@Jennifer_Pinkley@zirk.us @DrPsyBuffy @mielcarz
I hate to do this, because you're obviously well meaning, but as I was reading that article alarm bells started going off. Simple google searches will disprove a lot of it.
For example, when I got to this part I wondered if I'd missed something:
"There are a couple of papers that alleged T cell infection from SARS-CoV-2, but they are highly implausible from a theoretical standpoint and some ended up retracted. Those “papers are honestly ridiculous, that’s what they are,” said Bertoletti. "
Unfortunately for us all, he does link to a single article that was retracted, but, there's others that are not.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-022-00919-x
Or, this statement at the beginning:
"Most importantly, as time has passed, the rate of hospitalization and death from COVID has plummeted..."
In fact, the hospitalization rate is still pretty consistent if you think about it another way. While the last couple of peaks weren't as high as the three highest peaks, the rate as of the last peak(all of two months ago) would have been in the middle of the three highest peaks.
Perhaps more importantly if the idea that COVID hospitalizations had "plummeted" were true, then we'd be seeing the lowest rates, correct? Unfortunately, we're not. The rate was lower in June of 2021 and April of 2022.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admissions
It's important to note that it's even worse than that, because we're not comparing apples to apples. Early on all hospitalizations in which someone tested positive were generally counted, whereas now being hospitalized "with" COVID and "for" COVID are often counted separately.
Not to mention the elephant in the room....we've killed off a lot of the most vulnerable people so the rates, pretty much by definition, have to go down as more and more people are killed.
Anyway, this does a pretty good job, I assume, because I quit reading after I realized that article has a lot of misinformation in it:
https://pandemicindex.substack.com/p/psa-do-not-take-medical-advice-from
@BE @Jennifer_Pinkley @DrPsyBuffy If SARS-CoV-2 was causing widespread immunodeficiency, doctors would be seeing evidence of opportunistic infections and unusual cancers as was seen early on in the AIDS crisis. They are not.
When the COVID-related immunodeficiency hypothesis appeared on social media, proponents were using RSV and Flu infections as evidence; time has proven that reasoning to be faulty.
I say this not to minimize COVID, just to emphasize that it is NOT “airborne AIDS.”
@mielcarz @Jennifer_Pinkley@zirk.us @DrPsyBuffy
Interestingly, I went through what I wrote a couple of times and I never said "airborne AIDS" and so I have to assume you're either:
Not talking to me
or
Have to set up a straw man
Since I don't know you, I'll assume the former and not the latter.
@BE @Jennifer_Pinkley @DrPsyBuffy It's not a straw man, because many people on social media have used that term when discussing the supposed immunodeficiency from SARS-CoV-2, but if I gave the impression that you were personally calling it that I apologize.
While there are many fascinating studies on the effects of SARS-CoV-2 on the immune system, the fact remains that in a world where several billion people have been infected there is *no* population-wide evidence of immunodeficiency.
@mielcarz @Jennifer_Pinkley@zirk.us @DrPsyBuffy
I accept that perhaps you weren't pointing at me, but, no one...not one single person...in this thread said "airborne AIDS" but you. So you *are* minimizing by trying to make other people's positions seem more extreme than they may be, which sounds an awful lot like a straw man to me.
So then I see that you linked an article in a second post. One that I've actually read(it may surprise you to find out that I've actually read thousands of COVID articles and papers and I've come to my conclusions across thousands of hours of reading and thinking) and....now I just have to dig into this.
In the spectrum of articles on COVID from "This is the extinction of mankind" on the left to "This is absolutely nothing" on the right it's just right of center. Since we've already beaten "airborne AIDS" to death I'm going to ignore the whole first half of it and move onto the "A Subset of Patients" section.
I think the conclusion is probably a bit optimistic, but, let's take it exactly as it says. it says that a conservative estimate of 10% of people will get long COVID. Long COVID being a set of outcomes that are currently under one umbrella. Underneath that umbrella, a set of those conditions are immune related.
As your linked article states:
"As long COVID comes into clearer focus, it appears to be an umbrella term for different conditions, caused by a persistence of the virus in the body in some, the development of antibodies that start attacking healthy tissue in others, and tiny blood clots in yet others due to viral persistence or autoantibodies. The immune system thus seemingly shares the blame for some long COVID cases."
The article links to Dr Topol's long COVID paper which has *an entire section* on immune dysregulation, autoantibodies, reactivated viruses, viral persistence, etc.
Let's link that with another generally accepted concept in that reinfection can also cause long COVID. Not having long COVID after one infection does not mean you won't after the second, third, etc.
So, the article which you are putting out there to back the idea that our immune systems are generally safe is one that implies that within a never-ending reinfection society increasing numbers of people are going to....have immune problems?
I'm sorry, but I think if this were the 80's you'd be saying that HIV is just a flu-like virus.
This is *just* the immune system. We haven't even touched on any of the other dangers.
The bottom line is *no one* knows what the long term implications are here and people who are out there selling "it's fine" have either forgotten the precautionary principle or have some ulterior motive. When you linked to that Ryan Cooper article you outed yourself as a minimizer. Sorry.
@mielcarz @Jennifer_Pinkley@zirk.us @DrPsyBuffy
Yes, the guy who starts with "airborne AIDS" bows out when called a minimizer. You really should have sat this one out from the get go.
@BE You know what, I was going to let it lie when you told me I would have called HIV “a flu" in the 1980s when I expressly called out the ways AIDS manifested clinically earlier in the thread. But since you can't seem to stop: fuck off. Enjoy your block.
@mielcarz @BE please, the reality of Covid is bad enough without making it out to be worse than it is. There isn’t evidence the Covid usually causes immune deficiency. I would venture that it may do so sometimes and it sometimes seems to make people more vulnerable to other infections.
Please. We must not let our fears make this bad situation seems even worse than it is.
@BE @Jennifer_Pinkley @DrPsyBuffy Now that this has entered the realm where you are insulting me, I will have to bow out. I wish you well.