the mellow tigger's musings

I haven't written much about SARS-CoV-2 this year. It's still out there, despite the television news not really mentioning much of anything any more. Today, I wanted to share some tidbits that are interesting or worrying, while simultaneously avoiding my Doom Bingo 2025 topics. I'm also avoiding a lot of old 2022 studies that showed persistent infection in the brain and various kinds of physical damage in the brain after infection. I tried to keep these links a lot more "fresh" and recent.

The good news? There is some.

Sorry, that's a lot of information, even after I deleted half a dozen articles that I included on the first draft. :(

I still mask around other people. No matter how many times you've had COVID, it's better not to get it even one more time. Stay safe out there.

An important overview paper about SARS-CoV-2 was published from The Medical Journal Of Australia online yesterday. It cites a lot of other papers, summarizing what's known about some of the issues I've been warning about here for a while. It focuses on things like immune dysregulation and viral persistence. This article has a long title with a bit of hope in it: "Towards a cure for long COVID: the strengthening case for persistently replicating SARS-CoV-2 as a driver of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19". Note, however, that it doesn't mention virus in neurons as another (non-curable) method of persistence. It only mentions the 2 methods of persistence (gut, and bone marrow/immune system) as potentially curable paths of persistence.

As always, I encourage everyone to keep masking. I do it myself every time I'm around other people.

I've decided to do something different in 2025. I know that even when restricting my doom-and-gloom posts to Moody Monday, that's still a lot of negativity that nobody needs in trying times. So I'm going to try transforming it into something almost "fun" for next year.

Near the end of 2024, I intend to post my Doom Bingo 2025 card. I will have each square with a topic that I expect to appear in 2025 as "Something Bad That Happens". I might even include some links for why I predict it will appear in the course of the year. During the year, however, I will not post about that topic. Really! Instead, as evidence piles up, I'll keep a folder of news clippings that I can use in December 2025 to determine if I "win" the bingo card for that year.

Now, I may post tangent topics, like helpful things to do to prepare for the troubles. I won't, however, post warnings any more. The time for warnings is over. Either my sense of trends is right or wrong. A Bingo game might make even bad news seem less traumatic. If nothing else, it'll keep this blog a little more like it used to be in the old days, focused more on interesting things to learn or do, or the fun intersection between many topics.

So, stay tuned. My planned Doom Bingo 2025 card will show up here soon. :) Finally, some relief from the stressful topics.

There's too much going on in the world and in my area of it, so today I'll share only Good News.

The first week of school has ended, and the pace of work is finally slowing. The high point was a long ticket where the phone caller said, "Don't leave me!" as I tried to exit politely after solving the main issue for them. By the end of the call, I helped a 75-year-old woman with signing up for her very first course at the university. It's a nice reminder that I, too, might someday return to college.

I've had a broken screen on my Pixel 4a phone for several years. A few days ago, it finally started causing problems when it wouldn't recognize touches on the screen to unlock it. I need it a few times each day for multifactor authentication at work. Today, since I didn't work due to USA holiday, I rode the bus to Best Buy in Roseville to buy a new Pixel 9 and switch my phone SIM card to it. It's up and running again, although not everything is reconnected. Among the first things to reconnect was the multifactor authentication. It was an expensive purchase but definitely an improvement over my last phone. Bonus 1: I learned that there's a single bus route (no transfers!) that goes straight from my area to that distant shopping area. Bonus 2: I saw during the round trip not just 1 but 2 people in masks!

The big news is this: Researchers might have found what causes the clots by SARS-CoV-2. I mentioned last year that the spike protein seemed to be the culprit, but it wasn't clear why. Now, this new research says that "fibrin binds to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, forming proinflammatory blood clots that drive systemic thromboinflammation and neuropathology in COVID-19." That's really big news. If they know the mechanism, then they can find counteracting agents. There's a lot more to that study, but I'm still exhausted and can't really follow it at the moment. I'm hoping to learn if it's the S1 or the S2 protein, or both together, that causes the clots. Still, though... this discovery is very good news.