Moody Monday: the other concern

[mellowtigger]

Paired with last week's "sudden death" worry from SARS-CoV-2, this week's worry is the slow damage done to the immune system. Reminder: Everything that's happening can be predicted easily from the 5 things to know about SARS-CoV-2.

I've warned about the danger of cancer development, and we have evidence to support this prediction. SARS-CoV-2 down-regulates the p53 cancer suppressor gene for at least 6 months. (bold emphasis mine)

Although it has not been demonstrated yet, it has been hypothesized that a long-term inhibition of p53 by the SARS-CoV-2 could be carcinogenic. The onco-suppressive protein p53 is a key player within the apoptotic signaling pathway and regulates the expression of about 500 target genes; therefore, it plays a role in cell cycle arrest, cell aging, cell death, etc. (6). We examine three gene expression datasets to demonstrate that p53 is downregulated during acute SARS-CoV-2 infection and long coronavirus-disease 19 (COVID-19); a long-term reduction of p53 could be interpreted as a risk factor in carcinogenesis.
- www.journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-4453(22)00469-8/fulltext, "Is SARS-CoV-2 an oncogenic virus?"

I've warned about the similarities of immune system damage with HIV/AIDS progression. We've known since 2020 their similarities and differences. The MSD Manuals (first published in 1899) now list SARS-CoV-2 as one of 4 causes for lymphocytopenia (along with HIV). We learned in 2022 that this dysfunction persists for at least 8 months. That's as long as this study looked.

Patients with LC had highly activated innate immune cells, lacked naive T and B cells and showed elevated expression of type I IFN (IFN-β) and type III IFN (IFN-λ1) that remained persistently high at 8 months after infection. ... Here, we analyzed a cohort of individuals followed systematically for 8 months after COVID-19 infection according to a predefined schedule, comparing them to healthy donors unexposed to SARS-CoV-2 (unexposed healthy controls (UHCs)) before December 2019, and individuals who had been infected with prevalent human coronaviruses (HCoVs; HCoV-NL63, O229E, OC43 or HKU1), but not SARS-CoV-2. ... There was a 10% trend toward some improvement of symptoms over time in LC, but this trend was not statistically significant (Fisher’s exact P = 0.44).
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-021-01113-x, "Immunological dysfunction persists for 8 months following initial mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection"

I'm trusting a professor at Seton Hall University to correctly translate/summarize this video, but he offers this interpretation: "A Chinese business consultant in a Ted-style talk justified zero-Covid policy by saying that in 10 years the West will be brought to its knees b/c long-Covid, which will decimate most of its labor force." I bet you're wishing your nation had adopted China's Zero COVID strategy. I sure do.

I've hinted for 2 years how bad I think it will get. Let me state it explicitly, pulling numbers out of thin air just to make a point as I go on record. The USA mid-term election for 2022 is a few days from now. It's a convenient mark on the calendar that roughly coincides with the declaration that there are 8 billion humans on the planet. By the next mid-term election in 2026, I expect that number will drop to 7 billion humans, with the decrease accelerating. Once the realization goes mainstream, people will reliably predict End Times because they expect 25% of the population will die. They're wrong. I'd consider us lucky if we lose only 25% of humanity to this crisis.

Now, that's enough doom and gloom. No more for a while. Reminder: I still see great promise ahead, so don't lose hope. And look! Brave survivors have published "The Long COVID Survival Guide"!  I've already bought my e-book copy.

Keep masking, distancing, and isolating. Be careful out there.