Thread by @froglet80

Remember how in the eighties, everyone mistook the fact that the first cluster of patients with AIDS were all gay men, to mean that only gay men could get it, so they didn't connect the dots when people getting blood transfusions fell ill until a few more years went by? 🧵

Thats exactly what i hear all over again when i see people trying to find any commonality between people with long covid other than the fucking obvious one that is right there in the name: covid. thats it, the answer is covid, its not even a mystery this time. 🧵

long covid isn't caused by latent viral infections, hereditary illnesses, age, weight, comorbidities, etc. Just like aids isn't caused by being gay, or injecting drugs, or being from haiti (why the fuck is haitian bashing popular again also btw?) 🧵

long covid is caused by SARS-CoV-2. just like aids is caused by hiv. they are both caused by a fucking virus - not your genes or your lifestyle or your luck. all these other commonalities may increase one's risk of being exposed, but they are not the cause. 🧵

remember when everyone was trying to say ebv reactivation was the cause of long covid?

i have some really fucking bad news for you. ebv reactivation was at one time considered as a cause of aids also.

in both cases, its an outcome rather than the cause. 🧵

dysautonomia, chronic fatigue syndrome, mental health issues, high cholesterol, fungal and bacterial infections, other latent viral infections such as CMV, VZV, and HHV6, etc., have likewise been pointed to as causes of long covid because they're commonly seen in patients 🧵

I have some more really fucking bad news for you. All of those things I mentioned in the previous tweet? Are also common findings in people living with HIV (particularly in advanced stages, or those whose initiation of antivirals was delayed) 🧵

Notably, HHV6 was initially isolated and identified in lymphocytes of AIDS patients in the course of looking for the cause of the illness. It turned out to be an incidental finding, as it will with long covid. Because in both cases, another virus was & is the actual cause 🧵

Unlike the early eighties, when HIV was not yet known to be the cause of AIDS - with Long Covid, we know right out the gate that the virus responsible is SARS-CoV-2. And because of that, we also know these other things are OUTCOMES. As they were with AIDS. 🧵

The cause is known. What isn't yet well understood is the pathology by which SARS-CoV-2 induced Long Covid - and thats the part that must be studied in order to develop treatments. Everything else is a grifty waste of precious resources, while patients are dying🧵

Eerily, the fact that all of the same outcomes have once again been mistakenly pointed to as causes, actually provides a major clue to the pathology of long covid. But no one wants to talk about that, so they avoid the area of research all together. And patients are dying. 🧵

Everyone likes commonalities until it comes to viral persistence & immune dysfunction, for some reason. Its simpler to blame everything on clotting abnormalities, inflammation, allergies, or autoimmunity. 🧵

But - once again - I have some really bad news for you. Once again, those are all outcomes, of the virus. As seen in HIV, in which all of these outcomes are also commonly seen. 🧵

Which, again, gives us a clue to the pathology of long covid - especially since we know that both viruses are able to infect immune cells, bone marrow, and even brain cells. Because we know how infections of these compartments affects these things. 🧵

But instead of starting with known biological mechanisms and viral pathologies and connecting the dots, researchers run around like blind men trying to describe an elephant - each in their own little segment, never reading others' findings. And patients are dying. 🧵

context w/research about more overlapping issues 🧵

https://x.com/froglet80/status/1817176820585763301?t=yRjNThUc2GJwYHdyGI7d2w&s=19

context regarding latent viral infections 🧵

https://x.com/froglet80/status/1819641857887920138?t=yRjNThUc2GJwYHdyGI7d2w&s=19

If you find my threads helpful, tips are appreciated - I am disabled, unhoused, and immunodeficient due to long covid & crowdfund to survive.
🧵ko-fi.com/froglet80

@threadreaderapp unroll