Ducky 馃嚚馃嚘
@ducky@mstdn.ca  路  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

One of the biggest misconceptions is that COVID is "like the flu". It was never "like the flu". Traditional upper respiratory diseases get into the respiratory system and then stop. They just aren't very good at getting into other cells. COVID, however, gets into cells via the ACE2 receptor, and there are ACE2 receptors in almost every cell.

https://www.donotpanic.news/p/why-covid-can-never-be-just-a-cold

In autopsy studies, they have found SARS-CoV-2 virus just about everywhere they have looked: lungs, heart, brain, kidney, gut, testicles, ovarian fluid, etc. It is true that in many of the research papers, they only look for RNA (because it's easy), which can't tell if it's infectious or just fragments of no-longer-dangerous virus. HOWEVER, there have also been a fair number of studies which have found infectious viruses in human tissues, including this one which found infectious virus in skull sawdust that came from sawing open skulls to do brain autopsies:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/8/24-0145_article

#covid#covid19 #covidisnottheflu
Sarah dreams of beans
@beandreams@friendhole.social replied  路  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago
@ducky The "like the flu" thing drives me nuts, because most acute infections have "flu-like symptoms". Being tired, achy, and feverish is what an immune response feels like. That's how it feels to get infected with the flu, but it also commonly feels that way to catch herpes, HIV, meningitis, malaria, or whatever. It doesn't mean it will be mild or resolve on its own
Ducky 馃嚚馃嚘
@ducky@mstdn.ca replied  路  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

Now, it's not necessarily bad that Public Health focuses on keeping the health care system running: somebody needs to keep it running!

What is bad is that there doesn't seem to be any other governmental department that is paying attention to keeping humans running smoothly I'm not even sure what department that would be.

Maybe the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction? That appears to be the ministry which pays disability/unemployment benefits. They should care about the long-term damage from COVID and its long-term effects... but perhaps the rate is still slow enough that it's not going to affect the current election cycle. 馃槙

I don't have data for BC or Canada, but here's a graph showing a steep increase after the start of the pandemic in the rate at which people in the US have been getting approved for disability.

#covid#covid19#longcovid