
Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system - strict9
https://english.elpais.com/science_tech/2020-07-17/over-half-of-coronavirus-hospital-patients-in-spain-have-developed-neurological-problems-studies-show.html
======
gumby
People seem to have a naïve view of what “cured” means: someone “gets sick”,
is treated, and then returns to the _status quo ante_. Thus there is little
concern about catching the disease (or any disease) when you are not in an “at
risk” group.

But hospital discharge just means the treatment you get stops being worth the
time/money. Ideally you finish convalescing at home. But any consequential
damage isn’t ignored, as if you just had had a dented panel replaced on your
car.

Once I understood this error some of the discussion about dealing with the
virus made sense.

~~~
irq11
Did you see the parts of the article where they say that the most severe,
“consequential damage” is predominantly found in the elderly and most severely
ill? You’re implying that people who have mild cases (>99% of all cases;
remember: _over 40% cases are so mild that they’re considered “asymptomatic”,
and for every one case we detect, 10-20 others never even bother to be
tested!_ ) have some kind of neurological damage. That isn’t what this article
says.

Aside from a very tiny group who had strokes (again, mostly elderly), this
research shows predominantly mild symptoms that (e.g. headache, insomnia),
which would not be expected to persist.

If you read past the headline, you will see that even this article makes it
clear that the vast majority of patients have minimal symptoms:

 _” Another large-scale study, this one with 909 coronavirus patients in
Madrid, showed that 90% of cases simultaneously experienced changes to, or the
loss of, the sense of smell and taste. In most of these cases, these changes
were the only clinical expression of coronavirus or were accompanied by other
minor symptoms.”_

~~~
starkd
The headline was indeed more inflammatory than the facts of the article. It
seems like the media wants people to panic.

~~~
krapp
> The headline was indeed more inflammatory than the facts of the article. It
> seems like the media wants people to panic.

I wouldn't conflate a clickbait headline on a single article by a single
website into a widespread conspiracy by "the media" to spread panic.

~~~
sosborn
It's not a conspiracy, but anyone that has worked in or with a newsroom will
tell you that panic and fear sell newspapers (or clicks). Reporters get judged
on article engagement and being humans, they optimize for the metric that they
get judged on.

------
pgo
My family got corona positive last month, around the same time my brother
started having some neurological issues. The doctors after seeing the MRI did
not detect any issues. The same was confirmed by other radiologists and
multiple other MRI scans over the month. Yet he faces these issues:
nausea,headache,confusion,weakness,ataxia (unsteady walk) sensory changes,
including numbness or tingling,trouble with vision (one eye doesn't move /
change focus as much as quickly as the other eye ). All these issues point to
a brain infection yet none is detected.

~~~
AmVess
I tested positive this week. My symptoms are flash headaches and nausea along
with persistent ear ringing. No other flu symptoms are present.

I've never had headaches like this before, both in feeling and duration.

I've been careful since the end of February. Always wearing a mask, social
distancing, hand washing with soap and disinfectant wipes. I've had limited
exposure to other people except delivery people, my GF, my mom. I've only been
to stores 3 times since the end of February.

I knew it was just a matter of time when I saw the massive increase in numbers
of infected in this county. People almost have completely stopped wearing
masks or social distancing.

Luckily, the worst is already over for me. I'm getting better by the day, and
it was a short illness too.

I will still use best practices after my self quarantine is over.

~~~
intotheabyss
So where do you think you caught it? Seems strange that some people take all
precautions and still end up getting it.

~~~
sosborn
> some people take all precautions

The problem is that "some" isn't enough. Everyone needs to work together.
_sigh_

~~~
tluyben2
Fine people who do not; they do it here, it is effective.

------
cs702
This story is possibly the very last thing I wanted to read today.

Nonetheless, I read it and upvoted it because I like to think of myself as a
reality-facing optimist, as opposed to a wishful-thinking optimist. (The
landscape of history is littered with the dead bodies of wishful-thinking
optimists; I don't want to be one of them.)

After reading this story, along with recent evidence that a substantial
portion of covid-19 patients exhibit cardiac anormalities [a] and that herd
immunity to covid-19 may be infeasible [b], I realize how little we actually
know about this new disease.

\--

[a]
[https://academic.oup.com/ehjcimaging/article/doi/10.1093/ehj...](https://academic.oup.com/ehjcimaging/article/doi/10.1093/ehjci/jeaa178/5859292)

[b] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-53315983](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53315983)

~~~
bananaface
Your conclusion about cardiac abnormalities is wrong, that's not what the
study measured.

They only looked at male patients aged 52-74, who were bad enough to be in
hospital, and who had already been given an echocardiogram because there was
an indicator, i.e. it's the subgroup that doctors deemed in need of a heart
check because they were exhibiting symptoms like chest pain. The study
indicates prevalence of abnormalities within _those_ echoes - echoes from very
ill people with symptoms of heart failure. They didn't take echoes _for_ the
study and they didn't run echoes on a random population.

~~~
cs702
Thanks. Corrected!

~~~
bananaface
No worries. :)

------
Dumblydorr
This virus is uncommonly indiscriminate in how many organ systems it damages.
This may be due to its ability to deoxygenate a patient, systemic auto-immune
response, systemic inflammation or vasculitis in organs, stroke like events
with blood clots in multiple events, etc. What a beast of a virus!

~~~
lbeltrame
Other coronaviruses can infect the nervous system. In fact, there were papers
out in 2018 describing neural infections by "human coronavirus".

Cytokine storms and their associated effects (like clotting ,etc.) are also
present with other viral infections, like with the original Spanish Flu H1N1
strain (during the infamous "second wave").

"Regular" pneumonia can severely weaken you for months or a year, even if you
have antibiotics.

This virus is absolutely not a magic virus. It is novel, but it is still a
coronavirus.

~~~
pvaldes
The problems could be related with the fact that pangolins have an unique and
strange immune system. Reduced in comparison with most other mammals (but I'm
speculating...)

~~~
lbeltrame
Immune systems are fairly differentiated across species, even for common
mechanisms. Source: I worked from 2009 to 2011 in a project aiming at
reconstructing part of these mechanisms in certain immune cells, and the
differences between human and mice, where some models were made, were
significant.

------
guscost
Note that similar effects have been observed with other critical illnesses:
[https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1301372](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1301372)

~~~
tomhoward
Indeed, and as someone who is familiar with the condition often described as
"we can't exactly work out what it is but I guess you could all it CFS/ME
[1]", this is often linked to common viral infections including Epstein-Barr
and cytomegalovirus.

CFS/ME sufferers often exhibit some of the neurological symptoms mentioned in
the article (though not the more extreme/terminal ones like stroke).

Lyme disease sufferers also often exhibit these kinds of symptoms to some
degree, which is why, in the absence of serology evidence, it can be difficult
to distinguish from CFS/ME.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome)

~~~
avgDev
I just want to point out that in the US at least, infections are often treated
with flouroquinolones and the side effects can result in fibro/cfs diagnosis.
Symptoms can show up even at 12 months. I have met numerous people over the
years, who were given cipro/levaquin just in case while they were waiting for
blood test results and started having odd neurological symptoms lasting months
or years. Later results turned out to be normal and no infection.

The medical community has been failing most of these people and I am among
them. Many report symptoms during their course and doctors rarely report the
issue to the FDA. I have been to Mayo and other popular hospital systems and
honestly sometimes I feel like there is a big conspiracy to protect the drug,
it seems quite surreal.

In Europe during EMA panel a few doctors spoke out and mentioned the issues
their patients are dealing with. Some patients also described their symptoms:
neurological issues, widespread muscle/tendon pain, insomnia. It sounds very
similar to CFS/Fibro.

------
alderz
Associated papers:

[https://n.neurology.org/content/early/2020/06/01/WNL.0000000...](https://n.neurology.org/content/early/2020/06/01/WNL.0000000000009937)
[https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awa...](https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awaa239/5869424)

------
eganist
Something to consider and also something not discussed in the article: it's
very possible that sars-cov-2 can directly infect neurons directly considering
the expression of ace2 receptors across them.

[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.07.030650v1](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.07.030650v1)

So beyond the risk of kidney failure stemming from damaged cardiovascular
tissue debris jamming up nephrons (as well as potential direct kidney
infection by the virus) and beyond the risk of stroke from the uptick of
platelets and the redistribution of the marrow cells which produce them across
the body (somehow. I can't find the research that identified this), there's
also the risk that the virus is actually directly attacking neurons.

Not really a surprise considering how common ACE2 receptors are.

\---

I'm not a doctor. Not an epidemiologist either. Please fact-check me if I'm
wrong.

~~~
sradman
That paper answers my first question, does neurological tissue have ACE2
receptors. The damage can also be a side-effect of oxygen deprivation. The
existence of ACE2 receptors in the brain begs the question of how the SARV-
CoV-2 virus crosses the blood-brain barrier. IIRC, dental surgery has been
correlated to pathogens crossing the barrier. I wonder if that is a key factor
here as well.

------
m0llusk
Observed blood clotting and prolonged low oxygen could explain much of this.
Then add in the known toxic drugs being used in many cases. It could quite
easily be that disease progression and treatment explain this without any
direct action from the virus.

------
TheBlight
Same can be said of the media's coverage of Covid-19.

------
rurban
Replace Covid-19 with flu than you are right. Fever and T-cells can do a lot
of damage. But thankfully they do mostly good things, killing the intruders.

------
irq11
....most of which are mild, and which accompany _any_ virus:

 _”According to Segura, who co-authored the study, the most common symptoms
experienced by coronavirus patients were myalgia, headaches and dizziness.”_

And the truly killer quote:

 _”Another large-scale study...showed that 90% of cases simultaneously
experienced changes to, or the loss of, the sense of smell and taste. In most
of these cases, these changes were the only clinical expression of coronavirus
or were accompanied by other minor symptoms.”_

~~~
deelowe
There is a reason we get so concerned when there is evidence of CNS infection.
It's not as simple as "loss of smell."

~~~
irq11
No, the reason you “get so concerned” is because you are scared, and intent on
spreading fear to others.

You downvote factual comments simply because you don’t agree with them, and
don’t want others to see them.

