A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org
Moved full time to my other account @BE soon as this instance is still having issues.
Joined Nov 2022
It was a hard realization for me that the schools I have been involved with, and the district myself and others in my family have worked and volunteered for, were far more interested with having butts in the seats so that the money kept flowing in than they actually were with the health (or even education) of the kids, and certainly the teachers and staff....and I was pretty cynical before COVID.
There is a *long* way to go in the science of long COVID, for sure.
I find this fascinating as a subject, so thank you for bringing it up. I would like to comment about how I've seen it shifting in recent years, just because I find it interesting.
If you take anti-vax as people who have lost trust in public health, then prior to the last President's term, most of the "anti-vaxxers" that I knew of would probably be considered far left wing. They wanted to live a "natural" life and were mostly "live with nature" types. Obviously this shifted with the current strain of anti-vaxxers to a right wing bent.
What I find now is that more of the "COVID isn't over" community are liberals and they're increasingly fed up with public health. So I think we're going to see a shift back to the left in loss of trust in public health, but probably not in anti-vax, if that makes sense.
Interesting study. Thanks for sharing!
I read their paper in The American Journal of Medicine and was surprised that they postulated about psychology, "Our research agrees with past studies about psychology contributing to traffic risks," but did not seem to mention the possibility of brain fog or other COVID-induced ailments contributing to the crashes. I suspect that probably has a significant contribution as well.
@jik @begrudging_recluse @novid
The scientists I know are some of the worst when it comes to protecting themselves and I can't wrap my head around it. My college mentor and I have discussed this quite a few times this past year as they've dropped off of the precautionary bandwagon one by one.
Will they wear their goggles and gloves in the lab? Yes. Always.
Will they put on head to toe PPE to enter a lab that requires it for safety? Yes. Always.
Will they put on a mask to go into a grocery store? No.
It's often left me feeling like I'm the crazy one, but, thankfully, I have at least some family and friends who still get it and follow through.
Stay safe out there!
Yes, exactly this. I think about this a lot, too. I suspect it will have to get a lot worse before it begins to get better again. We already see how not caring about COVID has opened the doors to not caring about other things. Polio, Measles, Ebola, etc.
In this thought process I also often think "Wow, our ancestors would be ashamed at how society is acting about this." Can you imagine being the one in the village who ran *towards* the illness rather than away? They'd put modern society in a leper colony....
@TRyanGregory@mstdn.science
Brought to you by the same people who decided SARS-CoV-2 was too scary of a name for the general population, no doubt.
I honestly believed people would get it by now, but I've come to believe that if people were dropping dead all over of MERS-CoV and Ebola while Polio paralyzed children around the world there would still be enough people who don't care to fill restaurants, shops and arenas.
I'm embarrassed I hadn't heard this one before and had to go look it up.
"The economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power." - FDR
I have no idea what the "rules" regarding COVID testing in hospitals really are, but, a mom of kids who know our kids brags anytime it comes up that "they quit doing that"(COVID testing) at our local hospital. I worry she's actually telling the truth and not just trying to get some kind of right-wing street cred.
I don't blame you one bit for ghosting them. I've kept a couple of longterm friends who don't give me any attitude about my decisions, they understand it, and don't shove pictures of them doing things and whatnot in my face. It's a balancing act, but, yes, a couple of people mentioned in my thread have young kids and it absolutely breaks my heart to see what they're going through *now* and to worry about what they'll go through later as they grow up. It's hard to watch people damage themselves and their loved ones, and I guess that's one of the reasons it's been bugging me so much lately. As the whole medical situation, by pretty much any metric, continues to get worse I often feel like I'm the only one amongst my peer group who really worries about it.
@voron I sincerely appreciate that! I try not to talk for the sake of talking and it's nice to be on a platform that seems to appreciate that.
Having watched the way some people seem to have so many issues post-COVID infection and some just don't I've often wondered if it largely comes down to which variant, or how large of a viral dose they get. It's probably a mix of all of it.
Each variant seems to have distinct paths which it takes. Some are more in the nasal passages and lungs, some more in the throat, etc. I'm sure whether you're briefly exposed versus sitting in a cloud of viral shedding for hours makes a difference as well.
There's so many studies going on and so far that science has to go before it catches up with people's experiences out in the world on this virus. As a scientist I hate to give advice before "all of the science is in" so to speak, but, as an example, my dad asked me just this morning if I knew anything that could help him out with his symptoms. It's probably been about a month since he had COVID and particularly the brain fog is hard for him to deal with. I don't think there's been any sort of conclusive science on the issue, but, I also don't want to leave him hanging, so I suggested a few things I've seen people say helps.
We're in really uncharted(modern) times. Hopefully your daughter comes through them relatively unscathed!
Spot on. Then you connect the way the COVID response has mirrored the climate change response and the governmental side of things often becomes more clear. $45 billion more in the defense bill than was asked for? Not a problem! $10 billion for COVID? Ooooh, we can't afford that.
But what's driving me nuts is watching people I've known for decades suffering, wondering why, but refusing to even hear a possible explanation if it involves "COVID" at all. It often makes me think I've totally gone off the deep end.
I really appreciate you taking the time to respond!
Questions like this are really important if we're going to move forward, too.
Off the top of my head I remember that the Long COVID Research Initiative was working on a test for micro clots. I don't know if that's out there and available yet, but, while giving it a quick google search I found this from WebMD:
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20221207/microclots-may-explain-long-covid-symptoms
Having a legit test for Long COVID would be a real game changer. I know there was a study that showed certain blood markers showed up frequently with long COVID, and I just found a Nature article about it:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00118-2
But, long story short, this is one of those situations that the science needs to catch up with the happenings in the world. A real diagnosis would mean a lot to the people who are struggling.
You are not wrong on this at all. One of the real failures of COVID information has been the media...pretty much across the board, unfortunately. I forget exactly which friend who gave up on precautions earlier this year I'm referring to here, but, their change of heart was after hearing some NPR segment on how the dangerous part of pandemic was over.
These are the kinds of personal stories that are hard to come by out there. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond and I hope you all continue to stay healthy!
You're hitting on a big thing with me there. I've said this here a few times and I say it all the time to people I know and work with in life.
Scientists are usually poor communicators to non-scientists.
I suffer from this myself. I'm wordy and frequently I spend a long time getting to my point and lose my audience along the way.
I really appreciate you sharing those stories! It's becoming harder for me to see what's going on and at the same time find that, even amongst my scientifically literate and very smart friends and colleagues, virtually no one will say "long COVID" or even acknowledge the *possibility* of COVID being a part of their situation.
I find myself just sitting around thinking about it all and how we're never going to get anywhere without the discussion at least starting, and it hasn't for the vast majority of people.
Exactly this. Mine got so bad about 7 years ago now that one day I realized I could not walk from my bed to the bathroom one morning. I ended up in the hospital where they shot me full of enough stuff that I could make it to the chiropractor who wanted to try this new machine he had on me. It worked so well I bought an inversion table as a similar method I could use at home.
Prior to that experience I'd found that Feldenkrais worked better than massage for me. Almost might be something to look into.
Good luck! Back pain sucks!
Moved full time to my other account @BE soon as this instance is still having issues.
Joined Nov 2022
