If you're not first, you're last. That mindset of getting it done first, but not right, has destroyed the media over the past half-decade or so. I'm not saying they were batting 1.000, but post-2016—it collapsed completely. The Russian collusion delusion saw endless streams of nonsensical "bombshells" that turned out to be entertaining nothing burgers. ABC News tanked the markets with their shoddy report that Michael Flynn traveled to Russia during the 2016 election, except that he didn't. It was after Trump had won, he was president-elect and tapped his soon-to-be-national security adviser to contact the Russians, which happens with every incoming administration. Longtime reporter Brian Ross gave the report. He was suspended and then left the network altogether. With COVID, it's no different. And now, they're going to send every Boomer into a panic with their latest attempt to fire up the COVID fear engine.
Tens of millions of Americans contracted COVID. Tens of millions more survived. It's a virus with a 99-plus percent survival rate. The vaccines prevent severe illness and death, and it's especially prudent for those over the age of 65 to get vaccinated for that reason. That's the demographic most susceptible to death upon infection. COVID is over. It's endemic now. Mask mandates are gone…because Democrats finally read the polling data. On top of vaccines, we have therapeutics. The pandemic is over, but you might also have a smaller brain because of it. No, I'm not kidding. We have a new study that will soon make the rounds that shows those between the ages of 51-81 who survived COVID might have a loss of gray matter. Also buried in the story is the scientists telling people not to panic, but you know what's going to happen here, folks (via NYT) [emphasis mine]:
Covid-19 may cause greater loss of gray matter and tissue damage in the brain than naturally occurs in people who have not been infected with the virus, a large new study found.
The study, published Monday in the journal Nature, is believed to be the first involving people who underwent brain scans both before they contracted Covid and months after. Neurological experts who were not involved in the research said it was valuable and unique, but they cautioned that the implications of the changes were unclear and did not necessarily suggest that people might have lasting damage or that the changes might profoundly affect thinking, memory or other functions.
The study, involving people aged 51 to 81, found shrinkage and tissue damage primarily in brain areas related to sense of smell; some of those areas are also involved in other brain functions, the researchers said.
“To me, this is pretty convincing evidence that something changes in brains of this overall group of people with Covid,” said Dr. Serena Spudich, chief of neurological infections and global neurology at the Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.
But, she cautioned: “To make a conclusion that this has some long-term clinical implications for the patients I think is a stretch. We don’t want to scare the public and have them think, ‘Oh, this is proof that everyone’s going to have brain damage and not be able to function.’”
The study involved 785 participants in UK Biobank, a repository of medical and other data from about half a million people in Britain. The participants each underwent two brain scans roughly three years apart, plus some basic cognitive testing. In between their two scans, 401 participants tested positive for the coronavirus, all infected between March 2020 and April 2021.
The other 384 participants formed a control group because they had not been infected with the coronavirus and had similar characteristics to the infected patients in areas like age, sex, medical history and socioeconomic status.
Yeah, too late, doctor. The media has already loaded this bullet into the magazine to fire off into the air causing everyone to panic again. Granted, this will mostly be relegated to liberal enclaves where such news media has all their headquarters, but it could get noisy soon. Remember, the South African scientists who discovered Omicron said not to worry. Everyone freaked out over this super mild, though highly contagious, variant that did more than the vaccine with regards to expanding immunity. Last holiday season brought a lot of Omicron, but also a lot of natural immunity. More questions remain, but you already know the new scare line: even mild COVID infections lead to brain damage.
We're going to get into it again about long COVID. We're going to get into it again about how mild should be put in air quotes. Nope. We're done. Countless legions of Americans had COVID and recovered. It was mild. They're alive. They're getting on with their lives. The ones who truly have suffered brain damage are Biden supporters who still wear masks outside and alone while driving. I've seen them.
Freaks.
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