The Syndemic News

Russia/Ukraine and now this are not totally separate from #SARSCoVx / #CoViD - much like WW1 and WW2 are not totally separate from the “Spanish” flu. Neurocognitive effects create perfect conditions for autocrats and wars.

Hey, @WHO, you don't need to be in a crowded place to pick up Covid, flu, etc. One infectious person in a poorly ventilated space will do it. And Covid hangs in the air for hours. Which means that infectious person *doesn't even have to be there*. They might have left hours ago

Things are just going from bad to worse. If I played Polymarket I'd put money on Trump not finishing his term.

Long COVID in children can be as common as asthma, experts say share.google/prHG0fU6ytuPsX…

What is this?! People with Long Covid are posting MRI results showing actual brain shrinkage. Women in their 30s and 40s now being tested for dementia markers. Brain shrinkage in people in their 30s and 40s should be a global emergency, but most healthcare systems and society instead pretends this virus doesn’t exist.

Doctors are not ok. 🤯 They can’t deal with the reality of Covid. They don’t WANT to deal with the reality of Covid. I don’t know how we fight that level of ignorance…especially when science proves again & again how Covid is damaging our health. Doctors don’t WANT to know. 😞

COVID-19 may be, in part, a mitochondrial disease. ➡️ A Cambridge review shows SARS-CoV-2 disrupts mitochondrial function in lung cells—driving inflammation and worsening pneumonia. ➡️ Emerging studies suggest even after the active infection is resolved, residual viral proteins, particularly SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, may linger and continue to cause damage to the mitochondria by increasing oxidative stress and disrupting energy metabolism, offering a plausible mechanism for #LongCOVID. 1/ H/T: @CatchTheBaby

Following with interest. Of course, endemicity wouldn’t alter the need for transmission mitigations on either an individual or societal level. For example malaria is endemic in large parts of the world - and significant international elimination efforts are ongoing.

Long Covid's neurological burden includes cognitive impairment, headache, sleep disturbance, dysautonomia, pain, and psychiatric symptoms, often lasting years. Proposed mechanisms include immune dysregulation, microvascular injury, neuroinflammation, viral persistence, latent herpesvirus reactivation, gut–brain disruption, and brain structural/functional changes. nature.com/articles/s4158…

SARS-CoV-2 is the perfect bioweapon—attacks all organs/systems. It doesn't cause a suspicious density of deaths. Each patient dies at their own pace. publications.aap.org/pediatrics/art… We knew. The interview below is from 2021. Since then most children have been infected multiple times.

Now that Mike Ryan and John Conly have gone, what’s stopping the WHO recommending effective masks/N95s that prevent inhalation of aerosols from shared air, and Tedros from finally being able to get the message out he desperately wanted to warn the world about 6 years ago…… “Corona is AIRBORNE”??? @DrTedros

Sharing this 🧵 for COVID cautious folks. TLDR: I was denied entrance into @BrowardHealth for a doctor’s appointment by a group of 5 hospital personnel, including the hospital’s public safety director, for refusing to take my mask off for a biometric photo.

So great to see JFK airport still has mask vending machines, which have 3M Auras!

COVID-19 is still spreading. Respirator masks are still one of the simplest ways to reduce risk, for you and the people around you. #COVID19 #COVIDIsNotOver #COVID #LongCOVID #InfectionPrevention #PublicHealth #LongCOVIDAwareness

Well well well. Actually, …not well. And not funny…. It’s Long Covid. Some of us called this long ago. The tennis world needs to WTFU.

Covid is believed to increase the risk of lung Cancer. No media is telling you: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41819102/?utm_…

The world is a bit like it was in ∽1923 or so, but with far more dangerous tech in far more powerful hands.

Why is it not common knowledge that covid infections damage your ability to resist *other infections*.

Long COVID is defined as an symptomatic condition. However, COVID-19 can also cause organ damage without symptoms. New Paper: Spectrum of COVID-19: From Asymptomatic Organ Damage to Long COVID Syndrome #LongCovidAwarenessDay whn.global/scientific/spe…

I know *a lot* of people who now grudgingly admit that covid infections have made them less well.

A groundbreaking study has pinpointed a microscopic culprit behind the debilitating fatigue, brain fog, and other persistent symptoms of long COVID: abnormal, sticky microclots embedded with neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in patients' blood. These microclots—tiny aggregates of clotting proteins—are small enough to obstruct the body's tiniest blood vessels (capillaries), restricting oxygen delivery to tissues and organs without triggering obvious large-scale clotting events. In long COVID patients, researchers observed a dramatic ~20-fold increase (median 19.7 times higher) in the number of these microclots compared to healthy controls, with the clots also tending to be larger. What sets this finding apart is the discovery that these microclots are structurally intertwined with NETs—web-like structures of DNA, enzymes (such as myeloperoxidase and neutrophil elastase), and proteins released by neutrophils (a type of white blood cell) to ensnare pathogens. Normally, NETs form temporarily and then dissolve, but in long COVID, they persist and become physically embedded within the microclots, creating highly resistant, "gummy" structures that evade the body's natural clot-breaking processes (fibrinolysis). This creates a chronic thromboinflammatory state, where blocked microcirculation and ongoing low-grade inflammation may sustain symptoms like exhaustion and cognitive impairment. The differences were so pronounced that machine learning models analyzing anonymized blood samples (via fluorescence microscopy for markers like ThT for amyloid-like structures, DNA stains, and MPO for NETs) could distinguish long COVID patients from healthy individuals with 91% accuracy—offering a potential objective biomarker for a condition that has long evaded reliable diagnosis through standard tests (e.g., normal D-dimer, PT/INR, or aPTT levels despite significant microclot burden). This work, led by teams including Prof. Etheresia Pretorius (Stellenbosch University) and Dr. Alain Thierry (Montpellier University), reframes long COVID as a tangible, blood-based disorder driven by dysregulated coagulation and innate immunity rather than vague "post-viral malaise." Targeting NETs or microclots—perhaps with therapies to degrade NETs or prevent their stabilization—could open doors to treating root causes instead of merely alleviating symptoms. [Thierry, A. R., Usher, T., Sanchez, C., Turner, S., Venter, C., Pastor, B., Waters, M., Thompson, A., Mirandola, A., Pisareva, E., Prevostel, C., Laubscher, G. J., Kell, D. B., & Pretorius, E. (2025). Circulating Microclots Are Structurally Associated With Neutrophil Extracellular Traps and Their Amounts Are Elevated in Long COVID Patients. Journal of Medical Virology, 97(10), e70613. DOI: 10.1002/jmv.70613]