Thread by @_ppmv

1. How does SARS cause AIDS?

The virus SARS-CoV causes systemic chronic immune activation, loss of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC), naive T and B cells, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)

I would propose the name airborne immunodeficiency virus (#AIV) #SIDU 221225

2. COVID19 (SARS) is transient because the virus clears as epithelial cells regenerate. It extends the infected cell's life (500-787 days in the renal epithelium). It causes #AirborneAIDS in SARS survivors; hence the need for #ZEROairborneAIDS (#ZeroCOVID)

3. Immune damage acquired from SARS (Covid) can be premanent

What causes SARS-associated chronic immune activation? - @fitterhappierAJ published early and warned the public most consistently. We all owe him
frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
mdpi.com/2076-0817/11/4…
frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…

4. Read this carefully: it took 40 years to build the current knowledge on HIV/AIDS. We have decades to go for a cure

SARS will be similar; we are now where HIV was in the 1980s, when society blamed people living with HIV for "life choices" & ignored them ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

5. The difference is that the mode of transmission limits HIV seroprevalence. And there are therapies (ART) for HIV, allowing healthy, long-ish lives.

This puts the 'A' into #AIV: SARS eradication, by the same means as in 2003, is urgent (WHO IHR 2005).

Merry Christmas everyone

6. SARS was ended in 2003 through simple measures (PPE/N95 or better & eye protection, international travel surveillance, quarantine and isolation). Legally binding solutions exists. States just get away with ignoring them because few of us know and care.

7. Kudos all activists, & scientists like @fitterhappierAJ. I expect systemic dysfunction on climate; in public health it's surreal to see. We can do better 🙏

Perhaps such threads help; perhaps I'll write different or long-form next year

Here our real problem, a symptom itself

Background: read this and linked threads by @jeffgilchrist. "Does SARS-CoV-2 impair everyone's immune system to some extent or only certain subgroups? What's the impact of reinfections and vaccines at individual and population-level? Where's the funding? -

@jeffgilchrist 8. What's the impact of mRNA vaccines (+Novavax) and reinfections? Read the Ab switch to IgG4 observed by Irrgang and literature on complement activation. Fascinating, seems intuitive

Summary and @kischober*
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Good question by @doobeedoo2, one reply below. Others can legitimately be given too - it’s early. My concern is that states are not collecting data on acute infections and SARS survivors, nor funding research at levels to make effective WHO guidance possible.

We’re losing time.

9. Immunodeficiency from COVID can be diagnosed with T cell tests, available in Africa but not the west. Many flog the messengers rather than demand their governments end the pandemic

Worst case is this: genetic recombination of SARS and mpox (poxviruses) biotech.law.lsu.edu/blaw/bt/smallp…

Kannan 2022 discuss mutations of the mpox (monkeypox) outbreak, incl in the DNA replication complex (RC) of this large virus. I don’t think they mention the possibility of genetic recombination with SARS CoV 2, but alternative hypotheses ht @RolandBakerIII sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

10. Drosten declares the SARS pandemic “over”. Why?

Correct, it’s all about state responsibility and insurance payments in the billions, or trillions, who knows. I don’t have the numbers. @Tagesspiegel

“It was never about stopping the pandemic”: - As @RealCheckMarker says, only people not alive when SARS-CoV was eradicated in 2003 can possibly make such a claim

The level of disinformation is impressive. You should by now be able to tell why it’s wrong tagesspiegel.de/wissen/corona-…

11. Here the math of SARS. - Most people in the west said from the start that “stopping the pandemic is impossible”. We know that’s wrong because (1) we never tried in 2019 (!); (2) when we tried to stop SARS in 2003, it worked

Much was lost. The later we start, the more we lose

12. Why are all politics of “Live with SARS” or “Let’er R.I.P.” unsustainable?

Since Nov 2021, Drosten has been claiming the end of the pandemic. (=as false as ever.) I wonder why serious people still listen to him

You all and your children risk not living beyond middle age

13. If anyone thinks we’re kidding (why would we!?): I think policymakers genuinely don’t understood that we are in a global catastrophe. A subtle, slow-moving one; yet truly global, since China gave up / lost control / lied flat (躺平）

Too bad if systems select for yes-people.

14. People in my life think I shouldn't criticize famous scientists, or anyone really. They worry about my mental health. Tbf, so do I!

SARS-CoV-2 contains a unique SAg-like motif en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superanti…

You CAN probably 'Live with COVID' if you're lucky - just not very long 🔊

Give yourself a gold star if you recognized this video shows a neutrophil chasing a staphylococcus aureus, which produces SEB, which is classified as an "incapacitating agent" in BW, which SARS-CoV-2 encodes acc to some 2020 papers

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterotox…

15. We've been warning since 2020. We assume that high incidence and evolution will be socially unacceptable and that societies will therefore end the pandemic through international cooperation. It's been done before, we can do it again

I think we should

SAg background

16. (1) The @Tagesspiegel interview with Drosten is worth reading carefully - note the caveat here. (2) Compare @fitterhappierAJ letter below, written at the same time, Nov 2021, when Drosten claimed the pandemic would end soon. archive.ph/SGslD#selectio…

@Tagesspiegel @fitterhappierAJ (3) Drosten admits that at least temporary ageing (immunosenescence) is found in unvaccinated children. (4) Contradicts himself by speculating without basis that the effect may "disappear after 2-3 years", even as he argues for constant reinfections

Stunning cognitive dissonance

@Tagesspiegel @fitterhappierAJ Other scientists need to warn at least as clearly now.

* I manually changed the @DeepLcom translation of "Durchseuchung" here: "It would then have been a huge mistake to infect the children." (It previously falsely said, "to inoculate the children.")

Google Trans got it right

@Tagesspiegel @fitterhappierAJ @DeepLcom 17. As political scientist, let me remind natural scientists and MDs that states are legally obliged to report to WHO. They get away with NOT reporting because media and MPs are failing to educate the public.

As a consequence, your patients are suffering.

@Tagesspiegel @fitterhappierAJ @DeepLcom 18. Let me end the suspension of disbelief: Fear and treat SARS-CoV more than HIV. Why?

SARS has the power to return society to pre-Pasteur days worthy of sci-fi imagination. HIV/AIDS alone does not

No need to speculate about Disease X. We're right here

@Tagesspiegel @fitterhappierAJ @DeepLcom (1) WHO knows. SARS, smallpox, wild-type polio, new influenza subtypes are notifiable events under IHR 2005

I assume WHO was notified of the first case. It's fine; the weak spot are countries

(2) If not law, HCWs will drive change cdc.gov/globalhealth/h…

@Tagesspiegel @fitterhappierAJ @DeepLcom 19. What's the bottom line?

I'm no HIV/Ebola expert; please ask researchers to read up on SARS. We need FAR more eyes on the ball

As a political scientist, I'll point out the central problem: as long as we don't stop reinfections, this is worse than HIV

@Tagesspiegel @fitterhappierAJ @DeepLcom 20. 25 papers on SARS-Associated Immunodeficiency, kindly shared by @AndrewEwing11. Some call it post covid immune deficiency PCID but I think it's a minimizing name because MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV persist in epithelial cells until they regenerate; no "post"