Pandemic Year 4: Covid is still really bad for you, Losing centuries of progress, and more
Bonus worrying about misinformation and practising community care
Welcome to the latest issue of the Covid-Is-Not-Over newsletter!
Way back on January 22nd, 2023 I published the first test issue of the newsletter. I wasn’t too worried at that point about promoting it or getting subscriptions or anything like that. I was really just trying to get a sense of how Substack worked and whether and to test out a plan for what I’d like to do. My mission was to present a weekly-ish selection of a few recent articles that would help people understand what was going on with the pandemic. Not only that, I was also hoping that the articles I was highlighting would be the kind of thing that people could share within their networks and maybe help other not-so-Covid-aware people learn a bit, hopefully in a gentle and supportive way.
I was pretty happy with that first issue. It wasn’t until a month or so later that I really committed to the newsletter idea and published a second issue. This one I did try and publicize a bit more, and try and start the subscription ball rolling.
This is issue #40. We’re at 652 subscriptions. It’s been quite a ride. I sincerely thank you all for joining me. Here’s to the next 12 months!
Like! Share! Subscribe!
Institutional COVID denial has killed public health as we knew it. Prepare to lose several centuries of progress by Julia Doubleday / The Gauntlet
Let’s talk about the short and long-term social outcomes of COVID normalization. Yes, masks and all other precautions are demonized to the point of being framed as indicative of mental illness, including on the left. But we also see this attitude bleeding into disease control generally. Another reason the public appears more willing- perhaps even eager- to spread disease- has to do with officially sanctioned misinformation being hurled at parents: that your kids are getting sick more often because of the “lockdowns” that occurred in 2020.
There are layers to how incorrect this talking point, known as “immunity debt”, is. Firstly, your immune system doesn’t need to encounter viruses to get stronger. Pathogenic microbes do not strengthen your immune system. That’s why, instead of giving kids cholera on purpose, we clean the water. Secondly, wearing a mask or doing other forms of disease mitigation does not damage your immune system. Prominent outlets, critical of Trump at the beginning of COVID, we quick to debunk this lie back in 2020. Now they promote it.
Covid, Year Four: Liberals are in denial. Conservatives are trying to destroy public health. And the virus is still raging by Gregg Gonsalves / The Nation (no paywall)
If “don’t worry, be happy,” is the left-of-center default now, on the right, it’s mayhem. Many are familiar with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s attacks on public health and his surgeon general’s anti-vaccine quackery, but around the nation, Republican legislatures in nearly 30 states have also enacted laws that weaken public health authorities. Less well-known are the attacks on public health from a conservative judiciary. As the legal scholar Wendy Parmet has written, this is making us less safe and leaving us less prepared for new public health threats as they emerge. Meanwhile, emboldened by their support on the right, anti-vaccine activists are targeting standard childhood immunizations as an affront to religious liberty and winning in states like Mississippi. There are also conservative legal challenges to mandates for polio and measles, mumps, and rubella shots in several states, in hopes that the Supreme Court will eventually strike down childhood vaccine mandates across the board.
What Would It Mean for Scientists to Listen to Patients? by Rachael Bedard / The New Yorker
These competing priorities between patients and scientists can escalate into frank tension. Last year, investigators from the recover Initiative, a government-sponsored Long covid research effort, proposed a carefully modelled framework that identified twelve symptoms frequently associated with the disease. They published their results in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in an article filled with caveats about how this work was only the first step toward deriving a more precise Long covid definition. But some Long covid patient-advocacy groups swiftly denounced the study, lamenting that the framework’s scoring cutoff would leave thousands of sick people without a diagnosis. One such group called the recover criteria “regressive and blunt.” More than forty-two thousand people have sent letters to the N.I.H. demanding that it retract the study and its scoring system.
Disconnected COVID-19 caution is not enough. We have to practice lasting community care by Kendra Bozarth / Kansas Reflector
For almost half a decade, we have all been largely left alone to navigate COVID-19 and its ever-changing manifestations, which is both unfair and detrimental to public health.
As government-led directives dwindle and structural solutions struggle to gain or maintain prominence, now is the time to turn to each other. From social media networks that outline mitigation strategies to reading lists that underscore care ethics, there’s a lot we can do to better protect Kansas communities and the world. …
My vision for the future is one that centers those with the least access, inclusion, and power in our collective choices, so that we can foster a society where everyone can fully participate in life.
I personally can’t accept a world that lets people with disabilities and other risk factors be pushed to the margins of society because the rest of us refuse to compromise on COVID-19. I know that starts with me expanding the ways that I live my values as “genuine constraints on (my) conduct.”
SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: From Crisis to Solution - WHN by Špela Šalamon, Andrew Ewing, et al. / WHN Science Communications
The global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic persists, causing significant harm. Extensive evidence indicates that even mild infections and reinfections can result in symptomatic and subclinical health damage, disability, and persistent infection. Vascular impacts, neurotropism, and immune dysregulation lead to impaired organ function, increased morbidity and mortality, compromised work productivity, and a decline in overall health and quality of life. The uncontrolled spread of the virus is accelerating its evolution, outpacing the effectiveness of vaccines, treatments, and immune system adaptation. This preventable disease and others magnified by immune dysfunction are driving staff shortages, supply chain disruptions, and overwhelming healthcare systems. Despite the dire nature of the current conditions, knowledge and means are present to solve these problems. We present a science-based strategy for confronting the ongoing pandemic, including reducing airborne transmission through clean indoor air programs comparable with historical clean water programs. Public and professional education on the implications of repeated SARS-CoV-2 infections and utilizing known preventive measures can dramatically reduce transmission, which in turn reduces the rate of new variant introduction and strengthens the effectiveness of vaccines and treatments. It is essential to restore the prioritization of health and safety in healthcare and society.
The COVID-safe strategies Australian scientists are using to protect themselves from the virus by Hayley Gleeson / ABC News
In a perfect world, Professor Crabb says, political leaders would speak regularly about the pressure on health systems, about deaths, and about the potential health consequences for children, which are often overlooked. "And then underneath that they'd set a blueprint for action around the tools we currently have being properly implemented: a vaccine program, a clean air program, advice around wearing masks when you can't breathe clean air, and testing so you can protect those around you and get treated." But who speaks matters, too: "If it's not [coming from] the prime minister, if it's not the premiers — if it's not consistent — it's probably not going to cut through."
In the meantime, he says, people can and should take precautions — they can be leaders in their community, and start conversations with their employers and kids' schools. For him, in addition to getting current booster vaccines, it means using a toolkit he built with his wife who, as a paediatrician who works in a long COVID-19 clinic in Melbourne, comes face to face with the harm the virus is doing every day. The kit includes a well-fitted N95 mask, a CO2 monitor and a portable air purifier. "It's another line [of defence]," he says. "If you're in a restaurant, say, and … you've got a few people around you, putting one of those on the table, blowing in your face, is a good idea."
Masks, he adds, should be worn in crowded places or spaces with poor ventilation. Of course, the topic sometimes sparks heated debate. A Cochrane review which last year suggested masks do not work was later found to be inaccurate and misleading and subject to an apology. But the damage it did was significant. Since then a vicious culture war has raged, much to the dismay of respected scientists who continue to make the point: numerous studies show high-quality, well-fitted N95 and P2 respirators prevent infection when they're worn correctly and consistently.
COVID shots protect against COVID-related strokes, heart attacks, study finds by Beth Mole / Ars Technica
Staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines can cut the risk of COVID-related strokes, blood clots, and heart attacks by around 50 percent in people ages 65 years or older and in those with a condition that makes them more vulnerable to those events, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The finding, published this week in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, should help ease concerns that the shots may conversely increase the risk of those events—collectively called thromboembolic events. In January 2023, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration jointly reported a preliminary safety signal from their vaccine-monitoring systems that indicated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines may increase the risk of strokes in the 21 days after vaccination of people ages 65 and older. Since that initial report, that signal decreased, becoming statistically insignificant. Other vaccine monitoring systems, including international systems, have not picked up such a signal. Further studies (summarized here) have not produced clear or consistent data pointing to a link to strokes.
A Major First Next Generation Covid Vaccine: Could There Be More in 2024? (Update 13) by HIlda Bastian / Absolutely Maybe
A next generation vaccine has been authorized by a major drug regulator for the first time. It’s based on a next generation mRNA, called self-amplifying messenger RNA (SAM, or samRNA). SAM doesn’t just leave a message and disappear, the way current mRNA vaccines do. It makes copies of itself inside our cells – similar to the way a virus works. Theoretically, leaving a blueprint behind enables longer-lasting immunity than mRNA can offer. There’s a small amount of evidence showing immune effects of this new vaccine from Arcturus Therapeutics are durable to at least 12 months. Called LUNAR-COV19, it was authorized in Japan late last year.
As COVID cases rise, doctors worry about the consequences of misinformation by Laura Santhanam / PBS NewsHour
This week, speaking before a crowd of Republicans in New Hampshire, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis laid out another falsehood about COVID vaccines.
“Every booster you take, you’re more likely to get COVID as a result of it,” said DeSantis, one of several political leaders who have consistently and without evidence challenged the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.
Public health experts and doctors are worried that this kind of misinformation is still shaping how people perceive the virus and tools designed to protect individuals and communities against COVID’s worst outcomes. In recent weeks, U.S. wastewater surveillance data has shown that COVID cases have risen to second-highest levels since the pandemic began, fueled by a new dominant strain, an omicron subvariant called JN.1, that is not as well understood as past surges. According to the World Health Organization, around 10,000 people died from COVID in December and hospitalizations rose by more than 40 percent in the Americas and across Europe.
"They're Taking Away Your Right To Be Healthy." by Jessica Wildfire / OK Doomer
Everything looks bleak. We've peaked at roughly 2 million Covid cases per day. This wave will generate millions more cases of Long Covid. Many of us still can't get our own healthcare providers to mandate masks. We can't get our schools and offices to install air purifiers.
Sometimes, it feels like you're moving backward. Last year, we convinced our school to bring back masks. This year, we didn't. We donated hundreds of masks, and they're just sitting in a box. On the other hand, we did get them to use the air purifiers properly. We can rely on them to communicate with us about when to pick up our kid if they're going inside.
That's how things work sometimes. We didn't "win," but we're also not just giving into a maskless life for our child.
Things are changing.
The coronavirus could mutate to cause more severe disease, according to experts by Nicole Karlis / Salon
In terms of how the coronavirus will evolve from here, Gregory emphasized that the idea that viruses evolve to become benign — like the coronavirus evolving into the “common cold” — is a “myth” and was never guaranteed. “That’s not how evolution works,” he said, adding that it’s important to recognize that the current situation is “unprecedented.”
“We’ve had pandemics before, but never one with 8 billion potential hosts, massive global travel, a virus that can infect and reinfect year-round, and a population living to older age as we have now,” he said.
WHO sees 'incredibly low' COVID, flu vaccination rates as cases surge by Jennifer Rigby and Julie Steenhuysen / Reuters
Low vaccination rates against the latest versions of COVID-19 and influenza are putting pressure on healthcare systems this winter, leading public health officials told Reuters.In the United States, several European countries, and other parts of the world, there have been reports of rising hospitalizations linked to respiratory infections in recent weeks. Death rates have also ticked up among older adults in some regions, but far below the COVID pandemic peak.
Spain’s government has reinstated mask-wearing requirements at healthcare facilities, as have some U.S. hospital networks.
“Too many people are in need of serious medical care for flu, for COVID, when we can prevent it,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s interim director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness.
She cited “incredibly low” vaccination rates against flu and COVID in many countries this season, as the world tries to move past the pandemic and its restrictions.
As most have probably noticed, there is no paid subscription option for this newsletter. However, Substack does have an option where subscribers can pledge to subscribe “just in case” and a few kind subscribers have made that pledge. I very much appreciated the vote of confidence in what I’m doing here. What I’ve decided to do on a trial basis is to set up a “tip jar” on the Ko-fi platform. I’m not anticipating a huge surge of income from using Ko-fi but whatever revenue I do end up with, I plan to spend on supporting artists on Bandcamp. Sadly, who knows how long that will seem like a good idea.
Quick Hits: Covid is Really Bad for You
Review reveals poor outcomes for diabetes patients amid COVID-19 pandemic | CIDRAP
Maternal COVID infection boosts respiratory distress risk in full-term babies | CIDRAP
Chinese study suggests COVID temporarily affects sperm quality | CIDRAP
Why Americans may be at risk of heart problems as COVID, flu spread: Expert - ABC News
A discovery in the muscles of long COVID patients may explain exercise troubles
I love this version of the Rolling Stones’ Tumblin’ Dice by blues master Johnny Copeland!
Great round-up, but how is 2024 Pandemic year 4, though? 2020 is year 1, 2021 is 2, 2022 is 3, 2023 is 4, so 2024 is year 5. Unless 2020 is year 0, but how does that make sense. Covid was discovered in 2019, so 2020 was definitely the first full year of it.