Post · bonfire.cafe

Incidentally, if you notice any basic numeracy errors in my toots—eg. out by three orders of magnitude—I blame COVID19.

Caught it in 2022 and the first time round, for two months afterwards I was worse at mental arithmetic than ChatGPT: I couldn't reliably add two single-digit numbers correctly. I've gradually gotten some of it back, but: sub-clinical brain damage sucks, okay?

GinevraCat

@GinevraCat@toot.community replied · 3 months ago

@cstross Yes. This is what people don't realise. Brain-fog from fibromyalgia did the same to me. It's terrifying.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss, pcc

@deborahh@cosocial.ca replied · 3 months ago

@cstross @gdinwiddie I'm with you there: I lost some spatial ability and facial recognition. Simple things like taking a bus or watching a gangster film became stressful puzzles. #sigh

Don't get Covid, folks 😷.

Kerplunk

@Kerplunk@mastodon.scot replied · 3 months ago

@cstross

For Covid I blame the country's who financed the military research at Wuhan Lab. Biggest share us a France Spain are sure.

That lab was run in China because it was hoped that country could be blamed for lab escapes and would suffer most if one happened.

If you search long enough you may still be able to find a patent, one for a virus.

Guess which one.

Charlie Stross

@cstross@wandering.shop replied · 3 months ago

@Kerplunk oh fuck off, you idiot conspiracy theorist. (Blocked)

(hic/haec/hoc)

@_hic_haec_hoc@fosstodon.org replied · 3 months ago

@cstross after I caught COVID-19 in 2023 I felt for a while that something was different, but it was subtle enough that I kept telling myself it was just my imagination... until a year and half later I happened to open the Goodreads statistics and it became immediately obvious that after COVID I was reading a lot fewer books and that those I managed to finish were a lot shorter than the average in the previous 10 years. I wonder what else changed that I can't objectively measure :/

Mastokarl 🇺🇦

@Mastokarl@mastodon.social replied · 3 months ago

@cstross Oh my. All the best for all of you. This is really sad to hear.

@JDGeoShack@social.vivaldi.net replied · 3 months ago

@cstross Can confirm, I feel like I have more trouble focusing, short and long term memory loss/difficulty since I had this illness years ago (perhaps less noticeable mild case more recently too)

"...However, in the middle-aged to older population we studied, advanced brain ageing is a direct indicator of poor brain health, without the complexities of adolescent brain maturation. A plausible explanation for the observed accelerated brain ageing is chronic stress, potentially linked to pandemic-related factors such as social isolation, economic insecurity, and health concerns, consistent with well-documented sequelae like neuroinflammation, structural and functional brain changes in preclinical models. Previous studies in humans confirm that social isolation and perceived loneliness contribute to structural and functional brain changes that are expected to drive the observed accelerated brain ageing."

a journal I found about brain ageing:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-61033-4

an old journal paper about COVID brain damage (chart clip attached from this one):

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02001-z

skribe 🇺🇦 :verified_mustard:

@skribe@aus.social replied · 3 months ago

@cstross pulmonary diseases fuck you up. Caught mine in 2011, and had similar falloff in numeracy skills that you describe. Took eight years to approach anything resembling normality. I hope yours improves much faster.

Charlie Stross

@cstross@wandering.shop replied · 3 months ago

@skribe COVID19 isn't primarily a pulmonary disease: it's a diffuse inflammatory condition of the vascular endothelium (which the lungs just happen to contain a lot of). Hence lots of other symptoms.

Steven D. Brewer 🏳️‍⚧️

@stevendbrewer@wandering.shop replied · 3 months ago

@cstross @skribe When I was diagnosed with my chronic lung condition, I discovered I had probably been experiencing hypoxia for years, especially at night. My family had become concerned that I was experiencing some kind of early onset dementia. I mask everywhere and have, thus far, managed to avoid COVID19. I'm at Worldcon now and have my fingers crossed, I can make it home without getting infected.

Jaime Robertson

@JamesPadraicR@mastodon.social replied · 3 months ago

@cstross I can’t blame COVID, it’s seems to have skipped me.
I’ve always been crap at math, I blame my ASD brain for not handling anything more complicated than long division. That and changing school districts with different timelines for teaching it.

Jon PENNYCOOK

@jonpsp@mstdn.social replied · 3 months ago

@cstross Each time I get COVID, I find it deletes some of my lung capacity, my brain capacity, and my ability to taste things (luckily cheese tasting like plastic in #3 didn't last long, but eggs since #2 are disgusting)

Thomas Lobig🐔🐔

@Tom_ofB@23.social replied · 3 months ago

@cstross same here, still having issues with finding words sometimes.

Infoseepage

@Infoseepage@mastodon.social replied · 3 months ago

@cstross I have a client base of mostly retirees. I've watched a bunch of them die directly from Covid or have Covid precipitate a rapid decline in health leading to their deaths in the months after an infection. Most scary to me though is how often I've seen high functioning, mentally acute, independent people in their 70's and 80's take massive hits to their overall mental status and ability to function in the immediate wake of a Covid infection.

Like Mucas :pumpkin_laugh:

@mwl@io.mwl.io replied · 3 months ago

@cstross FWIW: my writing speed has *plunged* since my one bout of covid.

With the world ignoring this virus, I expect to mask everywhere for the rest of my life.

Madeleine Morris

@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social replied · 3 months ago

@cstross My ability to do cryptic crosswords completely evaporated, and it’s never come back.

Fiona Craig

@FionaCraig@mastodon.scot replied · 3 months ago

@cstross I hear you. 15 years of ME and I still fail to operate my very basic coffee filter machine on a regular basis!

Despite two maths degrees, my maths brain never fully returned until about 6 years ago. I tutored a friend's child through Higher Maths; part favour, part rehab for me!

bytebro

@bytebro@mastodonapp.uk replied · 3 months ago

@cstross

That's interesting. Would you say it might have affected your writing, or did you only notice numeracy issues? I'm curious, as I'm not a dissimilar age to you, and I've just felt vaguely but generally 'slower' since the COVID thing (2020 for me).

Charlie Stross

@cstross@wandering.shop replied · 3 months ago

@bytebro I was unable to write for about 9 months. Then took a whole year to emit an acceptable half-length novel ("A Conventional Boy"). Writing is, I think, more or less back to pre-COVID quality now (hard to tell b/c cataracts have also had an impact).

Frank van Puffelen

@puf@c.im replied · 3 months ago

@cstross 😢

Hang in there, Charlie! 🫂

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