Thread by @DrEricDing

⚠️Listen up—Top 🇬🇧 scientists warns that “In the last week—there’s now evidence that T-cells…get damaged the same way that HIV and other RNA-virus damage T-cell immunity”. ➡️Prof Costello (@globalhlthtwit) raises serious concerns on #COVID19 & the 🧠—a🧵:

2) “My biggest worry all along has been the long term effects particularly on the brain. We know that people who get brain fog who get fatigue, cognitive problems, & smell and taste is very common—and that means the virus is affecting the brain 🧠”

3) “We know the virus can get intro the brain. We know the virus affects cells around blood vessels. I’m beginning to think—‘how long is this going to last’—because we have allowed millions of children to become infected with the virus.”

4) “And as @ArisKatzourakis said earlier, there’s **NO** real hard evidence [Omicron] is less virulent than delta in absence of vaccination! Now children have not (all) been vaccinated” 👀

5) What are some of the studies? Lots of basic science papers, but here is one study showing T cell death abnormality below… which contributes to #LongCovid

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1481722172695584772

6) There is a surging mountain ⛰ of evidence on both #LongCovid - and particularly in kids. Notably, #LongCovidKids has tripled in kids in 6 months, and kids suffering longer than a year have DOUBLED! 👇 the Uk govt data doesn’t lie…

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1479115498600099842

7) Apparently there’s a new trend emerging in South Africa of delayed death too… deaths are surging apparently over a month after cases had peaked.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1482859559882567681

8) “We know Epstein-Barr Virus causes multiple sclerosis. We know chickenpox causes shingles. We know that measles in a few children causes very nasty neurodegeneration… Zika virus destroying the brains of babies. Viruses are risky. What worries me is the scale of this virus.”👀

9) What’s the latest evidence that EBV causes multiple sclerosis? This Harvard-led study published in Science that found a 32-fold higher risk of developing MS with EBV. For context, smoking a pack a day & lung cancer risk is only around 10-15-fold. 32 fold is off the charts!

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1481752310325952517

10) “From previous waves we believe 7% to 10% developed long COVID, but with Omicron, the numbers being infected are so high that even if just 1% of infected children get long COVID, ➡️ it’ll cause more pediatric long COVID cases than Delta.” 👀 timesofisrael.com/1st-kids-omicr…

11) With Omicron spreading fast in schools and other places where kids mix, significant hospitalizations are inevitable, according to Dr. Moshe Ashkenazi. “the sheer numbers being infected will mean children being hospitalized”

12) Let’s rewind time — scientists warned in mid-2020 that the “Coronavirus Short-Circuits the Immune System—In a disturbing parallel to H.I.V., the coronavirus can cause a depletion of important immune cells, recent studies found.” ➡️yet we ignored. 🤦🏻‍♂️
nytimes.com/2020/06/26/hea…

13) Notably, “In May 2020, Dr. Wherry and his colleagues posted online a paper showing a range of immune system defects in severely ill patients, including a loss of virus-fighting T cells in parts of the body.”
doi.org/10.1101/2020.0…

14) “In a separate study, the investigators identified three patterns of immune defects, and concluded that T cells and B cells, which help orchestrate the immune response, were inactive in roughly 30% of the 71 Covid-19 patients they examined”. (May 2020) biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

15) I remember when some doctors made parallels to “airborne HIV”— while we now know #SARSCoV2 isn’t exactly same as HIV, it seems it definitely is very airborne & very harmful to T-cell immunity. ➡️ DO NOT RISK COVID—we don’t know what its #LongCovid is capable of!

https://twitter.com/danaparish/status/1449896763079344129

16) Moral lesson, always be wary when someone hand waving dismisses #COVID19 as “mild” whenever they couldn’t have possibly had enough data to really know for sure.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1476799723080146945

17) **with caption** - listen to Professor Costello explain why he is so worried about #COVID19 damaging T cells and #LongCovid concerns for the brain.

18) P.s. it’s not just T cell damage of COVID. It’s also vascular damage too. Case in point. 👇

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1483669547014139906

19) “Brain” damage of memory loss… you really don’t want #LongCovid!

https://twitter.com/virusesimmunity/status/1482768687987924992