State of Covid 2024: It’s still a pandemic, not just the flu and what it does to the body is very bad
Bonus quick holiday catchup with mostly bad news
I started 2023 enraged enough about the state of the world to start this newsletter. My theme for our end-of-2022 science books podcast episode was incandescent rage, after all.
Where am I now? Still pretty enraged, and thoroughly committed to continuing this newsletter for as long as I feel I can add something useful to the information and advocacy ecosystem around Covid. Our swan song science books podcast for 2023 was more bittersweet than enraged, mostly due to the fact the Science for the People are winding down their podcast, so this was the final books episode.. But the incandescent rage was still there, under the surface.
So how do things look at the start of 2024? Well, the mainstream media seems to be taking baby steps towards recognizing the true nature and extent of the Covid pandemic, one example being a really quite decent article in Time. On the other hand, recent days have also seen two of the worst articles ever about the pandemic in any year. They deserve a special prize for ignorance and gaslighting. What a world we live in.
If there’s a theme for this issue, it’s really just the State of Covid 2024. Articles that reflect and explore the health impacts of Covid as well as how we’re dealing with those realities as a society. In other words, bad and not really very much at all. At the end, I’ve also included a list of interesting articles from the last few weeks, while the newsletter was on a more-of-less holiday break.
As usual, I hope the information I’ve shared here helps you to understand the scientific and social context we’re living in, as well as hopefully providing some links that you can share within your not-so-Covid-cautious networks.
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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year—From Covid by Gregg Gonsalves / The Nation
I cannot believe I am writing another column on Covid. Covid is so last year, the year before, and the year before that. The best and brightest—the noisiest voices about getting back to normal from the past three years—have taken their erstwhile concern for Americans’ public health and gone back to their lucrative concierge medical practices, writing about reviving the American dream, and pooling education data for worried upper-middle-class parents. Normal is as normal does.
But as we head into the new year, Covid is still very much with us. The flu, as always, is back again, and RSV levels are still high—though showing signs of heading out with 2023. According to the CDC, “in the past 4 weeks, hospitalizations among all age groups increased by 200 percent for influenza, 51 percent for COVID-19, and 60 percent for RSV.… If these trends continue, the situation at the end of [December] could again strain emergency departments and hospitals” and “strain on the healthcare system could mean that patients with other serious health conditions may face delays in receiving care.” Is this the normal we signed up for?
COVID Is 'Still a Pandemic,' WHO Leader Says by Mansur Shaheen / The Messenger
The COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing, according to one of the World Health Organization’s leading infectious disease experts.
Marian Van Kerkhove, M.D., who led the organization’s response to the virus, wrote on X over the weekend that she was “worried” about the current state of the global outbreak heading into the fifth year since the virus’s eruption.
“It’s still a global health threat and it’s still a pandemic causing far too many (re)infections, hospitalizations, deaths and long covid when tools exist to prevent them,” she wrote.
She specifically highlights the JN.1 variant, a strain increasing in prevalence that is believed to be more contagious than previous versions of the virus. However, it is not believed to cause a more serious infection than other strains.
SOTP: State-of-the-Pandemic by Eric Topol / Ground Truths
With more Omicron events virtually inevitable, it’s just a matter of time until we face a déjà vu of a massive number infections, more people debilitated by Long Covid, all added to the toll of hospitalizations and deaths that mainly, but not exclusively, occur in people of advanced age. Like Omicron, JN.1 tells us very clearly what happens with a new, hyper-mutated, immune evasive variant—the second biggest wave in terms of infections. While the virus will continue to find new entrance mechanisms to get into our upper airway, we have no meaningful exit strategy to protect against these infections, their spread, and future variants. That can potentially be achieved with the mucosal immunity provided by nasal or oral vaccines, as I recently reviewed here and here. Unless we can block infections with such new vaccines, we’re stuck in the mosaic state of vulnerability, denialism, and false hope that the pandemic is over. Not to get overly anthropomorphic, but JN.1 has once again spoken that it’s not over. Or the Yogi Berra aphorism. Nevertheless, I remain optimistic that this off-ramp will eventually get done—just not soon enough.
What SARS-CoV-2 Does to the Body (3rd Edition, December 2023) / Pandemic Accountability Index
As we enter another massive holiday wave with the JN.1 variant heading into 2024, with poor booster uptake and little to no masking, many Americans will be bringing home a deadly and disabling virus from their holiday celebrations and discovering their new status as a disabled person in the following months. Following up with our previous editions of this archive, from July 2023 and November 2022, this compilation of medical research on just how SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 harm the human body is more important now than ever. …
There you have it folks. Yet again, over 100 studies detailing the many long term harms that COVID-19 causes to the human body - anyone who is claiming that COVID-19 is simply a “cold” or “flu” to surrender your health to repeatedly, multiple times a year, is gravely mistaken and actively misleading you.
Be sure to share this article far and wide - as many Americans will likely be struggling with new SARS-CoV-2 related health complications after this holiday surge. An N95 respirator is effective protection against airborne transmission and be sure to get the latest COVID booster if you can.
Covid: It's That Bad by Jessica Wildfire / OK Doomer
So, we have a virus that's incredibly contagious. It kills some people immediately. For everyone else, it damages your brain. It damages your heart and blood vessels. It damages your immune system, making you vulnerable to other diseases. It shortens your telomeres. It ages you.
Instead of warning the public, our leaders have worked on behalf of corporations to shield them from liability. They've manipulated and distorted data to present an illusion of normalcy, while alleviating themselves from the responsibility to care for disabled Covid survivors. They've pressured the media to publish misleading, false stories encouraging everyone to move on with their lives and put themselves at risk for the sake of short-term profits.
It's that bad.
COVID-19 is not "just the flu" / John Snow Project
1-The highest health risk of both COVID-19 and influenza comes 30 days or later after initial infection. We tend to think of COVID-19 and influenza as acute events, short-term illnesses that we recover from, but in reality, both cause long-haul illness, and the greatest risks come in the weeks and months after initial infection. More than half of death and disability occurred in the months after infection as opposed to the first 30 days. Dr Al-Aly says, “COVID-19 and the flu led to long-term health problems, and the big ah-ha moment was the realization that the magnitude of long-term health loss eclipsed the problems that these patients endured in the early phase of infection. Long COVID is much more of a health problem than COVID, and long flu is much more of a health problem than flu.”
2-COVID-19 carries a substantially higher health risk than flu. The overall risk and occurrence of death, hospital admissions and loss of health in many organ systems are substantially higher among COVID-19 patients than among those who have had seasonal influenza. Dr Al-Aly says, “The one notable exception is the flu poses higher risks to the pulmonary system than COVID-19. This tells us the flu is truly more of a respiratory virus, like we’ve all thought for the past 100 years. By comparison, COVID-19 is more aggressive and indiscriminate in that it can attack the pulmonary system, but it can also strike any organ system and is more likely to cause fatal or severe conditions involving the heart, brain, kidneys and other organs.”
Four Years Later, Two Million Infections A Day by Nate Bear / Do Not Panic
There is a fear in internalising the idea that everything had changed. That it isn't 2019. If it wasn't over with vaccines, then maybe it will never be over. And so maybe that means I have to change forever. That fear has been overcome with normalisation and denial, psychological modes abetted by dark money groups (like the Koch network) and mainstream corporations (like Delta Airlines and the infamous memo) who strategized about how to get people to no longer fear the virus.
A very similar dynamic is at play with the climate and ecological crisis. We’re progressing to the stars drowning in plastic on an overheating, burning and flooding planet. Cognitive dissonance reigns, once again aided by corporations and oil bosses who say there is no science behind the call to stop burning fossil fuels, everything will be fine.
Blocking out the bad reconciles the two sides of the mind. The happy future can remain the full brain idea
It's All About Repetition, Repetition, Repetition: How Lies Work by Jessica Wildfire / OK Doomer
We need as many people as possible speaking the truth in every kind of way. We need protests. We need articles. We need podcasts. We need tweets. We need art. We need music. We need memes. We need the truth presented politely over the dinner table, and we need it shouted in the streets. We need it with a smile, and we need it dripping with sarcasm. We need it on t-shirts. We need it on billboards.
We need it all.
There's one last thing we can do, and it's going to be hard. We're going to have to figure out a way to offer forgiveness and amnesty to people who finally see the truth and stop fighting it. It's hard to get people on your side if they're scared of admitting they were wrong.
Long COVID is a double curse in low-income nations — here’s why by Heidi Ledford / Nature
In the United States and Europe, large-scale efforts have begun the search for long-COVID treatments. The US National Institutes of Health is running the US$1.15-billion Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) programme, some of which is directed at finding long-COVID therapies. In the United Kingdom, a consortium of 30 hospitals and universities is also looking for treatments under the STIMULATE-ICP programme.
But whether any resulting treatments could transfer to lower-income settings is an open question, says infectious-disease specialist Luis Felipe Reyes at the University of La Sabana in Bogotá. He predicts a re-run of the inequalities that plagued the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Wealthier countries hoarded doses and some types, such as the mRNA vaccines, were particularly difficult for many lower-income countries to use because they were expensive to produce and difficult to transport at the low temperatures they require.
How the press manufactured consent for never-ending COVID reinfections by Julia Doubleday / The Gauntlet
The political project of normalizing transmitting COVID and casting basic, scientific mitigations as bad, weird, mean, stupid, and impossible is a fantastic coup for the right. It is the utter rejection of state responsibility for public welfare, paired with the complete shredding of an early-pandemic solidarity that bound those at risk (everyone) together. That solidarity was replaced with a poisonous “us vs them” worldview whereby those who have been and are harmed are weak, lying, lame, unlucky, unusual, uncool, rare, stupid, bad, mean, aggressive, psychologically disturbed and/or crazy. This schism seeps into the bloodstream of leftist organizing and splinters our coalition, shattering our incipient power as, unsurprisingly, the popularity of the fascists surges globally. I would argue it is the most thorough victory of the far-right in living memory, and it has embedded its eugenicist logic into the very foundation of public beliefs about health, disability, and who deserves safety.
Every COVID Infection Increases Your Risk of Long COVID, Study Warns by Tessa Koumoundouros / ScienceAlert
Vaccines ensure bouts of COVID are far less deadly than they were at the pandemic's start, yet multiple studies now suggest even seemingly mild cases of the coronavirus have a cost. With every single infection, our risk of long COVID increases.
While this risk starts (relatively) low for most of us, particularly those vaccinated and in younger people or children, there are concerning signs it may not stay low. If each new invasion of our bodies allows this insidious virus a greater chance to cause damage, such small risks will eventually add up to a big one.
Even if you only experience the symptom of the initial infection mildly.
"Each subsequent COVID infection will increase your risk of developing chronic health issues like diabetes, kidney disease, organ failure and even mental health problems," physician Rambod Rouhbakhsh warned journalist Sara Berg in an American Medical Association podcast earlier this year.
"This dispels the myth that repeated brushes with the virus are mild and you don't have to worry about it. It is akin to playing Russian roulette."
Is It Dangerous to Keep Getting COVID-19? by Alice Park / TIME
“Each time you get hit, it does impact your body, so let’s try not to get it too many times,” says Smith. That’s easier said than done, since after three years, people are tired of taking precautions such as wearing masks and avoiding crowded public spaces. “We’ve lost the public-health battle; there is no appetite for public masking or stringent public health measures,” says Al-Aly.
That means other strategies need to become available, including universal vaccines that can protect against multiple variants and nasal spray vaccines that stand guard at the nose, which is where SARS-CoV-2 generally enters. Researchers are currently testing these next generation shots, so while “the good news is that these technologies do exist, they need to be accelerated and brought to market as soon as possible to protect the public,” says Al-Aly.
In the meantime, Smith says it’s important for people to understand that they still need to do everything they can to avoid getting COVID-19. That means staying up to date with vaccinations and taking some basic precautions, such as wearing high-quality masks indoors when cases are high, especially in crowded places and on public transportation.
“I wish we lived in a world where getting repeat infections doesn’t matter," says Al-Aly, "but the reality is that‘s not the case."
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 Catch-up of Mostly Bad News
Long COVID changes heart rate variability, study suggests | CIDRAP
COVID contact-tracing study suggests length of exposure biggest factor in disease spread | CIDRAP
Cost of hospital care rose 26% for COVID-19 patients over course of pandemic, data show | CIDRAP
Severe covid-19 infections linked to increased risk of schizophrenia | New Scientist
Vaccination Dramatically Lowers Long COVID Risk | Scientific American
Study shows long COVID worse for patients than 'long flu' | CIDRAP
COVID-19's unseen impact: study reveals surge in home deaths across 32 countries
The US isn’t doing enough for disabled people — COVID proves it | The Hill
At least 100,000 Brits at risk of developing 'pure hell' disease - Wales Online
About 3% of Omicron survivors in Malaysia had long COVID at 3 months, data reveal | CIDRAP
A discovery in the muscles of long COVID patients may explain exercise troubles
Nearly two thirds of Korean SARS-CoV-2 cohort had long COVID at 2 years | CIDRAP
Why are 1,500 Americans still dying from COVID every week? - ABC News
Deadly virus could lead to 'heart failure pandemic' on global scale, experts fear - Daily Star
Study shows COVID leaves brain injury markers in blood | CIDRAP
Ella Fitzgerald, Mack the Knife!