don't get to type this much

hooooooooly fuck EXTREMELY GOOD COVID NEWS holy fuck

Chise - @sailorrooscout · 11:55 AM · Jan 17, 2022
Does COVID-19 vaccination have a protective effect against Long COVID? Answer: YES.

“Vaccination with at least two doses of COVID-19 vaccine was associated with a substantial decrease in reporting the most common post-acute COVID-19 symptoms, bringing it back to baseline.” [THREAD]

Keeping in mind that there are always exceptions and that this is speaking statistically across large numbers, a reasonable-population study just out (and linked in the thread) shows extremely clearly that statistically speaking, breakthrough case patients who had previously received the complete initial course of two-dose vaccination DO NOT GET Long COVID.

Not even the booster. Just the initial two doses.

Again, there will be some exceptions because there always are and there will be, for lots of reasons, including pre-existing immunodeficiency which I am not ignoring, but these numbers are so strong that I'm pretty sure the odds for even worst-case patients are going to be dramatically - dramatically - improved.

Seriously these are some "NOPE! [slams book closed] YOU'RE GOOD!" numbers.

For those of us who have been going on about long-term damage from COVID (including not just Long COVID but the extended systemic bodily damage) this is ... holy fuck this is good news.

Look, in the unvaccinated, omicron still causes Long COVID in large numbers. It still trainwrecks immune systems by fucking T cells. Less so, we think, than previous variants, but even less are still some ugly odds.

But it's not too late to get vaccinated. Half-vaccinated isn't enough, the numbers are really clear on that, you need both shots.

But it's not too late.

Get your shots. For fuck's sake, get your shots.

Because if this holds up against new variants we haven't yet seen so can't speculate about, and if you're fully vaccinated, then that light at the end of the tunnel?

It's actually the end of the tunnel.

And it isn't secretly a train.

Have I finally found the right word?

I've been writing on and off for a long time about how we need to start talking less about COVID deaths and talk more about the long-term effects of COVID on survivors. I'm not alone in that, but I was fairly early out the gate.

The reason I've been talking about this is because neither fascists nor fundamentalists give a fuck about theoretical death, particularly not in the 1% range, particularly not amongst the people they see as "old" or "already ill" or - as was particularly obvious in the early parts of this pandemic - of colour. The fascists want to kill all those people, the fundamentalists see death as just going to be with Jesus, and none of them see any of that as applying to them anyway.

It's never caught on, sadly. I've tried.

But I think part of it is that I've never found the right word.

I might've found it now.

Let's talk about enfeeblement.

I surveyed a lot of papers in late 2020 and early 2021 talking about not just Long COVID, but asymptomatic long-term damage from COVID.

I talk a lot about how 20% or more of asymptomatic COVID cases turn up with major organ damage. I use that number because of all the large-population studies I saw, it was the lowest number. And also because, being the smallest number, I decided it was the one least likely to be rejected out of hand.

Those people are starting to die now. None of it's being called COVID, but it's showing up in excess-death numbers, like that 140% excess-deaths rate reported by insurance companies in January 2022.

These are all people whose long-term health has been weakened.

For some, it's becoming fatal.

For a larger number, it's not fatal - yet - but it's symptomatic, in many different ways, all bad. All weakening. All enfeebling.

Some are far more easily tired than before. Some are weaker. Some get short of breath, sometimes at random. Some have a hard time thinking, or concentrating, and some have memory issues. Some can't smell or taste anymore. Some have blood circulation problems.

Some throw clots and have strokes.

Some do all of the above.

They have all been made one degree or another of feeble. It might be showing up now; it might show up later; it might not even show up at all - though there was a study out last month showing symptoms increasing over time, rather than decreasing. Lives getting worse, not better.

Enfeeblement.

COVID makes you feeble.

As I said just above, fascists and fundamentalists don't care about death. The former want to deal it en masse; the latter seek it out. In their own words, death from COVID-19 is good, and not to be feared.

But enfeeblement?

Oh, they hate the feeble. Loathe them. Despise them. And they fear - existentially fear - becoming one of them.

They are terrified of becoming feeble themselves.

And now, assuming today's study holds up, we know something new.

We, the vaccinated... we might get COVID, sure... but we don't get Long COVID.

Symptoms of Long COVID go to zero.

We don't become feeble from getting COVID... and they do.

You want to strike some fear of god in the fundamentalist, in the fascist?

That's how.

It won't happen to all of 'em. Not even most. But let's say one in five.

Ask them. Present it as a hypothetical. As an "okay, you won't get vaccinated against COVID because it doesn't stop you from getting the disease, but what about this other case?" example.

"So there's a new disease, doesn't kill anybody - well, not much of anybody - but it fucks people up pretty bad. Once it's over, one out of five are tired all the time, get weak, they have breathing problems, can't think right - a lot of them can't concentrate, they forget things constantly. Their immunity gets broken, too, so they get sick again a lot. Long term stuff."

"But there's a vaccine. Doesn't stop you from getting it, but it does stop you from getting fucked up for life."

"Would you get a vaccine against that?"

And of course, modulo the omission of death, I just described COVID-19.

I mean it. They don't care about death. They particularly don't care about the deaths of others. They really do not give a single fuck.

But enfeeblement?

And the unstated but omnipresent backdrop, becoming unworthy by becoming ill?

Yeah. About that, they care. And they already fear it, all the time.

And getting vaccinated is the way out.

Put that to them, and let's see what they say.