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– “The vaccine doesn’t stop you getting covid,”
It reduces the chances, and greatly reduces the severity of covid for those who catch it.
– “it doesn’t stop you passing covid on,”
It reduces the chances.
– “it is being used on an emergency licence,”
Because there’s an emergency.
– “it is known to cause blood clots in adults and heart problems in children.”
Very rarely, whereas catching covid causes both far more frequently.
A few people get trapped in vehicle fires by seatbelts. Thousands are saved from injury and death by seatbelts. When the government proposed compulsory fitting of seatbelts, the vehicle industry objected, saying that people would be trapped in burning vehicles. Really, the industry was just trying to avoid spending money on safety.
And here’s an example (link) of my “trust” in corporations:
– “[Fred] should have got a job with a cosmetics company, helping their marketing stay just within the advertising regulations.”
“The UK government backed down on mandatory covid vaccination for British health workers.”
The legislation, which applies to England only, remains on the books. The devolved administrations will make their own decisions. Sajid Javid announced a “consultation” process in parliament and stated that mandatory vaccination was the correct approach for delta but no longer proportionate for omnicron.
“Given those dramatic changes, it is not only right but responsible to revisit the balance of risks and opportunities that guided our original decision last year. While vaccination remains our very best line of defence against covid-19, I believe that it is no longer proportionate to require vaccination as a condition of deployment through statute. So today I am announcing that we will launch a consultation on ending vaccination as a condition of deployment in health and all social care settings.”
Elsewhere in that statement to the house he stated:
“Some basic facts remain. Vaccines save lives, and everyone working in health and social care has a professional duty to be vaccinated against covid-19.” Also “I have written to professional regulators operating across health to ask them to urgently review current guidance to registrants on vaccinations including covid-19 to emphasise their professional responsibilities in this respect.”
That leaves everyone with a lack of clarity, doctors, nurses, dentists, Operating department assistants, other health care workers as well as employers ie.NHS administrations or care home employers. The professional bodies like the GMC and NMC may see that “professional responsibility” and translate that to mandatory for the purposes of approving license to practice through the appraisal system. It also leaves open the route for third parties to resort to legal challenges against non-vaccinated healthcare workers and/or hospital administrations because they didn’t fulfil their “professional responsibility” or enforce it.
So say your relative caught covid in a hospital where some nurses or doctors or other staff were not vaccinated, there would be an legal avenue to pursue relating to the staff not fulfiling their professional responsibility and the hospital administration for not enforcing it.So basically no one knows wtf is going on nor where they stand. One could argue it is a fudge deliberately lacking clarity to make the government look good by appearing to listen to the anti-mandatory vaccination lobby whilst leaving other non-governmental avenues of enforcement wide open and leaving everyone none the wiser as to their actual status.
Fred
“The NHS have been insisting Canadian truck drivers and the entire population of Austria are vaccinated? I didn’t know that. The UK government backed down on mandatory covid vaccination for British health workers.
I didn’t had a friend turned into a vegetable by the hepatitis B vaccine putting two blood clots into his brain.”
This makes very little sense, could you please explain what you meant by this. I am asking because if I understand correctly some of what could be construed by what you wrote could be seriously misleading so please explain.
SA: It doesn’t make much sense. There are reasons for this – Fred doesn’t make much sense, and his English is rather poor (despite his complete ignorance of any other language).
In any case, there are significant reasons to doubt what he’s trying to say.
For one thing, he’s incapable of telling the truth. For another, he lies all the time. But perhaps most significantly, he doesn’t have any friends.
A few people get trapped in vehicle fires by seatbelts. Thousands are saved from injury and death by seatbelts. When the government proposed compulsory fitting of seatbelts, the vehicle industry objected, saying that people would be trapped in burning vehicles. Really, the industry was just trying to avoid spending money on safety.
You put your seatbelt on when you get into a car, you take it off when you get out and your body is still the same. It doesn’t have any holes in it, it doesn’t have any experimental substances floating around in it. That isn’t a human rights issue. Mandatory vaccination is a human rights issue, the vaccine isn’t tried and tested, the long term effects are not known. What is known is the vaccine gives very limited and short lived protection against the Omicron variant.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232698/omicron-largely-evades-immunity-from-past/
So say your relative caught covid in a hospital where some nurses or doctors or other staff were not vaccinated, there would be an legal avenue to pursue relating to the staff not fulfiling their professional responsibility and the hospital administration for not enforcing it.
In the real world my relative caught covid in a care home after old people, including those testing positive for covid, were thrown out of hospitals to make way for the young in the overwhelming deluge of pressures on the NHS the experts predicted but which never came.
Fred, I have stated clearly that I do not agree with mandatory vaccination, not just in this thread but also in other threads on these forums. I agree that the seatbelt is not an apt analogy. I have also stated in these forums that legal action will happen against the policy you have stated and indeed it has begun. I sincerely hope they succeed. It was an abominably short sighted policy.
I guarantee, in the real world, health care staff and NHS hospital administrations will be legally challenged for not fulfilling their “professional duty” or for not enforcing what the government says is a professional duty. It will take a little time but it is going to happen. You stated that the UK government has backed down on mandatory vaccination. What I have said is that they have appeared to do so but in “the real world” all they have done is confuse everything and everyone, and shirked responsibility and shifted it to healthcare staff, the hospital, primary care and care home administrations and the relevant regulatory bodies. If government was sincere they would have legislated that employers could not mandate vaccination as a condition of employment.
Also, in the real world Fred, my mother died from covid in a care home in Jan 2021. Those of my family in Ireland were unable to be with her until the day on which she died. Those of us not living in Ireland were unable to attend the funeral because of restrictions in UK/Ireland/IOM. So keep your vitriolic sarcastic “in the real world” shite to yourself.
Fred, no one here has argued for mandatory vaccination. Myself and ET have stated our opposition to it.
You wrote: “…the vaccine gives very limited and short lived protection against the Omicron variant.”
Infection with Omicron gives very limited and short lived protection against Omicron:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.25.22269794v1.full.pdf
You wrote: “the vaccine isn’t tried and tested, the long term effects are not known.”
Many long term effects of covid are already evident; below is one link, but I could post dozens; try #LongCovid and #LongCovidKids on Twitter. Other long term effects could show up as more time passes. We can discover how long they might last only as more time passes.
https://twitter.com/hjelle_brian/status/1491905761076649986/photo/1
What is absolutely certain is that the virus replicates in the host’s body whereas the vaccines cannot; by design, they lack all the genetic material necessary for reproduction. Live virus has been found in tissue samples of many different organs, months after “full recovery”. If the virus is still replicating in your body, it can still produce symptoms and illness.
Modelling of Omicron variants suggest that though the acute illness may be less severe, Omicron could be better at infecting other organs and thus be more likely to cause long term symptoms.
– “We didn’t know it in 1981 when we found out about AIDS, but most of those patients had experienced an acute fever caused by HIV years prior, that resolved. What if that were how we discovered HIV? We’d say nasty fever, but it’s all fine now.”
We didn't know it in 1981 when we found out about AIDS, but most of those patients had experienced an acute fever caused by HIV years prior, that resolved.
What if that were how we discovered HIV? We'd say nasty fever, but it's all fine now.— Brian Hjelle, virologist (@hjelle_brian) February 10, 2022
You wrote: “…the overwhelming deluge of pressures on the NHS the experts predicted but which never came.”
But it did come fred. Maybe it didn’t come to a town near you, and maybe that’s all you care about. But it did come, and we know from other countries that it would have been worse without the lockdowns.
Fred, you’re promoting lies, lies about suffering and death, lies that have spread suffering and death. Two of my local Quaker group had covid and died. A friend’s mum died of it. One friend of mine had six friends of his die of it. Another friend of mine was working in a care home as twenty residents died. She got it herself, and when she got back to work the chef had died.
For every one of those people who died, several more were hospitalised; hospitals were filled to overflowing and patients had to be moved. A hospital near me had to ration the oxygen:
Fred, I think you have been writing without thinking. Earlier you wrote: “I didn’t had [sic] a friend turned into a vegetable by the hepatitis B vaccine putting two blood clots into his brain”, but elsewhere you wrote that a friend of yours got blood clots due to the AstraZeneca covid vaccination. Was it covid vaccination, hepatitis B vaccination, or were these really two separate incidents of blood clots caused by vaccination? SA even asked you about that statement, but you simply ignored it.
You’ve been setting the agenda for days now. You show zero curiosity about any of the evidence you have been presented with; you have accepted, explored or questioned none of it. You don’t answer questions, you never respond, and when your claims are refuted you merely change the subject.
It seems to be pointless trying to hold a discussion with you, but the untruths you promote must not be left unchallenged because they cause suffering and death. You are wasting the time; of SA who seems to be a medical scientist, ET who seems to work in healthcare, and myself. It is necessary to suppress the ill-founded, misleading bullshit that you promote, and since you seem impervious to reason and you consistently avoid rational debate, I conclude that it is acceptable, and unfortunately necessary, to censor you.
With power comes responsibility, and since you evade all responsibility, sadly, you must be deprived of the power to influence others. As you wrote to Macky once, “what I do is abuse on the internet. What you do is abuse of the internet”.
Your suggestion has been noted, Clark. While most of Fred’s assertions and opinions could be integrated into a reasonable discussion, he is at times being evasive in his responses and some of his comments could be perceived as obtuse and provocative. The trolling tactics have been noted, and he has been on pre-mod for the last few days.
Several former contributors with a similar attitude were ultimately banned, following multiple warnings, for mis-using the discussion forum as a bulletin board for propaganda campaigns and disrupting reasonable discussions among other participants. If you believe Fred should join the list of exclusions, please start a new topic in the Blog Support Forum and make your case there.
With power comes responsibility, and since you evade all responsibility, sadly, you must be deprived of the power to influence others. As you wrote to Macky once, “what I do is abuse on the internet. What you do is abuse of the internet”.
Have I told anyone to FOAD on this thread? Despite all the personal abuse directed at me?
You knew that was what I was referring to when I was speaking to Macky why did you quote me out of context?
You asked me a question:
So how come you never made a fuss about it until the pandemic? NHS staff have been required to be vaccinated for years. You’re objecting to all those requirements? Or just the latest one?
I answered it. The vaccines NHS staff have been required to take as a condition of their employment actually provide immunity to the disease and don’t cause blood clots, they, tried and tested and licenced.
There has never been mandatory vaccination of NHS workers, there is no law that NHS workers must be vaccinated. All there is is GMC guidance. Health boards will not offer employment to certain staff who carry out Exposure Prone Procedures unless they have immunity to Hepatitis B. That in no way sets precedence for government mandated vaccination of truckers.
Also, in the real world Fred, my mother died from covid in a care home in Jan 2021. Those of my family in Ireland were unable to be with her until the day on which she died. Those of us not living in Ireland were unable to attend the funeral because of restrictions in UK/Ireland/IOM. So keep your vitriolic sarcastic “in the real world” shite to yourself.
My apologies.
This makes very little sense, could you please explain what you meant by this. I am asking because if I understand correctly some of what could be construed by what you wrote could be seriously misleading so please explain.
It’s easy enough. A friend and neighbour of mine collapsed last spring shortly after receiving a covid vaccination. He was taken to Edinburgh and then to Liverpool where he was operated on to remove a blood clot from his brain. During the operation the surgeon found it was in fact two blood clots. Last I heard which was a few weeks ago he was in Raigmore Inverness with no signs of improvement.
I know someone else who visits me from England from time to time who had blood clots in his leg after receiving the vaccine, though that has done no lasting harm.
I’ve had many vaccines throughout my life and never had, nor known anyone who had harmful effects so must conclude that the covid vaccine carries more risk than other vaccines and the decision to take it must be made by the individual not by government mandate or coercion.
** Mods ** – thank you for noting my concerns. Fred seems to be responding for now and previous moderation decisions about other commenters have seemed sensible to me, so I won’t open a Support Forum thread at present.
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[ Mod: Thanks, Clark, it should be fixed now. The original text was contiguous, which is why it was all formatted as a single paragraph.Please ensure that sections of quoted text are placed in their own paragaph. Paragraphs starting “You Wrote:” need to be split into separate paragraphs so they can be indented correctly. In such cases, the moderators have ot make a judgment call about how to indent the quotation.
Fred, thank you for responding to questions; you have mentioned two people vaccinated against covid but unfortunately there are still some loose ends.
You repeatedly refer to “the covid vaccination” but actually there are many different vaccines, using diverse technologies, of which a few have been deployed in the UK. As best I understand it, it’s the AstraZeneca vaccine that sometimes causes blood clots. Using the faults of a specific vaccine to argue against all covid vaccination is an invalid and misleading argument technique; it muddies the water and promotes unwarranted FUD*. Please stop mashing different issues together in this manner.
It is also important to note that covid itself causes blood clots far more frequently than vaccination with AstraZeneca does; even for the AstraZeneca, the risk-to-benefit ratio remains decisively in favour of getting vaccinated.
I shouldn’t have to write this, but please note that my above argument is for good information and understanding, not for mandatory vaccination, which I oppose.
* Your following paragraph also obfuscates some matters, and mashes various issues together:
– “There has never been mandatory vaccination of NHS workers, there is no law that NHS workers must be vaccinated. All there is is GMC guidance. Health boards will not offer employment to certain staff who carry out Exposure Prone Procedures unless they have immunity to Hepatitis B. That in no way sets precedence for government mandated vaccination of truckers.”
1) The GMC guidance amounts to a similar effect to a law. I agree that GMC guidance would be a better method, and immunity would be a better criteria than vaccination.
2) I thought mandatory vaccination of truckers was a Canadian government decision, so it seems obtuse to mash this in with some bad legislation from Westminster.
You also wrote:
“I didn’t had a friend turned into a vegetable by the hepatitis B vaccine putting two blood clots into his brain”.
You eventually responded to SA’s question about this, but referred to two people who received covid vaccination. Please confirm that your reference to a hepatitis B vaccination was simply a mistake.
As I think I have said before, I am sorry about your friend. Did he, as I suspect, receive the AstraZeneca vaccine? And your visitor from England; was that the AstraZeneca too?
Incidentals: respect to you for apologising to ET. In answer to your question to me, I don’t actually remember how Macky provoked your retort which I quoted. I quoted it back at you because I remember thinking at the time that it was a highly appropriate response, but one which you should be reminded of in the current context.
“There has never been mandatory vaccination of NHS workers, there is no law that NHS workers must be vaccinated. All there is is GMC guidance. Health boards will not offer employment to certain staff who carry out Exposure Prone Procedures unless they have immunity to Hepatitis B…….and don’t have Hep C or HIV.”
Exposure Prone Procedures effectively means anyone who may have direct contact with patients’ blood or blood-stained body fluids. So anyone handling any body fluid samples, cleaning rooms etc etc. In a hospital setting or primary care setting that practically means anyone clinical or anyone who may come into contact with samples or body fluids such as health care assistants, porters, lab staff, ambulance staff and mortuary staff. That is everyone except non-clinical admin staff. It would also include police and prison staff in other settings. There is no law but there might as well be.
It’s not just GMC guidance or health boards. It is effectively mandatory even if it’s not legislated for in parliament and has the same effect as law. Personally, I think you’d be mad not to have it (Hep B vaccination). Covid vaccinations will come under the same “professional duty/responsibility” requirement. To the person losing their job it makes no difference whether that was by enacted legislation or employment policy or regulatory body “best practice.”
Government should come clean by either making it law to mandate vaccination or making it law to outlaw mandatory vaccination as a condition of employment.
Using the faults of a specific vaccine to argue against all covid vaccination is an invalid and misleading argument technique; it muddies the water and promotes unwarranted FUD*. Please stop mashing different issues together in this manner.
I was actually arguing against mandatory vaccination in Canada and disagreeing with SA that mandatory vaccination was the same as the smoking ban. You then snipped the middle six words out of a sentence in my reply to him and implied I was a hypocrite for never complaining about heath workers in the UK having to be vaccinated against hepatitis B. I didn’t mention any of the covid vaccines by name, just my reason for opposing mandatory vaccination of truck drivers.
Now to get back to the subject of authoritarian governments. Canada has now invoked emergency legislation and is threatening to use anti-terrorist legislation to freeze the bank accounts of peaceful protesters, plus the bank accounts of their supporters. I would very strongly oppose that happening in Britain, even to protesters who choose to break the law.
*** Mods *** Thanks for indenting paragraphs. Sorry about my omitted close emphasis tag in comment #85222; I have been trying to be more careful, as advised, and that was my first error in a while. However, in indenting that quote you have included some of my reply to fred in with my quotation of him. The quote of fred ends with the close quotation mark.
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[ Mod: Thanks for the tip-off, Clark. It should be fixed now.In general, you should place sections of quoted text in separate paragraphs. The quote was originally embedded inline in a contiguous paragraph that started “You also wrote”; it therefore had to be split into separate paragraphs to indent the quotation. Constructions like “You wrote … ” impel moderators to make judgement calls about paragraph splits. And sometimes it goes wrong. C’est la vie. ]
Fred, has a friend of yours suffered blood clots following the hepatitis B vaccine, as you claimed in this comment?
Please read more carefully before responding so that you can respond to what was actually said to you. And if you think that pretending covid is harmless, hasn’t strained the NHS, and that vaccination against it is more dangerous than the disease itself; if you think that promoting such fallacies is a valid way of protecting the right to protest from an authoritarian government in Canada, then your rationality would seem to be failing you. Please reflect for a while; please think more rather than reflexively fighting.
Fred February 15, 2022 at 12:45
You cite two cases of thrombosis in friends and acquaintances and you ascribe these to vaccines. I cannot challenge your observations but the deductions must be challenged in a scientific way as they may or may not be connected to the vaccines they had.
“A friend and neighbour of mine collapsed last spring shortly after receiving a covid vaccination. He was taken to Edinburgh and then to Liverpool where he was operated on to remove a blood clot from his brain. During the operation the surgeon found it was in fact two blood clots. Last I heard which was a few weeks ago he was in Raigmore Inverness with no signs of improvement.”
This may be a true complication if he had the Astra Zeneca vaccine but unlikely if he had the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, This type of complication which is rare, is due to clotting in some of the drainage veins in the brain and can indeed be catastrophic. The way that these clots are produced is being worked out but it is postulated that it is similar to another well known complication of a drug called Heparin, which is actually used to treat patients who have clotting. The condition which appears paradoxical, that an agent used to reduce blood clotting can itself cause clotting is because certain individuals produce antibodies to heparin and this reacts with platelets which are then activated, their numbers in the circulation is reduced and this process leads to clots in the brain. Although this is a known side effect of heparin, and is much more common than the clotting induced by the AZ vaccine, heparin still continues to be used, it is just that awareness of this is essential so that action id=s taken earlier. I attach this scientific publication, which I do not expect you to read but just as evidence of what I say. The incidence of this complication due to the vaccine is far less common.
As to your second acquaintance
“I know someone else who visits me from England from time to time who had blood clots in his leg after receiving the vaccine, though that has done no lasting harm.”
It sounds as if this person had what is known as a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) which is a much more common complication that occurs and has many triggers including surgery, infection, immobility, diabetes, obesity and many other. There is a much less common association with the covid vaccines with this type of complication.
So really citing anecdotal cases does not mean that the vaccines are not safe, that is why we really on statistics. How many people had the vaccines and how many suffered from the complications. Anecdotal evidence is not useful.
Fred, has a friend of yours suffered blood clots following the hepatitis B vaccine, as you claimed in this comment?
What are you talking about? That’s just a typo and you know it is, “didn’t had” makes no sense and wouldn’t say what you are pretending it said anyway.
We are witnessing a huge transfer of wealth from the many to the few and a huge transfer of power from the many to the few. When Canadian bed wetters were hiding behind the sofa in case the covid monster got them, the Canadian truckers were out keeping the shelves in supermarkets stocked. Now their Tony Blair wanabe Prime Minister is calling them racists, misogynists and terrorists for not wanting to hand over their personal liberties to him. Here in Britain those who stood on their doorsteps clapping the NHS were ready to look the other way while 40,000 NHS workers were fired for having principles.
Doesn’t governments taking control of people’s bank accounts to force them to do as they are told worry you at all?
Clark
February 8, 2022 at 01:44#84923REPLY“Fred, can you assure me that when people have had symptomless infection or have recovered, that they have actually cleared the virus? There’s no one with any left hanging around and multiplying in the kidneys, gut, heart, nervous system, gonads, brain, T-cells etc? ‘Cos I think it’s been found in all those organs, long after infection.”
For the sake of balance I need to challenge your statement or at least ask you to reference or qualify it. There are many ways of how virus infections end:
- The virus causes an acute infection which either kills the host, makes the host ill but is then eliminated once immunity occurs. In some viruses and other organisms the immunity is long lived and no reinfection occurs. Examples include hepatitis A.
- As above but immunity is short lived, and reinfection can occur, especially with a variant.
- The virus causes an acute infection but the host remains as an asymptomatic carrier of the virus, or the virus can cause mild symptoms from time to time. Such viruses included CMV and the glandular fever viruses.
- Viruses that can after the initial acute phase cause a chronic inflammation or infection that has long term problems. Examples are hepatitis B and C and HIV.
- Viruses that have the potential to integrate with the hosts nuclear DNA and can then be associated with tumours. Examples include the Human T-lymphotrophic virus-1.
- Some viruses that are usually eliminated, are not eliminated after the acute phase in those with immune deficiency states, either inborn or acquired. Examples include a virus called parvovirus which causes severe anaemia in those with immune deficiency but not in normal individuals.
As far as I know coronaviruses are not persistent viruses in normal circumstances. There has been a theory that Omicron with its many mutations, has arisen in a patient with HIV as a result of persistence leading to mutations, but I am not aware that the virus has been isolated from various organs after an initial acute infection.
This is an interesting resume of persistent viruses, if you would like to know more.Fred:
– “Now to get back to the subject of authoritarian governments…”
Yes, many governments all over the world are becoming more authoritarian, but what do you suppose we should do about it?
Elsewhere you have condemned both Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter, and dismissed an Insulate Britain direct activist as “a knuckle-dragging eco-terrorist”. You have also dismissed the Suffragettes and Ghandi’s movement as delaying women’s suffrage and Indian independence. However, you show much support for the confused coalition of anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, and assorted grades of covid-denialists, anti-5G and Agenda 21 UN depopulation conspiracy theorists, whom the legitimate anti-vaccine-mandate protesters unfortunately have to protest alongside.
Your argument against the former groups has always been that they provoke governments to become more authoritarian, yet you have expressed no such concern about the latter groups – which again strikes me as hypocritical. Either authoritarianism is caused by protest or it isn’t; you can’t pick and choose based merely upon your own apparently right-wing prejudices.
Should everyone go home and meekly wait for governments to do the right thing? Are rights gifted to us by the powerful out of the goodness of their hearts?
SA:
– “I am not aware that the virus has been isolated from various organs after an initial acute infection.”
Please search for relevant papers; signs of persistence of SARS-CoV-2 were noted from the first two months of the pandemic onward. Documentation of Long covid is accumulating. I am short of time right now, but here are some links to get you started:
There may be something to the "persistent SARS2" story. There really isn't a facile explanation for an acute virus bumping your risk of congestive heart failure by 72% months later. We will find out in the great trial of #LetErRip. Look for me in control group. ?♂️ pic.twitter.com/F5d1jggGR8
— Brian Hjelle, virologist (@hjelle_brian) February 10, 2022
Many more on that Twitter account, with links to papers.
SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence throughout the human body and brain:
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1139035/v1
Infection Control Today:
Clark
Thanks for the response.
This reference is a preprint awaiting review. It shows high level of viral RNA in patients who subsequently died of covid in a range of tissues. The highest levels seem to occur in patients who died early in infection but with lesser levels and less widespread viral distribution in various tissues. There is no direct proof that this is associated with destruction of these tissues or of viable virus in these tissues as far as I can tell, although I haven’t read the paper in detail. This therefore does not prove chronic carriage of viable virus and certainly not beyond 230 days or so.As to references to long covid, I don’t think anyone knows whether it is related directly to damage by the virus or to various other processes such as autoimmunity or sequelae of the infection such as lung damage and so on and this does not require the presence of the virus.
SA, another for you, in Nature, no less:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-021-01113-x
Immunological dysfunction persists for 8 months following initial mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection
– In summary, our data indicate an ongoing, sustained inflammatory response following even mild-to-moderate acute COVID-19, which is not found following prevalent coronavirus infection. The drivers of this activation require further investigation, but possibilities include persistence of antigen, autoimmunity driven by antigenic cross-reactivity or a reflection of damage repair. These observations describe an abnormal immune profile in patients with COVID-19 at extended time points after infection and provide clear support for the existence of a syndrome of LC (Long Covid). Our observations provide an important foundation for understanding the pathophysiology of this syndrome and potential therapeutic avenues for intervention.
This is why I have obtained some FFP3 masks. I wish to avoid this virus if I possibly can, or at least be infected with it as few times as possible:
If someone keeps getting COVID 2X, 3X 4X….
Do their odds of long COVID just go up linearly with each episode?Wish I knew.?♂️?
— Brian Hjelle, virologist (@hjelle_brian) January 14, 2022
I couldn’t put it any better than this:
We didn't know it in 1981 when we found out about AIDS, but most of those patients had experienced an acute fever caused by HIV years prior, that resolved.
What if that were how we discovered HIV? We'd say nasty fever, but it's all fine now.— Brian Hjelle, virologist (@hjelle_brian) February 10, 2022
Here's how we could decisively determine, maybe, whether SARS2 causes a persistent state.
You'd hafta take huge needles and grab huge chunks of tissue, brain, kidney, liver, heart, spleen, lungs etc, test for viral RNA.
So we don't know.
(Not recommending of course).— Brian Hjelle, virologist (@hjelle_brian) February 11, 2022
And fred, NO, this does not mean I approve of vaccine mandates or authoritarian government. It means that I think people will exercise care so long as they’re properly alerted to danger, and if they don’t it’s their own business so long as they take care not to raise the risk to others.
SA, my point really is that with most viral infections we have decades of experience and accumulated research. With SARS-CoV-2 we have only two years, a bit less than that in most parts of the world, with research performed under emergency conditions. Data shows that people who have had covid are subsequently more likely to die from just about any cause.
From the Researchsquare.com (Nature portfolio) preprint (ie. not yet peer reviewed):
– We performed complete autopsies on 44 patients with COVID-19 to map and quantify SARS-CoV-2 distribution, replication, and cell-type specificity across the human body, including brain, from acute infection through over seven months following symptom onset. We show that SARS-CoV-2 is widely distributed, even among patients who died with asymptomatic to mild COVID-19, and that virus replication is present in multiple extrapulmonary tissues early in infection. Further, we detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days following symptom onset. Despite extensive distribution of SARS-CoV-2 in the body, we observed a paucity of inflammation or direct viral cytopathology outside of the lungs. Our data prove that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic infection and can persist in the body for months.
Clark
I do not for a moment doubt that SarsCov-2 is a nasty virus that has effects on many tissues in ‘some people’ although in a majority the infection is minor or asymptomatic. I do not deny that long covid exists and so on. What I am saying is that I have not seen evidence yet of a chronic carrier state of the virus and that many of the clinical effects are explained by immune hypereactions , cytokine storm, hypercoagulability snd probably immune sequelae and autoantibody formation“Further, we detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days following symptom onset. Despite extensive distribution of SARS-CoV-2 in the body, we observed a paucity of inflammation or direct viral cytopathology outside of the lungs. “
No doubt this is going to have to be reworded once reviewed. They have detected viral RNA but no cytopathic effect in various tissues which suggests that this is not viable virus just persistent RNA post infection, it seems to me that they are equating finding viral RNA with finding whole replicating living virus. As I said there may be more details in the paper why they have reached this conclusion but let us wait until after it is reviewed.
SA, the full text is here:
https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1139035/v1_covered.pdf?c=1640020576
In lines 109 to 112 (on page 8):
– “In all samples where SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected by ddPCR, we performed qRT-PCR to detect subgenomic (sg)RNA, an assay suggestive of recent virus replication. We confirmed the presence of replication-competent SARS-CoV-2 in extrapulmonary tissues by virus isolation in cell culture.”
Lines 267 to 271 (page 15):
– “We show SARS-CoV-2 disseminates across the human body and brain early in infection at high levels, and provide evidence of virus replication at multiple extrapulmonary sites during the first week following symptom onset. We detected sgRNA in at least one tissue in over half of cases (14/27) beyond D14, suggesting that prolonged viral replication may occur in extra-pulmonary tissues as late as D99.”
I assume that D14 and D99 refer to day 14 and day 99.
Lines 338 to 343 (pages 18 and 19):
– “We detected sgRNA in tissue of over 60% of the cohort. While less definitive than viral culture, multiple studies have shown that sgRNA levels correlate with acute infection and can be detected in respiratory samples of immunocompromised patients experiencing prolonged infection. These data coupled with ISH suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can replicate within tissue for over 3 months after infection in some individuals, with RNA failing to clear from multiple compartments for up to D230.”
SA, you wrote:
– “…let us wait until after it is reviewed.”
Indeed. In the mean time, I suggest erring on the side of caution.
Fred, I hadn’t seen your February 16, 10:58 comment until after I’d posted mine at 21:22; probably it was in the moderation queue. Thank you for confirming it was just a typo but really, you shouldn’t need to be asked over and over again like that, not if you’re here to discuss, rather than propagandise. I have no idea what you think I was pretending; I wasn’t pretending anything.
I’ll gloss over the hyperbole in your intervening paragraph of absurd ranting; you do seem very agitated and I suggest you should find a way to calm down; no one can think clearly in that state. The substantive points you made seem to be:
– “We are witnessing a huge transfer of wealth from the many to the few and a huge transfer of power from the many to the few”, and: “Doesn’t governments taking control of people’s bank accounts to force them to do as they are told worry you at all?”
Yes of course these worry me; what makes you think otherwise? And what do you suggest be done about it? Cheer for a load of very right-wing Tories plus Jeremy Corbyn? When I joined the Labour party to support Corbyn you accused me of subverting democracy or something! And you don’t like direct action protesting; you have said that it just provokes further authoritarianism. As best I can tell, you seem to think that encouraging people to catch covid is the most effective course, though how that is supposed to help completely escapes me; do please explain.
Erring on the side of caution is exactly what I am doing. Replicating virus found without signs of inflammation does not sound right to me when this virus causes hyper-reactive immune responses. Caution here means avoid over-sensationalisation.
SA, the Nature article describes signs of inflammation:
– “In summary, our data indicate an ongoing, sustained inflammatory response following even mild-to-moderate acute COVID-19…”
Context is also relevant. The UK government policy, from the start, was to expose the entire “non vulnerable” population to this virus as quickly as possible – though it is beyond me how anyone is supposed to determine who is vulnerable or not based on only two months data. The government have returned to that policy repeatedly, though not explicitly; social containment measures were consistently late and inadequate, Johnson did not anticipate his “let the bodies pile high” remark being made public, he sought advice from the fringe of scientists who declared further waves impossible, there was the “Eat Out to Help Out” subsidies that neglected take-aways and outdoor seating, ventilation was completely neglected for over a year and has never been mandated, and the schools policy seems designed to enforce distribution of the virus throughout the population. Erring on the side of caution involves compensating for the government’s neglect of it.
“Further, we detected persistent SARS-CoV-2
78 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days
79 following symptom onset. Despite extensive distribution of SARS-CoV-2 in the body, we
80 observed a paucity of inflammation or direct viral cytopathology outside of the lungs. Our
81 data prove that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic infection and can persist in the body for
82 months.”This statement will require clarification no doubt from the reviewers as it is somewhat contradictory. They say the virus is present outside the lung but say there is a paucity of inflammation outside the lung. The so called persistence is that of RNA not proven live virus outside the lung.
I think we are in agreement about government action or inaction and about erring on the safe side of protecting ourselves and others from the virus, but what I am debating here is the fact as to whether the virus is ‘persistent’ and whether this paper proves this point. The virus may well prove to be persistent in those with heavy infections and may be so in ‘sanctuary sites’ and may therefore be non-transmissible but this is a scientific debate that has not ended with this paper which remains to be reviewed.
SA, I wouldn’t take any single paper as conclusive in such a complex matter. I don’t regard persistence of the virus as certain. However, we do have strongly suggestive evidence, even from the earliest days of the pandemic when people who had apparently cleared the acute infection started testing positive again some days later.
My feeling is that long term effects, and people complaining of long term symptoms, have been sidelined in the rush to understand and treat the massive influx of acute cases. It is understandable; the pressures upon both healthcare and medical science have been enormous, but this omission may prove very costly over years to come, in terms of illness as well as money.
– – – – – –It is also notable that the Chinese authorities continue going to unprecedented lengths to suppress transmission of SARS-CoV-2. This may be merely ego among the leadership, an unwillingness to change policy. On the other hand, if this virus did indeed escape from Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese authorities likely have lab records, researcher testimony and staff medical histories unavailable to anyone else. Early in the pandemic the Chinese government announced that although the virus was not a bioweapon-level threat, they were going to treat it as if it was. They did so and continue to do so, even with Omicron, as other governments relax their guard.
Clark
The Chinese authorities are practicing the traditional method of dealing with pandemics. Western democracies will not do this for ideological reasons but also because it costs too much to do properly with proper isolation. The excuses they give include personal freedom and democracy where public health matters are decided by MP votes and not by experts.SA:
– “The Chinese authorities are practicing the traditional method of dealing with pandemics.”
True. But they are still doing it with Omicron which, word has it, is so “mild” that we should all go out and catch it, to, er, protect ourselves from the even “milder” variant that will inevitably replace it :/
If enough people uphill decide to try the rolling strategy, they can make the decision for you.
But nobody knows for sure what omicron may evolve into. I know what you are insinuating but the Chinese have from the start decided on a zero covid policy. Incidentally it is very telling how Britain at 75% vaccination rate, once touted to be a leader in vaccination rates, has now lagged behind Italy and Portugal and France and way behind China at 85%.
