Long covid seems to be the same as any other post viral syndrome
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/expert-reaction-long-covid-may-be-no-different-to-other-long-term-virus-effects
From: European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 27-30 April).
Queensland data
Long COVID ‘indistinguishable’ from other post-viral syndromes and other respiratory virus a year after infection
Comparison with influenza and other respiratory illnesses
Australia, Queensland,
During Omicron wave
No evidence of worse post-viral symptoms or functional impairment a year after infection.
Long COVID may have appeared to be a distinct and severe illness because of high numbers of COVID-19 cases.
N= 5,112 adult symptomatic individuals
(Fatigue, brain fog, cough, shortness of breath, change to smell and taste, dizziness, rapid or irregular heartbeat)
PCRs conducted between 29 May and 25 June 2022
PCR-confirmed infection for COVID-19 = 2,399
PCR negative for COVID-19 = 2,713
Influenza positive = 995
Results collected, May and June 2023
Overall
Still reporting symptoms, 16% (834/5,112)
Still reported moderate-to-severe functional impairment, 3.6% (184)
Those still reporting any symptoms after a year
Post Covid
No difference
Post Influenza
Those with moderate-to-severe functional limitations a year after diagnosis
None covid adults, 3%
Covid positive adults, 4.1%
Influenza positive adults, 3.4%
https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/bmjph/1/1/e000060.full.pdf
Comparison at 12 weeks post infection
Ongoing symptoms after covid, 21.4%
Ongoing symptoms after influenza, 23%
Moderate to severe functional impairment after covid, 4.1%
Moderate to severe functional impairment after influenza, 4.4%
Obvious question not addressed!!
Presence of spike protein antibodies
Dr John Gerrard, Queensland’s Chief Health Officer
These findings underscore the importance of comparing post-COVID-19 outcomes with those following other respiratory infections, and of further research into post-viral syndromes.
Furthermore, we believe it is time to stop using terms like ‘long COVID’.
They wrongly imply there is something unique and exceptional about longer term symptoms associated with this virus.
This terminology can cause unnecessary fear
Other commentators
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/15/long-covid-symptoms-flu-cold
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-16/queensland-chief-health-officer-long-covid/103594020
https://www.9news.com.au/health/coronavirus-australia-queensland-health-study-long-covid/dede1234-d86f-4842-b6f9-975097dc7e62
Well War welcome to this talk Saturday the 16th of March now I want to look at data today that shows that long covid is actually no different to any other post viral syndrome it’s just basically another post viral syndrome it’s not some unique phenomena now this doesn’t
Mean to say that people that are claiming to suffer from long Co are not genuinely suffering they can be but they again so are people suffering from any other post viral syndrome A syndrome just being a collection of symptoms so quite interesting really but it’s also interesting what this press release
Which is about a paper that’s going to be released next month doesn’t say it doesn’t talk about other possible causes of Spike protein pathology but we’ll come to that in a minute let’s look at this paper really quite um quite interesting and it looks like we probably need to drop the term long
Covid now this is published in uh simex and it’s going to be published as an official paper or as a presentation not till next month as we see here so this is kind of like a preview and because it’s a preview it doesn’t really give us
All the data we would like but it certainly gives us some interesting data to be going on with and uh some things it adits as well that we’ll we’ll uh we’ll talk about so Queens land data Queens land in Australia they say this long covid is indistinguishable from other post viral
Syndromes and other respiratory virus uses a year after infection so it is not something unique to the covid virus it’s another postviral syndrome which we know about and which are really quite uh really quite common of course we learned from uh Dr Grimes and Professor Anderson recently that vitamin D is used up
During infections so part of this could be that people are very low vitamin D if they’ve used a all the vitamin D to fight the infection maybe they’ve got very low levels so that’s a variable worth considering but it’s not the point of this video so I won’t dwell on that at
The moment but long Co indistinguishable quite a strong language from other respiratory conditions right comparison with influenza and other respiratory viruses Australia Queens land now this is collected during the Omicron wave no evidence no evidence of worse postv viral symptoms or functional impairment a year after infection so in other words
Um there’s no evidence that the patients feel worse or are able to do less a year after infection say Co say with influenza or other viruses or respiratory viruses um long covid may have appeared to be a distinct and severe illness because of the high number of covid-19
Cases this is quite possible there was a lot of people getting covid in Queensland all of a sudden and um it could appear like a new syndrome because lots of people were presenting whereas with influenza there was partial immunity of course but the other thing to bear in mind is Queensland does have
A very high vaccination rate as indeed do many of our countries but in Queensland it’s about 90% could this be part of the problem is not discussed in the paper now they did take uh data from 5,112 adult symptomatic individuals so they took people that were symptomatic with these long covid stroke
Post viral syndromes things like brain fog fatigue cough shortness of breath change to smell and taste dizziness Rapid or irregular heartbeat and generally not feeling that that well now they did pcrs now the pcrs preliminary chain reactions they were conducted between the 29th of May and the 20 uh
And the 25th of June 2022 now of course um PCR is done for influenza as well as for Co it’s the both it’s the they’re fairly similar tests so PCR confirmed infection for covid-19 there was 2,399 individuals PCR negative for covid 2,713 individuals so a lot of people
Were suffering post viral indres who hadn’t had covid influenza positive 995 so this gives us a group of uh 2,399 with covid diagnosis and uh 9995 with um influenza diagnosis now those numbers sound quite a bit different but of course this is taken into account by the statisticians and those numbers are are
Enough to give us pretty good quality data actually so I’m really quite happy with that now the results were collected a year later so notice that it was 2022 the pcrs were done the diagnosis was made how the patient patient was feeling a year later was done in May and June
2023 now this is quite high of people that diag were diagnosed positive still reporting symptoms 16 % now as a post viral syndrome for people still reporting symptoms a year later 16% is surprisingly High to me to me surprisingly High um could there be another cause but that’s not mentioned
In the paper but 16% is high if you’re used to treating this let me know if you think 16% is high it sounds very very high to me for example for a post influenza uh condition so 16% still reporting symptoms 834 out of the 5,112 now still reporting moderate to
Severe functional impairment so interfering with activities of daily living really 3.6% and again I would have thought that’s fairly High sounds High to me those still reporting symptoms after a year now between postco and post influenza those still reporting symptoms they just say there’s no difference between those reporting symptoms postco
A year later post influenza A year later they don’t give the numbers on that frustratingly but they don’t give the numbers but they do say there is no difference so we can take them out there word there’s no significant difference between that so there’s no difference it’s both the same it’s another post
Viral syndrome not a unique pathology and in a sense I think this is well it’s hard to say it’s good news because we’re talking about disease but it’s good to know that we’re not talking about a new separate phenomena here this is another post viral syndrome according to this
Data now those with uh moderators functional limitations a year later were given the numbers non-co adults 3% uh covid positive adults 4.1% influenza positive adults 3.4% now okay the covid one there looks slightly worse 4.1% um but it’s there’s actually no significant significant difference between these in the overall
Numbers now this is from uh bmj Public Health uh comparison at 12 weeks post infection this is a set this is a same authors but this is another study from British medical journal or some of the same authors I think ongoing symptoms after covid at 12 weeks um
21% ongoing symptoms after influenza at 12 weeks 23% so again slightly less people complaining of symptoms after covid 12 weeks later but again the numbers aren’t statistically significantly different they are the same so we’re getting the same postv viral effects 12 weeks after covid as 12 weeks after influenza um a
Year after covid as opposed to a year after influenza and a year after covid or influenza both in terms of the patient not feeling right and functional deficits just the same no difference between those groups uh moderate to severe functional impairment after covid was 4.1 moderate to severe functional impairment after
4.4 no difference there in that uh in that time period after 12 weeks in that other study obvious question not addressed presence of Spike protein antibodies now when you have a covid infection the immune system is going to eradicate obliterate eliminate the SARS Corona virus 2 or get rid of it all
Together now some people with um compromised immunity it could take them quite a few months to do that that’s why we can get mutations and it can go on for for quite some time but the vast majority of people will eliminate it all together and even people with depressed
Immune systems will eliminate it all together at some point so the virus will be eradicated altoe that means the amount of Spike protein will start to go down but if for some reason the body is still producing Spike protein on an ongoing basis as we know happened in some post viral postvaccine syndromes
Rather this is sorry postvaccine not post viral postvaccine syndromes then because the virus is still being produced the antibody to the viral Spike protein would still be high so what we need to do is we need to test for the presence of the antibody to the spike
Protein if that’s present then the spike protein is probably still there and we could be dealing with a postvaccine syndrome if the person is still feeling unwell but there is no antibody to the spike protein meaning the spike protein is now been gotten rid of then we’re probably dealing with a post viral
Syndrome this really does need to be done so postvaccine syndromes potentially ongoing Spike protein antibody um post viral syndromes a year later wouldn’t expect to see Spike protein antibody in any appreciable amounts but that wasn’t mentioned in the paper but I think it is important because because um Queensland has about 90% adult
Vaccination so pity they didn’t take that into account but there we go so obvious question not addressed Dr John Gerard Queensland chief medical officer and I agree with this bit these findings underscore the importance of uh comparing postco 19 outcomes with those following other respiratory infections and of further research into post viral
Syndromes indeed and I I’ve certainly seen patients who are um well post viral syndromes can be life threatening um can damage all sorts of uh organs around the body um po post viral myocarditis when I worked on coronary care was the most common indication for heart transplant I think it probably
Still is in fact um so these are common viral viral infections are common but the amount of knowledge in them is not that great so that’s a that’s a point well made we need more studies into these furthermore we believe it’s time to stop using terms like long
Covid because it’s just another post viral syndrome now I’m I’m saying just here um don’t don’t we have to have a complete empathy and sympathy whatever the right term is for for people with uh long covid or post viral SARS Corona virus 2 syndrome um it doesn’t mean to
Say it’s an insignificant thing they can be very ill with it but they can people can be after influenza as well it doesn’t seem to be a different syndrome a new syndrome is the point this is making they wrongly imply that there is something unique this is the the doctor
Speaking Dr John Gerard they wrongly imply that there is something unique and exceptional about longer term symptoms associated with the virus this terminology can cause other unnecessary uh can cause unnecessary fear and there’s a few other uh references there if you want to check them out for yourself
So there we go I’m actually fairly reassured by that but we really need to know more about the differential diagnosis between long covid post viral long covid post viral syndrome and post vaccine syndrome and the testing for the ongoing presence of the spike protein antibody is an obvious
Way Forward so obviously we would expect the obvious way forward to be taken or not but we’ll leave that there that’s a separate debate so overall I think that’s uh fair Fairly fairly good news influenza and covid and other respiratory viruses very very similar postviral syndromes more to come on this I suspect
We’ll probably get more data when the paper actually comes out in April and let’s hope we get more data comparing post vaccine With postv viral syndromes as well thank you for watching
