⚠️“SUBSTANTIAL DROP” in intelligence—#COVID19 survivors suffer severe cognitive deficit. Patients hospitalised on ventilators saw the biggest drop in on intelligence tests—equal to a **7-point drop in IQ**!
Larger than suffering stroke or lead poisoning!🧵news.sky.com/story/covid-19…
2) researchers found those who had contracted COVID saw the greatest underperformance on tasks requiring reasoning, planning and problem-solving compared to those who had not had the virus. ➡️ but they found a significant (starred) drop **even in mild patients too**! #LongCovid
3) "These results accord with reports of long-COVID, where 'brain fog', trouble concentrating and difficulty finding the correct words are common." the authors report.
4) I have been warning about cognitive decline for months. The huge increase in risk of anxiety depression and insomnia of 2x higher risk is no coincidence!! See detailed thread 🧵 below.
5) What is the increase in psychiatric illness after any #COVID19 diagnosis? Up ⬆️ 58%. That is gigantic. This is after any diagnosis of Covid, not just specifically if LongCOVID—this is an overall increase across the board for infected!
7) Bottomline— you do not want #COVID19 for yourself or anyone you know. And mass infection is not a valid plan!!
📌”findings show that #COVID19 survivors have significantly higher rates of psychiatric diagnoses” (including first time & recurrent)
8) If only someone warned about the IQ drop from #COVID19 after recovery back in November 2020… sometimes it sucks that we repeat hard pandemic lessons the hard way — especially that we knew much much earlier. Epidemiologists want to honestly vomit regularly. 🤦🏻♂️
9) New Bob Dylan verse: 🎼 how many IQ points must our children lose, before we can please give a damn? The answer my friends, is we should always save the kids, the reason is they are our future winds….
10) We *must must must* now be extra vigilant. There is a lot of studies on waning immunity / vulnerable vaccinated elderly / #DeltaVariant evasiveness — 🇮🇱 is reporting drops in infection efficacy (remember mild COVID still = cognitive deficits), and VE drop for severe too. ⬇️
12) the CDC did get one thing right - with the need for indoor air quality improvements especially for schools. IMHO, this is just as important as masks. We need masks, vaccinations and ventilation/ indoor air quality improvements
13) gosh, #LongCovid affects soooo many organs. Nobody should want this. And damnit—No kid should be allowed to be afflicted with this. bmj.com/content/bmj/37…
14) I imagine Bob Dylan would ask this about protecting our children from #COVID19
3) “Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more”.
SICKENING—Trump’s DHS just deported a surgeon from Brown University Medical School—who is here legally on an H1B visa that doesn’t expire until 2027, and has committed no crimes. Trained in the U.S. at Ohio State, University of Washington, and Yale as a **transplant surgeon** (one of the most difficult surgical fields in all of medicine!!!), she is a highly trained doctor on kidney transplants, which cannot be easily replaced. Her phone was seized at the border. A federal judge handed down an injunction against her deportation—but she was already deported on a plane en route to Paris. Brown’s kidney transplant clinic is now strained by her deportation.
2) Full text:
PROVIDENCE — A Rhode Island doctor who had traveled to Lebanon to see her parents was prevented from re-entering the United States at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Thursday evening, her lawyer and a colleague said.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, who lives in Providence, has been working at Brown Medicine’s Division of Kidney Disease & Hypertension since last July, and she [has] been part of the transplant service at Rhode Island Hospital, according to Dr. George Bayliss, the organ transplant division’s medical director. She has been studying and working in the United States for about six years, he said Friday.
The US consulate in Lebanon had issued her an H-1B visa, which is given to people in specialty occupations requiring expertise. The visa was valid through mid-2027, said Thomas S. Brown, an attorney representing her and Brown Medicine.
Alawieh was detained when she returned to Logan airport, and family members are afraid that she is about to be deported to Lebanon, he said.
“We are at a loss as to why this happened,” Brown said. “I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of the Trump crackdown on immigration. I don’t know if it’s a travel ban or some other issue.”
He said her phone has been seized and he has not been able to contact Alawieh.
Bayliss said a lawyer filed a petition with the US District Court in Massachusetts, and Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued an order saying Alawieh should not be moved outside of Massachusetts without 48 hours notice. But he said that message apparently did not reach immigration officials in time, and a plane carrying Alawieh left for Paris.
“This is outrageous,” Bayliss said in an interview. “This is a person who is legally entitled to be in the U.S., who is stopped from re-entering the country for reasons no one knows. It’s depriving her patients of a good physician.”
A US Customs and Border Patrol spokesperson, Ryan Brissette, was not able to immediately answer questions about Alawieh on Friday evening.
Bayliss said Alawieh graduated from the American University of Beirut medical school and came to the United States for a nephrology fellowship at Ohio State University. She then landed a transplant fellowship at University of Washington and had a residency in the Yale hospital system before starting at Brown Medicine last July, he said.
“She’s really a very humble and able person,” Bayliss said. “She takes care of her patients. She is talented and thoughtful and a great addition to our division.”
Bayliss said Alawieh went to Lebanon to visit parents and planned to be gone for two weeks. He said she texted a colleague at 6:30 p.m. Thursday saying she was back in Boston, but then her family heard from immigration officials.
Dr. Paul Morrissey, surgical director of the organ transplant division at Brown University Health, said Alawieh works on getting people in Rhode Island on the list for a kidney transplants, and that’s a crucial job at a time when there has been a lot of focus on the need for kidneys and their equitable distribution.
He said Alawieh should not have had any problem traveling out of the country with an H-1B visa.
“It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances,” Morrissey said. “It’s putting a strain on our office. Her work has been exceptional.”
3) There is a new Trump ban against many countries, including tourist visa bans against all countries in the red and orange lists. This list is still tentative. And it shouldn’t have affected people with existing visas, such and the Brown kidney transplant surgeon
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… once upon a time, liberals did have our own “Leftist Joe Rogan”… his name was Joe Rogan…
Here he is advocating for socialized medicine, healthcare for all, and supporting labor unions to protect workers.
2) Recall, Rogan was once pro Obama and pro Bernie Sanders, and pro Yang Gang, and anti Trump. It’s sad he has since failed to the dark side. But like Vader… maybe he can be redeemed someday and come back to the light.
Joe Rogan was also pro gay rights and pro DACA and pro helping inner city communities that suffer economic and social injustices. It’s sad what he has become. I feel we should try to pull & welcome him back someday. Everyone can be redeemed.
BREAKING—FDA suddenly cancels meeting to update next season’s flu vaccines, with zero explanations. Any delays will jeopardize next year’s vaccine supply chain.
2) Folks who follow me know that I’m no bullshitter. I criticized past pandemic response right and left, and have called balls and strikes without bias. And I often say things that doctors & epidemiologists are whispering among themselves but don’t say publicly. (Cough cough) ⬇️
3) While I don’t recommend hoarding… I think stocking up on flu antivirals, which you can obtain prophylactically (preventively) from doctors if you ask nicely why you’re high risk, can be a good idea. I know many doctors, epidemiologists and virologists who do for their family.