The billionaire who wants to live forever just admitted he has long covid. Specifically, covid wrecked his lungs.

If you haven’t come across him, Bryan Johnson is a 46-year-old tech bro who cashed out a few years ago and now spends all his time trying not to die.

He has been interviewed by most mainstream news outlets where he has documented his extreme and bizarre quest for immortality. From a story in The Guardian:

“He rises at 4.30am, eats all his meals before 11am, and goes to bed – alone – at 8.30pm, without exception. He ingests more than 100 supplement pills daily and bathes his body in LED light. Two of the three meals he eats every day are exactly the same: boiled broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms and garlic, nuts and seeds. He takes 54 pills in the morning, and the rest in between skin treatments and red-light therapy. He doesn’t drink alcohol, and doesn’t go out in the evening. He experimented with injecting himself with blood plasma from his 18-year-old son Talmage.”

Lol, and indeed, lmao

Americans will never learn

edit: the thread. Fortunately there are some people talking about long covid and effects on the immune system in there. But also a ton of brainworms.

I think it would be nice if we could all work together to expand this community a bit and we can do this by suggesting what you would like to see in the sidebar and any resources we can compile together to add to it.

Analysis of the latest U.S. Census Bureau data finds 24% of U.S. adults affected by the disease have experienced COVID-19 symptoms for three months or longer. Learn which state and major metro area populations are experiencing the highest rates of long COVID.

It's fine, just keep infecting each other and it will work itself out. Haven't you sacrificed enough? It's treat time!

The data used for this report came from the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, specifically Week 63 (Nov 8, 2023), the most recent data available.

There are some signs that long covid is becoming rarer, but the most optimistic estimates I've seen are a 3.9% chance of long covid per infection, after vaccination. In mid-2023 the WHO said it's a 1 in 10 chance.

If you are lucky it's just a persistant cough for a few months. If you aren't, you get disabled for life.

This is another study showing covid is harming an enormous amount of people, and I'm sure it will be met with same "nah, that can't be right, because I don't personally know anybody suffering" or "omicron is mild now" shit we get from neoliberal thought leaders.

Related article: Almost 6 Million Youth May Have Been Impacted by Long COVID, Studies Find Links to Life-threatening Conditions

It modulates the response to the virus at the level of the immune system, and is used to treat an infection.

We conducted an experimental protocol with a nasal recombinant IFNα-2b formulation (Nasalferon) in 12 healthy volunteers who received 1 MIU per nostril twice a day, three consecutive days, and studied the induction of biomarkers related to antiviral and immune responses. Nasalferon increases the antiviral biomarker OAS1 transcript levels in oropharynx and PBMCs, regulates molecular and cellular elements related to innate and adaptive immune responses and decreases granulocytes population. These effects support Nasalferon use in virally-exposed populations.

Nasalferon, a new nasal formulation of IFNα2b, modulates cellular and molecular elements associated with an antiviral response in mucosa and blood

Cuba will start applying Nasalferon to travelers and live-in family members

In Cuba, All International Travelers to Receive Nasalferon

An Experience with Cuban Biotech's Nasalferon to Prevent SARS-COV-2 Infections in International Travelers and their Contacts

Meanwhile "free" countries are destroying the lives of millions of people by pretending covid doesn't exist anymore, and paxlovid is $1000 dollars and doctors don't want to prescribe it because covid is "mild".

tl;dr: 20 million people have or had long covid in the US. 2 million in Canada. Reinfections increase risk of long covid.

I'm guessing there is a huge amount of survivorship bias going on in the world today.

Millions in Canada and US have long COVID

Al-Aly knows this aftermath well because he and his team at Washington University in St. Louis documented the first characteristics of long COVID and did the most widely cited research on the condition. The Tyee has highlighted his important work repeatedly.

Al-Aly testified that the condition of long COVID now afflicts at least 20 million Americans. Their disability represents an economic toll of $3.7 trillion in terms of lost productivity and lost lives. That’s a loss equal to the 2008 recession.

Canada shares this great burden. According to a recent Statistics Canada survey, **more than two million Canadians reported suffering from the symptoms of long COVID as of June. **That’s seven per cent of the adult population. More than half report no improvement in their condition over time. More than one in five Canadians battling long COVID on average took 24 days off from work or school.

Al-Aly also highlighted one of the key findings of that little-cited Canadian survey and even shared a graph from the study showing that reinfections heighten the risk of long COVID.

“Even if people managed to emerge unscathed after the first infection, they may get long COVID after reinfection,” warned Al-Aly.

There is a myth that frogs will stay in a pot of water until it boils and they die. This is untrue. They will only do that if you keep giving them treats.

So let's not have a struggle session about whether we should be protecting ourselves from it

"there appears to be a slight disconnect between what the public perception of covid is now and what the scientists are finding in the research studies"

Last night she was coughing in a manner my asleep brain read as "gross", so unconsciously noped the fuck out of there and slept on the sofa. I can't believe my non-awake brain got it.

She tested positive a few hours ago, so now I just have 7 days to worry. I probably have it, I feel a bit off already.

I know that it's more than most people, but she was wearing low quality masks, going to a non-safe dentist at peak times, and avoiding the booster. I've been nicely pushing her for years, and she brings this shit home. She's also sorry, and I say it's fine because I want her to feel better and recover, but secretly I'm fucking raging.

Sorry to rant. Better on Hexbear than out loud.

This is unexpectadly high, and good news for anyone who got the latest vaccine.

https://nitter.poast.org/EricTopol/status/1753145017810723327#m https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1753145017810723327#m

I'm on the west coast and the latest covid wave just started hitting my town, so I hope I can continue to avoid it.

My friend in a long term care facility a few towns over got hit a couple weeks ago and three people died. They got the last vaccine several weeks ago, and then got "minor cold symptoms" when covid hit their facility, but never tested positive. Not many residents facility got the last vaccine because of the fucking privatization bullshit.

This country is Satan.

Full article

So ~20% of people in this study who got Covid but not Long Covid are still experiencing sever cognitive impairment? That's not concerning at all!

Regardless of whether it's covid or capitalism, this just further increases my suspicions that people around me are losing their damned minds.

Sorry if I misinterpreted the study's conclusions. I tried my best.

I seem to remember there being some concerns, about covid increasing chances of Parkinson's disease, a couple years ago because covid was causing people to have sleep disorders.

This post bought to you by the tofu gang

An explanation for those not following: this is HICPAC, which advises the CDC on infection control policies. They’re trying to update a 2007 document on preventing transmission of infectious agents in healthcare settings, which will direct infection control practices across the US. One of the things they were going to recommend was that surgical masks are equivalent to N95s, and that surgical masks should be the default PPE for healthcare workers caring for patients with respiratory viruses. They did recommend N95s for viruses like measles and tuberculosis and “pandemic phase respiratory viruses,” including Covid. But not only does this fly in the face of what we have learned about aerosol transmission of respiratory viruses during the Covid pandemic, it’s also a weakening of the 2007 guidelines, which state “respiratory protection requires the use of a respirator…” and only recommends surgical masks for blood or body fluid exposure.

Couldn’t decide whether to post this in the dunk tank or here

And those same colleagues come in my space all the time, see me in an N95, see me with filters everywhere, and don't even fucking have a pause.

I DON'T WANT TO DO EXTRA WORK

68% of COVID-19 deaths during the first year of the pandemic were adults in low socioeconomic positions

University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi's research confirmed associations between COVID-19 mortality rates and socioeconomic position, gender, ethnicity and race.

Salemi's research shows:

• The mortality rate of low SEP adults is five times higher when compared to high SEP adults, and the mortality rate of intermediate SEP adults is two times higher.

• White women make up the largest population group considered high SEP. In contrast, nearly 60 percent of Hispanic men are in a low SEP.

• When compared, the mortality rate of low SEP Hispanic men is 27 times higher than high SEP white women.

"The degree to which it takes a toll on communities is very unevenly distributed and we wanted to call attention to that issue," Salemi said.

Reminder that crackers started storming state capitols demanding lockdowns end about a week after news reported covid was harming black people at far greater rates than anyone else.

The "return to normal" was driven by complete disregard to the lives of low wage workers and outright racism.

But I'm sure things are great now that the "pandemic is over". Genocide Joe and the party of science wouldn't lie to you. Capitalism wouldn't just sacrifice workers like that, right?

Looks like there's gonna be a lot more pneumonia this round.

Highly mutated COVID variant BA.2.86—close ancestor of globally dominant “Pirola” JN.1—may lead to more severe disease than other Omicron variants, according to two new studies published Monday in the journal Cell.

In one study, researchers from Ohio State University performed a variety of experiments using a BA.2.86 pseudovirus—a lab-created version that isn’t infectious. They found that BA.2.86 can fuse to human cells more efficiently and infect cells that line the lower lung—traits that may make it more similar to initial, pre-Omicron strains that were more deadly.

In the other study, researchers in Germany and France came to the same conclusion. “BA.2.86 has regained a trait characteristic of early SARS-CoV-2 lineages: robust lung cell entry,” the authors wrote. The variant “might constitute an elevated health threat as compared to previous Omicron sublineages,” they added.

We're up to 2000 a week dying from covid in the US, and that's probably an undercount due to lots of people, hospitals and states pretending covid is just a cold or doesn't exist anymore.

We did it!

https://nitter.net/luckytran/status/1742319364181787110

And we are probably a week away from the peak.

This is what we call an "exit wave", meaning we have reached super-herd-immunity!

Here's to another year of unpredictible worldwide waves and rapid mutations making vaccines obsolete before they are rolled out.

For financial reasons we shall now refer to it as an Endemic+ virus.

I look forward to having all mention of it in the news disappear as we get closer to next election.

spoiler