Thread by @NjbBari3

We don’t exactly know.

We have clues.

Long COVID is a complex group of symptoms, as you would expect from a multi-system disease. The data I have seen does not look specifically at apoptosis of brain cells. More the symptoms of brain fog. ->

https://twitter.com/francescoponzin/status/1475041122737139712

amongst others.

Also how much neurone loss can be tolerated without any symptoms is another question.

Also the data on vaccination preventing long COVID is rapidly becoming outdated, as it was based on previous strains.

We have an estimate, that double vaccination was preventing about 50% of long COVID sequalae at 28 days.

Whether this is due to infection prevention, or attenuation of disease (or both) is still being debated.

Another concern is that if SARS-CoV-2 is taking a shortcut up the olfactory nerve to the brain, it doesn’t give much opportunity for the virus to be stopped by antibodies in the blood or immune cells before it gets there. ->

(Which is why people are working on vaccines that will help stop the virus while it’s still in the mucus of the nose.)

So at this time, I advise preventing the virus from getting in the nose in the first place by using a well fitted mask/respirator.