“If Covid is quietly accelerating cognitive aging… in working-age adults, the consequences will ripple through workplaces & health systems for years.”
“The incidence & prevalence of Alzheimer’s is going to just escalate,” he says. “It’s a huge public-health problem.” #LongCovid
“Almost 5 years later, #LongCovid has had one of the fastest rises in diagnoses and become one of the most economically disruptive chronic conditions in modern medicine… Another analysis… put the annual economic toll of LC at $1 trillion” — @jwgale bloomberg.com/news/features/…
@jwgale “That scale in turn raises a troubling question: whether Covid is not only leaving millions chronically unwell but also accelerating the slow neurological processes that end in dementia—a pattern that has long been observed after some viral infections.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
@jwgale “To study possible hidden effects.. they deliberately infected healthy young adults.. and none reported lasting problems, but after a year they performed slightly worse.. before being infected. The difference was roughly comparable to 6 IQ points” @jwgale bloomberg.com/news/features/…
@jwgale “In a study published this January.. Those who developed persistent neurological symptoms showed a clear rise in phosphorylated tau, a protein commonly used as an early warning sign of brain degeneration” — @jwgale #LongCovid bloomberg.com/news/features/…
@jwgale “The picture that emerged was of a slow shift playing out beneath the surface of entire populations: a rise in cognitive problems…declines in functional capacity…medical implications are troubling enough, the economic ones are beginning to register too” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
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“After practicing medicine in so many different settings, he never imagined his profession could so completely fail his own child at her time of greatest need.”
‘I’m profoundly disappointed,’ he said.” #LongCovid
“Focusing her eyes on written words or television brings severe headaches. Music she once enjoyed feels like an assault of noise her brain can’t process. She dons noise-canceling headphones & an eye mask, & lies still” #LongCovid bostonglobe.com/2026/02/20/met…
“During the first year of her illness, Crausman could walk down the driveway and manage a staircase… The second year, she needed a wheelchair. Now, she rarely goes out at all.” #LongCovid bostonglobe.com/2026/02/20/met…
Turn 36 today & I’ve spent my entire thirties with #LongCovid. When I turned 30 I was biking to work 10 miles a day, & since my mild covid infection — I struggle to walk more than a block or work more than a few hours a week.
Here’s 4 things I wish everyone knew:
1. The risk of this happening today is the same as in 2020. A new @NIH study shows risk of developing #LongCovid has not declined over time. We see new ppl every month in support groups from reinfections.
People do not understand this, & public health needs to communicate it.
"Every subsequent infection increases the risk of #LongCovid & places people who already have it in greater danger. Here's what we don't know, is what it does to reinfect children over.. & over again with no endpoint in sight from the day they were born. We are about to find out”
"It is neglect of the highest order to look children in the eyes & say, 'We knew how to protect you & didn't do it. We have access to a technology to prevent airborne disease.. that millions of our ancestors.. would kill for, & we refuse to use it,'"today.com/health/violet-…
“We can recognize filtered air as a human right, as intuitively as we do filtered water," Affleck said. "We can create clean air infrastructure that is so ubiquitous and so obviously necessary, tomorrow's children don't even know why we need it." today.com/health/violet-…
“A growing number of scientists believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus may be subtly altering our immune systems. If correct, their hypothesis will change how we understand everything from RSV to shingles to sepsis.”
“It’s certainly impacting our immune health & probably.. overall health”
“SARS-CoV-2 is linked to ‘an unusually high level of *indiscriminate* killing of T cells’.. reminiscent of measles, which can cause immune amnesia by depleting memory B cell, leaving people vulnerable to pathogens they were previously immune to.” bmj.com/content/390/bm…
“‘Immunity debt,’ a theory to explain the global surge in non-covid infections since pandemic restrictions were lifted, is increasingly being challenged by emerging evidence.” bmj.com/content/390/bm…
“The research coming out is not quite breaking through,” she said. “But you have to see the problem to solve the problem.”
‘From what I can tell, no one is explaining the risk of #LongCovid,’ which may now be the top chronic illness in children”
“The American Academy of Pediatrics and the @NIH estimate long COVID may have affected up to 5.8 million children, since research says between 1 in 10 to 1 in 5 of the children who recover from COVID later develop #LongCovid.” deseret.com/lifestyle/2025…
@NIH “Dr. Jeanette Brown.. and.. Dr. Alexandra Brugler Yonts… encounter #LongCovid daily in their professional lives. What does surprise them is the notion kids can’t get long COVID. They see it regularly… which Yonts calls ‘devastating.’” deseret.com/lifestyle/2025…
Incredibly exciting diagnostic tool potential — @ImmunoFever MIT team is doing nailfold capillaroscopies on #LongCovid patients before and after a NASA lean test, and said the results have been incredibly striking compared to controls.
My results were very abnormal !
They said they’re seeing lots of signs of microhemorrhage, enlarged and shortened vessels etc, and it seems the white blood cells move way slower through the vessels. They take photos of all fingers and toes and upload them to software that analyses results in real time.
They said they’re hoping to get a case report out ASAP and they’re still dialing in the full parameters / standard — and hoping to get full paper out hopefully later this year. They were adamant about this being a potential outcome measure, end point and diagnostic !