Long Covid is causing brain injuries, getting into bone marrow, and many hospitals still don’t use N95s. A study in the European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience last week compared the neuropsychiatric symptoms of 51 people with Covid-19 15 months post acute infection to 74 non-Covid controls. They found differences
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A Puff of Absurdity: On Normal and Nihilism
We like to think we’ve returned to normal, but Covid and climate change will become more and more of a challenge to ignore. Biorisk consultant Conor Browne responded to a post about “this universally adopted phenomenon of people never mentioning the Covid word is really mind-blowing,” with this comment: “And
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What Makes It Worth the Risk?
We’re burning the candle from both ends. Is the light worth it? We take lots of risks in life. On a grand scale, everything we do involves some risk, especially in our world so polluted with plastics. Just eating and drinking has more risk. So we run the numbers in
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Multifaceted Long Covid is Like the Lernaean Hydra
A huge complication of Covid is that it affects so many different parts of the body. We can’t kill it, but we can prevent it from getting in. On Wednesday, the journal Pediatrics put out an overview of Long Covid in kids, aka PASC (Post-acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2). Here’s the gist
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Plague Update: SARS1 2009 News, Viewed from 2022
How many mental health problems seen since the pandemic started are actually blamed on changes in the brains of people infected, and not on some scapegoat like quarantines that kept more people healthy for longer? December 2009 — aftermath of SARS1: pic.twitter.com/bXJYMkoY8G — Dr. Lisa Iannattone (@lisa_iannattone) February 7, 2022
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Mask Up for Measles!!
The WHO put out this reminder about measles, which is hitting Europe and the UK hard and starting to be seen more in Canada too: I re-did it to bring more attention to the pandemic we’re currently swimming in: And a few people commented things along the lines of measles
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: It’s a Virus that’s Here to Stay
Why don’t we notice all the people getting sick or being disable or dying from Covid? A couple years ago, I wrote about being harassed for wearing a mask on my bike by some dude in his truck, and a couple people mentioned that they couldn’t believe that happened because
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Dr. Duncan’s Interview on Long Covid
Dr. Rae Duncan, a consultant cardiologist, explained concerns with Long Covid: The interview is just 13 minutes, but here’s the gist of it below, just a little cleaned up and without the interviewer’s questions. “It’s interesting that there appears to be a slight disconnect between the boots-on-the-ground public perception of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Something is Very Broken
There’s a resignation and disillusionment hitting some Covid-cautious, with some pulling away from larger society, feeling gaslit by it all: “Other than my job, I have zero desire to interact in public anymore. It’s not just the risk of another potentially devastating infection; it’s how the curtain has been pulled
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: It’s Covid-Conscious Community Awareness Day!!
“Until the rest of the world gets a clue, you’re not alone – I’m here for you.” CCCAD maskcots We’re halfway through winter, on a caledar at least, but likely not nearly halfway through this pandemic. Guiness Pig suggested that every Groundhog Day should be a day set aside for
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The New Impaired Driving Issue
We’re having a rash of car accidents near me. On a few posts, a left turn on a red in front of a school bus and a collision with a building, I referred to that recent Lancet study as possibly pointing to the cause: “19.4% of people who’ve had Covid and
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: N95s Reduce the Risk
There are more studies coming out that show that N95s and fresh air help in schools, and we’re still not going to act on them! A pre-print just came out yesterday that studied university classrooms and the way students interacted, and concluded, “Due to high-population density, frequent close contact, possible poor
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Plague Update: From The Past
It’s January 27th, 2022, but you’re reading this in the future. I’m writing this after my intended bed time, having just helped a friend learn how to purchase an NFT. I guess you’ll know how that turned out. It was a pretty standard day working from home. The dog got
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Climate Memes
I know weather is different from climate, but it feels like April outside today. All the snow’s melting (at least we got some snow after a very green Christmas), and I started peeling off layers as I walked. Leon Simons (the “gentleman” climate scientist, not the Snowfall character) created the meme above. When
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: More on Covid and the Brain
A new study further confirms cognitive decline after Covid. The study weeded out depression and other issues in people with Long Covid or Post-Covid Conditions (PCC) from the effects of Covid-induced brain damage to find, “The present study reported a significant psychomotor slowing in individuals diagnosed with PCC. Importantly, this
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Peak Advancement
Measles cases are on the rise because of lower vaccination rates. It’s one of the most contagious diseases out there, but that’s still not going to budge policy. An article in yesterday’s Guardian explains that we’re actually less prepared to cope with any viral activity now than we were in 2019.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: We Need Policy Based on Evidence, not Vibes
Survival of the fittest doesn’t mean the strongest survive, it means whomever can best adapt to the conditions of life will survive. Adapting doesn’t mean tolerating what’s happening and ignoring it; it means changing when the conditions of life change. So, in a pandemic, it means changing the way we live
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Covid’s Immune Response Suppression
For many, Covid seems milder now, closer to a regular flu, but yet another new study suggests otherwise. I like this analogy from Tern to help explain a recent study from Nature Microbiology. “Do you know why it can be a bad sign that an acute covid infection seems more
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Grand Theft Immunity
T. Ryan Gregory asks us to consider the possibility that repeated infection is rolling the dice that leads to Long Covid, which causes immune damage: “If we’re insisting on using the rhetoric of fiscal metaphors, “immunity theft” can be small and brief (petty immunity theft) all the way to severe and long-term (grand
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Lab Leak Theory Has Backing
A Freedom of Information request by reporter Emily Kopp is now pointing to the lab leak being more likely than previously thought. From Richard Ebright: “An order line for restriction endonuclease BsmBl–and no other restriction endonuclease–in a draft of EcoHealth’s 2018 DEFUSE proposal is equivalent to a smoking gun. There
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