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James Throt MBBS, MD, PhD, FRCPath Profile picture
@JamesThrot
Feb 18, 2025 • 6 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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Since Covid arrived:

“Why are so many children having developmental problems?

Why are there more car accidents & plane crashes?

Why are people more aggressive & less empathetic?

Why is everyone sick all the time?

Why is there more violence in schools?”

Gee, I dunno… Image
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“There isn’t more violence in schools and kids are fine”

Oh, ok 👍🏻. Image
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“People aren’t more aggressive and less empathetic”

Oh, ok 👍🏻. Image
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“Everyone isn’t sick all the time”

Oh, ok 👍🏻. Image
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“There aren’t more plane crashes or incidents in aviation”

Oh, ok 👍🏻. Image
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Yet when the answer to all these questions is obvious, giving the actual answer (covid) is always met with complete bewilderment and you’re looked at as if you’re some kind of intellectually challenged conspiracy theorist.

Let’s keep ignoring the virus that shan’t be named then!

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More from @JamesThrot

James Throt MBBS, MD, PhD, FRCPath Profile picture
Dec 9, 2025
You don’t have to be a neurologist to see patterns.

Everyone I know who avoids mitigation looks noticeably different from their pre-covid selves. In temperament, in consistency, in emotional regulation, in decision making.

The changes are everywhere. People just normalised them
A key problem we have is that neurological changes often impair the very systems needed to notice those changes.

It’s an anosognosia-like loop.

The more dysregulated someone becomes, the more convinced they are that nothing is wrong.
At population level, impairment camouflages itself.

If everyone’s executive function declines a little, the new baseline feels ‘normal’.

People compare themselves to the surrounding decline, not their pre-2020 selves.
Read 6 tweets
James Throt MBBS, MD, PhD, FRCPath Profile picture
Dec 6, 2025
And COVID is making an ever increasing proportion of people fall into that weak/vulnerable category that capitalism is happy to throw to the wolves.

Eventually, EVERYONE who is doing nothing to prevent repeat SARS-CoV-2 infections will be weak/vulnerable. This is what COVID does
People think vulnerability is a fixed trait. It isn’t.

With SARS-CoV-2, it’s a moving target.

And repeat infections keep moving it toward them.

Cumulative damage always catches up.

Keep letting a brain-damaging virus rip and the ‘vulnerable’ category expands year after year.
Call it denial, call it normalisation, call it whatever you want. COVID doesn’t care.

If you keep getting reinfected at your current rate, the virus will eventually put you in the category you thought only applied to ‘other people’.

This is your inevitable trajectory.
Read 7 tweets
James Throt MBBS, MD, PhD, FRCPath Profile picture
Nov 26, 2025
If you still believe COVID left the population “unchanged”, open a dating app. It sounds absurd, but stay with me here.

The cognitive bluntness is so widespread that the dating platforms themselves have had to acknowledge behavioural deterioration since 2020.

It’s not subtle🧵
Since 2020, apps report the same pattern: shorter messages, less reciprocity, fewer follow-ups, lower meet-up rates & a collapse in sustained conversational ability.

This isn’t just “people being tired”. It’s a measurable degradation of attention, initiative & social cognition.
The cause?

- repeated COVID infections impairing cognitive stamina/reward processing

- chronic low-grade fatigue

- dopamine systems altered by COVID/crises

- widespread emotional numbing

- increased avoidance as default coping mechanism

All the above = social “flatlining”
Read 17 tweets
James Throt MBBS, MD, PhD, FRCPath Profile picture
Nov 24, 2025
Oh they know.

The reason any utter of the word “COVID” is met with awkward silence, abrupt subject changes, or mockery is no coincidence.

That’s what denial looks like when the stakes are too high for people to admit what they already sense.

You’re letting them off too easily.
Universal internet access & AI at everyone’s fingertips in year 6/7 of COVID. Yet we’re still pretending the public is merely “uninformed”?

This isn’t a knowledge gap, it’s deliberate avoidance, a psychological defence to shield people from the consequences of their own choices.
And here’s the part people pretend not to understand: we don’t rely on governments or legacy media for any other major issue

Nobody waits for official guidance to form opinions on Gaza, Epstein, climate collapse, corruption/surveillance. People “do their own research” constantly
Read 6 tweets
James Throt MBBS, MD, PhD, FRCPath Profile picture
Nov 16, 2025
There’s a pervasive misunderstanding in conversations about COVID’s neurological impact.

Many people assume that saying “frontal lobe damage reduces empathy” means everyone who’s had COVID instantly becomes amoral & unethical.

That’s reductionism at its finest. 🧵
Frontal lobe impairment is not an on/off switch.

Someone with naturally high empathy can still appear extremely empathetic, even if their capacity has measurably declined.

It’s a shift, not a reset.
At the population level, repeated SARS-CoV-2 infections subtly alter impulse control, moral reasoning and susceptibility to manipulation.

This doesn’t mean every individual loses morality, but society-wide trends can shift in meaningful ways.
Read 6 tweets
James Throt MBBS, MD, PhD, FRCPath Profile picture
Nov 15, 2025
Let’s talk about one of the most dangerous and under-discussed consequences of SARS-CoV-2: neurological damage. More specifically, frontal lobe dysfunction.

This is being deliberately downplayed, in part due to a misguided weaponisation of “ableism” discourse. That’s a problem🧵
Here’s the truth.

SARS-CoV-2 is a neurotropic virus. It can invade the central nervous system, either directly or through inflammatory damage.

It’s been detected in brain tissue, and it can cause lasting neurological impairment.

This is not speculative.
The frontal lobe governs executive function, impulse control, empathy, moral reasoning & inhibition. Damage here can lead to:

- Aggression
- Impulsivity
- Gullibility
- Bigotry
- Loss of social inhibition
- Apathy
- Antisocial traits

This is basic neurobiology, not ableism.
Read 12 tweets

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