Thanks for sharing my perspective in this piece @MeganEDoherty! As I mention, in these #longcovid cases, it’s very important to take the potential persistence of #COVID-19 in certain tissues and/or the central nervous system (CNS) seriously!
2/ That’s b/c #Coronaviruses have been shown capable of persisting in human #tissue or certain “anotomical sanctuaries” - for example, this team found Coronavirus RNA + antigen in the Multiple Sclerosis brain: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
3/ Also in other “post-viral” syndromes like “Post-#Ebola Syndrome, viral RNA has been found in unexpected body sites like sperm, or the eyes, years after initial infection: nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
4/ I’m not saying COVID-19 MUST persist in #longcovid cases. In fact, there are likely different reasons for chronic symptoms in different #longcovid patients. But the topic of persistence should not be “taken off the table” as some researchers have suggested!
5/ Also another researcher quoted in the article said this👉 “I don’t think this [longcovid] is the result of the persistence of the pathogen, because you clearly see the viral load go down, and that their body’s immune system is not behaving as though there’s a pathogen present”
6/ I would like to push back against that statement: If #COVID-19 can persist in tissue and/or the CNS, it wld be in a latent form not expected to generate an immune response at all similar to what wld be noted in acute disease:)
