coalition put out a press release a couple weeks ago about the sharp increase in people infected with measles here. There were 816 cases from October 2024 to April, then 155 new cases from April 3-11. Our immunization rates are lower than most of Europe -- only 70% of kids have typical childhood vaccinations. Vaccination rates were reduced dramatically in 2020. "This is a Public Health failure that must be addressed with the utmost urgency." 

David Fisman recently wrote about it: 

Balancing Individual Rights and Community Health Requires Knowledge of History

Ontario is in the midst of a measles outbreak, and our Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) is taking a “you do you” approach. No mandates. No strong guidance. Just a gentle suggestion that people make informed decisions…if they choose to. It’s a startling response given public health’s long history of collective action, and at times, authoritarianism. 

That authoritarianism wasn’t a bug of early public health. It was a feature. Modern public health emphasizes individual rights, but those rights can come into tension with the community’s right to health, especially during outbreaks of communicable diseases. Institutional public health grew out of fear. 

Public Health Needs to be Independent

 David Fisman posted a thread yesterday about problems when big money gets involved in public health.

"During Covid, I experienced firsthand how political pressure twisted science—and nearly destroyed reputations. A short thread on conflict-of-interest theatre, redacted emails, and lessons we still haven’t learned. 

In January 2021, I was publicly accused by Ontario’s Premier of having a conflict of interest due to paid consulting work I did for the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO). The suggestion was that I’d influenced school closure advice. What wasn’t shared? Internal emails—later released via FOI—show this was a manufactured controversy. The allegations didn’t reflect what officials knew privately. And that story deserves to be told. 

On Jan 26, 2021, Heather Watt (Chief of Staff to Health Minister Christine Elliott) drafted messaging about the “conflict.” She sent it to Steini Brown—my dean at the University of Toronto, and chair of the Science Advisory Table—for input. Steini replied carefully. He pushed back, noting: “There’s no direct line between David working for ETFO, us giving you advice to close schools, and you following it.” His reply was initially redacted in FOI responses. Journalist Jack Hauen appealed the redaction—and won. He sent me the full, unredacted email when requesting comment. It showed that the internal view did not support the public claims being made about me. Steini also wrote: “He is merely one of dozens of scientists working on a volunteer basis and does not speak for the group in his work for ETFO.” That’s a very different story than what was spun publicly. 

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."

Why Is Everyone Suddenly Sick??

Some people are working hard to believe this level of illness, getting sick several times each year, has always been the case. The latest bizarre reason I've heard for all the illness recently is microplastics. It's definitely a problem that there's so much plastic in our world, and has been for decades (mainly from car tires), BUT that's not why so many people are sick now. T. Ryan Gregory explains a more likely reason below:

I'm sure infectious disease minimizers are attributing the record-shattering surge of severe flu this year to "immunity debt". Let's think this through, shall we?

1. Serious mitigations ended more than 4 years ago. Why would immunity debt only kick in now? And why wasn't four flu seasons without mitigations enough to repay whatever "debt" there was? We wrote this more than two years ago.And yet we had to reiterate the same point this year because the "debt" is somehow still not repaid. 

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.