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Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

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Re: Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

#41

Post by _ea1k »

lbeltrame wrote: post #9
Dumblydorr wrote: post #4

This virus is uncommonly indiscriminate in how many organ systems it damages. This may be due to its ability to deoxygenate a patient, systemic auto-immune response, systemic inflammation or vasculitis in organs, stroke like events with blood clots in multiple events, etc. What a beast of a virus!

Other coronaviruses can infect the nervous system. In fact, there were papers out in 2018 describing neural infections by "human coronavirus". Cytokine storms and their associated effects (like clotting ,etc.) are also present with other viral infections, like with the original Spanish Flu H1N1 strain (during the infamous "second wave"). "Regular" pneumonia can severely weaken you for months or a year, even if you ha…

My frustration with articles like this is that they fail to point this out adequately. These problems are significant on their own, but they do not necessarily warrant this virus being treated differently from others.

The things that warrant the separate treatment are still the high death rate, high hospitalization rate, and potential for large spread across a population with little existing immunity.

Re: Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

#42

Post by cs702 »

This story is possibly the very last thing I wanted to read today.

Nonetheless, I read it and upvoted it because I like to think of myself as a reality-facing optimist, as opposed to a wishful-thinking optimist. (The landscape of history is littered with the dead bodies of wishful-thinking optimists; I don't want to be one of them.)

After reading this story, along with recent evidence that a substantial portion of covid-19 patients exhibit cardiac anormalities [a] and that herd immunity to covid-19 may be infeasible [b], I realize how little we actually know about this new disease.

--

[a] https://academic.oup.com/ehjcimaging/article/doi/10.1093/ehj...

[b] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53315983

Re: Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

#43

Post by zaphod4prez »

HeroOfAges wrote: post #29
deelowe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your statement change if I personally know several people who are ill and a few who have died? I have first hand experience. Do you? Yes, I am afraid, but that fear is backed by empirical evidence and my study of the science of this disease, not the media. You should be afraid as well.

I personally only know of one person that has tested positive for Covid-19 and she recovered fully after about two weeks. Can you tell us more about the people you know that died due to Covid-19? General demographic info, like sex, age, that type of thing.

My good friend is a healthy & fit 24-yr old male. He bikes about 60-80miles every week, doesn't smoke or drink (ever), has no medical conditions, and takes no medication. He had a mild case a few weeks ago— tested positive for antibodies, felt like a really nasty flu plus trouble breathing but felt mostly better in 2 weeks. He is having persistent symptoms that are really affecting his day-to-day life. He experiences serious fatigue about two days a week, to the point where it's difficult to work, and has occasional brain fog.

It's really scary, I'm worried for him. And now I really don't want to get it.

Re: Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

#44

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

starkd wrote: post #22
irq11 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you see the parts of the article where they say that the most severe, “consequential damage” is predominantly found in the elderly and most severely ill? You’re implying that people who have mild cases (>99% of all cases; remember: over 40% cases are so mild that they’re considered “asymptomatic”, and for every one case we detect, 10-20 others never even bother to be tested! ) have some kind of neurological damag…

The headline was indeed more inflammatory than the facts of the article. It seems like the media wants people to panic.

A small percentage change in the output of knowledge workers would have an outsized effect on the overall economy. This kind of data is as dramatic as the title suggests. We can’t afford to poke this bear.

Re: Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

#45

Post by amitkapit »

titzer wrote: post #33
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID-19 fear entered moral conviction territory long ago. It's useless to argue the numbers or even suggest the possibility of evidence that tempers the doomsday fear. It's like arguing against the religious.

> It's useless to argue the numbers With very few exceptions, those "arguing the numbers" present a systematically biased and intentionally deceptive view that this virus is not dangerous and systematically hamper the collective action necessary to slow its spread. Instead of merely presenting a "balanced view", it's a rather irresponsible level of misinformation by...let's be frank...rather uninformed armchair epide…

you just made his point (;

Re: Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

#46

Post by monocasa »

HeroOfAges wrote: post #29
deelowe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your statement change if I personally know several people who are ill and a few who have died? I have first hand experience. Do you? Yes, I am afraid, but that fear is backed by empirical evidence and my study of the science of this disease, not the media. You should be afraid as well.

I personally only know of one person that has tested positive for Covid-19 and she recovered fully after about two weeks. Can you tell us more about the people you know that died due to Covid-19? General demographic info, like sex, age, that type of thing.

Coworker died. Was male, 38, no comorbidities. Left two small kids behind who probably won't remember him.

Re: Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

#48

Post by Consultant32452 »

titzer wrote: post #33
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID-19 fear entered moral conviction territory long ago. It's useless to argue the numbers or even suggest the possibility of evidence that tempers the doomsday fear. It's like arguing against the religious.

> It's useless to argue the numbers With very few exceptions, those "arguing the numbers" present a systematically biased and intentionally deceptive view that this virus is not dangerous and systematically hamper the collective action necessary to slow its spread. Instead of merely presenting a "balanced view", it's a rather irresponsible level of misinformation by...let's be frank...rather uninformed armchair epide…

>Basic shit like wearing masks is now political.

Masks became political the moment the CDC, WHO, and US Surgeon General lied to the public by telling them that masks don't help and would even be worse than not wearing a mask. The world's leading experts made it political, don't blame nobodies with no power for that.

>You should take this seriously because people are actually dying.

"People are actually dying" isn't the adult conversation. The adult conversation acknowledges that there may never be a vaccine or even a good treatment for this disease. Many countries have their infection "under control" but this is only because of fairly draconian policies which cannot be implemented forever. Once the draconian policies are pulled back, the infection will hit them again because there is no herd immunity and no vaccine. The adults in the room are having a discussion that balances the understanding that there is a dangerous disease out there with the further understanding that draconian measures cannot be permanent and at some point the world may just have to deal with the consequences of returning to normalish life. The only question that matters is "How long do we wait?" and that question is not primarily an epidemiological one. For you personally, the answer to that question may be "forever," but it seems pretty clear that "forever" is not an answer most people will accept.

Re: Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

#49

Post by dijit »

pgo wrote: post #30

My family got corona positive last month, around the same time my brother started having some neurological issues. The doctors after seeing the MRI did not detect any issues. The same was confirmed by other radiologists and multiple other MRI scans over the month. Yet he faces these issues: nausea,headache,confusion,weakness,ataxia (unsteady walk) sensory changes, including numbness or tingling,trouble with vision (o…

I'm not a doctor (idk any doctors who browse hackernews) but:

> nausea,headache,confusion,weakness,ataxia

I have experienced these with low oxygen saturation (I have had chronic asthma my whole life, some really bad attacks).

If it's affecting his vision also (black dots) get him checked.. it's known that scar tissue continues to exist on the lungs (similar to pneumonia survival) and will take a very long time (decades) to recover, potentially).

Re: Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system

#50

Post by dehrmann »

gumby wrote: post #13

People seem to have a naïve view of what “cured” means: someone “gets sick”, is treated, and then returns to the status quo ante . Thus there is little concern about catching the disease (or any disease) when you are not in an “at risk” group. But hospital discharge just means the treatment you get stops being worth the time/money. Ideally you finish convalescing at home. But any consequential damage isn’t ignored, a…

The other thing that make combating it hard is it has a relatively low death rate, especially for people without preexisting conditions, when compared to big, scary viruses like Ebola, and a lot of cases have relatively minor symptoms.

If death rates were 1/10 of what they are (which really means a less severe virus overall), there's a good chance most countries would have let it run its course.

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