I try to avoid issues like this as much as possible (the interpersonal/social/political ones), but in case you were wondering why China is freaking out so bad about COVID chewing it’s own legs to prevent it’s spread it’s because COVID selectively targets astrocytes. For susceptible individuals, it’s literally a brain/body metabolism nuke, and produces dementia like physiological effect. COVID, over enough exposures, creates “zombies” of a sort by destroying/commandeering the glial feedback mechanisms in nervous systems.
This is of course something many viruses do, however COVID seems to be far better at creating metabolic mayhem than others. It’s probable the systemic effect of COVID or other viral infections (like EBV) is the primary driver of dementia/degenerative etiologies, far outstripping environmental effects like lead/metals, VOCs/aerosols, etc.
Further, just getting into a situation where your B cells are spamming antibodies means means the chances of one of those anti-bodies interacting with cells in such a way that induces cancer mechanics goes way up.
I don’t think it’s outrageous to say COVID makes people stupid, and stupider over time.
Edit: Crap, so sorry about all the typos. Wish my input and output rates were more in synch, biased toward input speed.
I was mostly riffing with the last two paragraphs, but it turns out that the evidence that it’s actually true is building pretty fast. Looks like the selectivity for a big nuke sits at around 25% in the US/UK and I suspect that this rate will vary significantly based on geography and genetic clines.
The focus on human induced conditions driving degenerative conditions is still probably right, but the effect is almost certainly far outstripped by “natural” mechanisms. Kind of typical anthropo arrogance on my part to assume otherwise.
COVID-19 and olfactory dysfunction: a looming wave of dementia?
The Adverse Outcome Pathway Framework Applied to Neurological Symptoms of COVID-19 – Interesting in the mention of anti-cholinergic effect of COVID binding results in effects similar to anticholingergic burden.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality in people with dementia without COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis – COVID probably exacerbates all cause mortality and severe insult in existing conditions.
The Impact of Mild COVID-19 on Executive Functioning and Mental Health Outcomes in Young Adults – Ceteris, the effects are consistent across age groups.
Cognitive Deficits in Patients with COVID-19 Infection during Their Hospital Stay: An Exploratory Study – Urban/Rural or population density doesn’t seem to have much impact either, we’re still consistent at ~25% confounded by other metabollic incidence like diabetes.
COVID-19 and cognitive impairment: A cross-sectional clinic-based study – Even in healthier/younger groups, dementia like symptoms are consistent around ~25% of the US/UK population.
Rapid vigilance and episodic memory decrements in COVID-19 survivors – While some effect is recoverable, it all depends on how flexibly ones astrocytes can repair the damage most likely. With that ~25% group, full recovery is unlikely.
Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from COVID-19 – COVID effects are “dose dependent”, in that severity is pretty tightly coupled to outcome.
Edit: Most viral infections like COVID are a bit of russian roulette, and with each infection a round is randomly added to the cylinder before the trigger pull.
Some people have much larger cylinders (flexible immune response) and thus can tolerate more infections before disaster but even among this group, some people get unlucky.
It doesn’t matter what the virus is, if it triggers B cell spam, it’s a pull. Most viruses don’t have the right caliber to fit in the chamber, and everyone’s chamber morphology is determined by genetics, but when rounds are being passed around that happen to fit the genetic average pretty well, being cautious is pretty wise.
COVID is like a hollow point bullet aimed at soft squishy metabolic processes.