Last week, the latest comprehensive study on Long COVID in was published naturopathy, once again underscoring the recklessness and criminality of the “Forever COVID” policies implemented by almost every world government. The study looked at nine categories of compound neurological disorders and found that having a seizure with COVID-19 increases the risk of developing a neurological disorder by 42 percent. In absolute terms, seven out of 100 people with COVID-19 included in the study suffered from a neurological disorder.
The nine disorder categories assessed included cerebrovascular disorders, cognition and memory, peripheral nerve disorders, episodic disorders, extrapyramidal disorders and movements, mental health, musculoskeletal, sensory and other neurological or related disorders such as Guillain-Barre and encephalitis, with risk ratios for each category, shown in the left column in the image below.
Risks were increased in each of the nine disorder categories, with the most notable increase being in cognitive and memory impairments. Included in the nine categories are common conditions such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, headaches and seizures, Parkinson’s-like symptoms, anxiety and depression, dizziness, loss of smell and taste, and ringing in the ears. Each of these diseases can significantly impair the quality of life.
The study was conducted by Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, Director of Research and Education Services for the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, a nephrologist by training and Long COVID expert, along with Dr. Benjamin Bowe and Yan Xie. A total of 154,068 people with COVID-19 were examined in the study for an average of more than 400 days. They were compared to 5.6 million contemporary and 5.8 million historical controls, providing an extremely robust data set for their analyses.
in one widespread thread commenting on the study on Twitter, Dr. Al-Aly: “Risks of memory and cognitive disorders, sensory disorders and disorders including Guillain-Barré [immune disorder in which the immune system attacks the nerves and causes weakness, in rare cases life-threatening] and encephalitis or encephalopathy [inflammation of the brain] is stronger in young adults. The impact of these disorders on younger people is profound and cannot be overstated.”
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In the Discussion section of the study, the authors clearly state: “It is imperative that we recognize the tremendous challenges posed by Long COVID and all of its downstream long-term consequences. Addressing these challenges requires urgent and coordinated – but so far lacking – global, national and regional response strategies.”
They warn that the burden of neurological disorders associated with COVID-19 infections will have “profound impacts” on population health, healthcare systems and economic productivity, including the risk of “widening inequalities”. These warnings are based on the thorough research that Dr. Al-Aly and his team performed on the clinical aspects of post-acute Sequalae SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), also known as Long COVID, during the pandemic.
In a recent interview, Dr. Al-Aly that his interest in Long COVID started when he commented in the New York Times by Fiona Lowenstein chronicling her ordeal with Long COVID after recovering from her infection in April 2020. dr Al-Aly, a curious and honest researcher, asked, “What is Long COVID?” and “Who does it affect?” As he explained, “We took a high-dimensional approach to leave no stone unturned to characterize the post-acute consequences of COVID-19.”
By accessing the United States Department of Veterans Affairs’ integrated electronic medical records, Drs. Al-Aly and his team from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, are reviewing the medical records of over 74,000 veterans infected with SARS-CoV. 2 for months thereafter and compare them to contemporary and historical controls to account for the relative and absolute risk of the impact of COVID-19 on population health.
The results were amazing. dr Al-Aly recalled that the “broad organ dysfunction” people were suffering from shook him to the core. Of more concern to him, even those with mild symptoms who ruled out admission to hospital or intensive care were still significantly impaired.
dr Al-Aly and his team also conducted the following studies looking at the effects of Long-COVID on the cardiovascular system, kidneys, metabolic function and mental health. In each category, the results proved disadvantageous.
- The relative risk of acute kidney injury was twice as high compared to contemporary and historical controls affecting one percent of COVID-infected individuals. A small but significant minority experienced a significant decline in kidney function compared to those without infection.
- For each cardiovascular disease, the risk was increased by 60 percent in the first year after acute COVID infection, with about 4.5 percent more people developing these diseases. The absolute increased risk for serious adverse cardiovascular events was 2.3 percent. Although these risks were significant for patients admitted to hospital with severe COVID infections, even patients with mild disease had significantly elevated cardiovascular outcomes.
- Examining mental health disorders, they found that being infected with COVID-19 increased the relative risk of anxiety disorders by 35 percent and depression by 39 percent. These patients also experienced higher use of medications to control their symptoms and opioid prescriptions. In addition, they suffered from poor sleep and cognitive decline. On this subject, Dr. Al-Aly: “We have seen early signs of a resurgence in opioid use in our data – which we hope will not continue, particularly among people with SARS-CoV-2 infection. That requires our attention to nip it in the bud.”
- Similarly, there was a 40 percent increase in diabetes with an excess disease burden of between 1 and 2 percent. Many who develop diabetes have had to be prescribed medication to control their high blood sugar. Extrapolated to the hospitalized population, the figures are considerable at around 8 to 14 percent. Even for those with “mild” COVID-19, the absolute risk increased by 5 percent over uninfected controls.
- Earlier this year, Dr. Al-Aly and his team conducted a study that found that people with breakthrough infections were only 15 percent less likely to develop Long COVID after vaccination and had an increased risk of death and organ damage compared to control subjects who did were never infected. This remained the case even when compared to seasonal flu, dispelling the mainstream bourgeois press’s insistence that COVID was no more harmful than the flu.
dr Al-Aly has likened the tragic deaths and hospitalizations from COVID-19 to the tip of a giant iceberg, with the massive long-term consequences associated with Long COVID lying below the waterline. Long COVID, an umbrella term, is more than just brain fog and fatigue. It can affect almost any organ in the body, and imaging and autopsy reports have demonstrated the profound dangers COVID-19 continues to pose to the population.
In their latest study, Dr. Al-Aly et al. make important observations on the long-term neurological consequences of the pandemic, writing: “Given the colossal scale of the pandemic, and although the absolute numbers reported in this work are small, this may result in a large number of affected individuals around the world world – and this will likely contribute to an increase in the burden of neurological diseases.”
They add: “This further emphasizes the ongoing need for multi-pronged primary prevention strategies through non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. masking) and vaccines to reduce, where possible, the risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2. There is also an urgent need to develop long-term sustainable strategies to prevent mass infection with SARS-CoV-2 and to determine if and how this will prevent long-term neurological (and other) complications in people who are already affected or otherwise could be mitigated infected with SARS-CoV-2.”
What makes these peer-reviewed studies critical is not just their portrayal of the medical dangers that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to humans. They also have a political character, since the purpose of these works from the beginning was to inform the public about the extent of the consequences of the implemented pandemic policies. The terrible consequences of the pandemic are counted not only in the estimated 20+ million deaths from COVID-19 worldwide, but also in the tens of millions suffering from the debilitating Long COVID worldwide.
In his Twitter thread, Dr. Al-Aly: “The best way to prevent Long COVID is to prevent COVID in the first place.” This speaks to the urgent need for a global elimination strategy to stop the pandemic once and for all. In the absence of a global anti-COVID movement uniting workers and scientists in all countries, the pandemic threatens to continue, with new variants causing wave after wave of mass infections, death and the debilitation of millions more with Long COVID.
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