General Long Covid

Title	SummarySummary
Determinants of the Onset and Prognosis of the Post Covid-19 Condition	2 year prospective observational cohort study. “Recovery is extremely rare during the first 2 years, posing a major challenge to healthcare systems.”
Repeat Covid-19 Infections Increase Risk of Organ Failure, Death	Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, describes findings from Veterans Affairs data on the effect of covid-19 on multi-systemic organ damage across repeat infections.
Long Covid Symptoms Can Emerge Months After Initial Infection	A year long study by UCSF found highly fluctuating patterns of symptomatology
Nearly One in Five American Adults Who Have Had Covid-19 Still Have “Long COVID”	I cannot believe how strongly worded this CDC page is, yet the information in it has not been disseminated strongly enough to the public.
Recovery and Symptom Trajectories Up To Two Years After SARS-CoV-2 Infection	Up to 18% of individuals who were not vaccinated before infection had post-covid-19 condition up to two years after infection.
Long COVID Major Findings, Mechanisms and Recomendations	Great overview of hypothesized mechanisms of long COVID pathogenesis. The recommendations section is extremely important to healthcare providers and public health officials alike.
Long COVID: 3 Years In	Calls for prevention of infection to avoid catostrophic economic and public health consequences.
Long COVID: Pathophysiological Factors and Abnormalities of Coagulation	Found abnormalities in blood vessels and hypercoagulation affect every organ system and represent a unifying pathway for the various symptoms of Long COVID.
Cancer Related-Genes Enriched in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of COVID-19 Patients. A Bionformatics Study	“The analysis showed that numerous cancer-related genes up-regulated in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients, particularly those genes participating in the cell cycle regulation or engaged in cellular senescence processes.”
Possible Cancer-Causing Capacity of COVID-19: Is SARS-CoV-2 an Oncogenic Agent?	Descibes various mechanisms by which Covid-19 could upregulate cancer formation such as dysregulations to the renin-angiotensin-aldoesterone system, oncogene stimulation, and cytokine storms.”It is important to note that the cancer-related effects of SARS-CoV-2 proposed in this article are based on the ability of the virus and its proteins to cause cancer but that the long-term consequences of this infection will only be illustrated in the long run.” “Cancer-related effects of SARS-CoV-2 may take several years to manifest themselves.” and “One of the most worrying long-term effects of infection is the potential to induce malignant neoplasms, which will be a major health concern over the coming decades.”
Post COVID-19 Symptoms are Common, Also Among Young Adults in the General Population	Altered smell and taste, dyspnea, and fatigue were the most common long term symptoms among males (14.5%) and females (17.8%) for an overall percent of 16.5% of individuals (mean age 26.5 years) who fulfilled the definition of post COVID-19 syndrome. This study was conducted using a swedish cohort, which makes the government’s intially laisez-faire mode of addressing the pandemic appear highly distatesful.
59% of Long Covid Patients Had Organ Damage a Year Later	“We now add that three in five people with long Covid have impairment in at least one organ, and one in four have impairment in two or more organs, in some cases without symptoms.”

Cardiology

Title	Summary
Long-Term Adverse Effects of Mild COVID-19 Disease on Arterial Stiffness, and Systemic and Central Hemodynamics	The research conductors were lucky to take measurements of arterial stiffness before the pandemic began. “We found that various parameters of arterial stiffness and central hemodynamics respond simultaneously to the mild COVID-19 disease in predominantly healthy individuals… the worsening of values of those found to be responsive points toward the existence of a widespread and long-lasting pathological process in the vasculature following the infection. The detected responses to COVID-19 disease are not straightforward but rather deteriorate with the time since the onset of COVID-19 infection and age.” The study consisted of predominantly healthy young men. mean age: 36.6 +- 12.6.
COVID, Heart Disease and Stroke	Very easy to read report from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. The two quotes that best sum up the article: “Early on, we saw it could impact the vascular system in cases of serious illness. But now we appreciate the long-term consequences of infection. Large, follow-up studies are showing that people who have been exposed to COVID have increased risk of developing cardiovascular complications — so, increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart rhythm disturbances. It can also lead to blood clots, especially to organs that receive a lot of blood such as the brain, heart and kidney.” and “You’d think this would only happen in people who got really sick with COVID, but the severity of the infection doesn’t seem to make a difference. These complications can occur even in people who have very mild symptoms. The big surprise is how much this can affect younger people. Studies are showing that even young, active people can experience heightened risk of these complications.”
Coronary Microvascular Health in Sympomatic Patients with Prior COVID-19 Infection	Even mild covid infections can have long-term detrimental effects on heart health. Impaired small vessel blood flow seen 6 months after Covid.
The COVID Heart - One Year After SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Patients Have an Array of Increased Cardiovascular Risks	“The increased risks were most pronounced for heart failure and atrial fibrillation, but the breadth of cardiovascular disease involvement was “eye opening,” Al-Aly wrote in his email. The researchers also were surprised to see elevated risks for people who were not hospitalized for COVID-19 during the acute phase—the segment that represents the majority of people with SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
SARS-CoV-2 Infection Triggers Pro-Atherogenic Inflammatory Responoses In Human Coronary Vessels	S gene (Santisense), a gene that is onlyutilized during viral replication, was found to be active in the coronary arterial walls of all autopsied patients in the study, meaning active infection/replication of the virus within the arteries. The authors describe the increased risk of long-term cardiovascular risk due to infection. Here is a good analysis fo the study from the NIH.

Neurology

Title	Summary
Post-COVID new-onset neurocognitive decline with bilateral mesial-temporal hypometabolis in two previously healthy sisters	Case study of two previously healthy sisters, 11 and 13, investigates general fateigue/depressive symptoms previously diagnosed as psychological pandemic distress. Found to actually have significant brain hypometabolism.
Neuroinflammation After COVID-19 With Persistent Depressive and Cognitive Symptoms	Findings indicate gliosis (pretty much brain scarring due to the production of more or larger glial cells) as a source of psychiatric symptomatology
Covid-19 Causes Brain Cell Fusion, Leading to Chronic Neurological Symptoms	Fusion of brain cells appears to be another method that contributes to lasting neuropsychological symptomatology
SARS-CoV-2 is Associated With Changes in Brain Structure in UK Biobank	Great study because it has pre-pandemic controls to reduce the likelihood of pre-existing risk factors being misinterpreted as disease effects. Three majors findings: (1) Greater reduction in grey matter thickness and tissue contrast in the orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus; (2) Areas that are functionally connected to the primary olfactory cortex had greater changes in markers of tissue damage. This explains the common symptom of losing sense of smell during covid infection and attributes it to brain damage; (3) Greater reduction of global brain size in those who were infected with SARS-CoV-2, with those participants also showing on average greater cognitive decline between the two imaging time points. These effects were still seen when removing the hospitalized covid patients from the dataset.
Brain Alterations in COVID Recovered Revealed by Susceptibility-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging	Subjects who had recovered from COVID had significantly higher suspecptibility imaging values in regions of the frontal lobe and brain stem and demonstrated significantly higher fatigue levels than the healthy controls.
Thread on long covid neuropathology by Wes Ely MD	Goes through many important topics on the neuropathology of long covid in an easy to scroll through way for the layperson.
Mild Respiratory COVID Can Cause Multi-Lineage Neural Cell and Myelin Dysregulation	Lingering neurological symptoms are common after respiratory covid infection, even in mild cases, and are due to multiple persistent mechanisms. This study infected mice with covid and found persistently impaired hippocampal neurogenesis, decreased oligodendrocytes, as well as elevated CSF cytokines such as CCL11. The study finds that many of these effects are persistent, as opposed to any similar effects posed by the flu.
Studies Add to Picture of How COVID Can Affect the Brain Long Term	“New studies on SARS-CoV-2’s neurologic effects describe how even mild infections can lead to neuropsychiatric conditions by altering brain structure and function and review possible mechanisms for viral passage through the blood-brain barrier.” References multiple studies on how Covid infection can alter brain structures and functions, leading to neuropsychiatric conditions, even with mild infections.
Selective Visuoconstructional Impairment Following Mild COVID-19 Inflammatory and Neuroimaging Correlation Findings	“As we observed roughly 25% of our mild COVID-19 patients presenting visuoconstructive impairment, we can expect millions of people worldwide potentially suffering from this kind of deficit.”
SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Accumulation in the Skull-Meninges-Brain Axis: Potential Implications for Long-Term Neurological Complications in post-COVID-19	Figure 1 provides a graphic reason as to why Covid-19 causes such multi-system damage compared to Flu. Spike S1 (mutated WT spike protien to have higher affinity for mouse ACE2 versus human ACE2) was detected binding to most organs, including the heart, lung, liver, kidney, intestine, thymus, spleed, and pancreas, opposed to Flu hemagglutinin which bided exclusively to the lungs and liver. The rest of the study detailed SARS-CoV-2’s role in post-covid neurological sequelae through its presence and persistence in the skull-meninges-brain axis. The study delves into in vitro analysis of spike protein toxicity to cell death in the brain and and analysis of post-morten skull specimens from those who have died long after their COVID-19 infection.
Blood-brain barrier disruption and sustained systemic inflammation in individuals with long COVID-associated cognitive impairment	Further support of the mechanisms behind COVID induced brain fog - dysregulation of the coagulation system, maladaptive immune functions, and blood-brain barrier disruption.
Spontaneous, persistent, T cell-dependent IFN-y release in patients who progress to Long Covid	Potential “dose-dependent” relationship between CD8+ T cell-mediated interferon-y release dependent on CD14+ T cell antigen presentation and symptomatic long covid symptoms.

Immunology

Title	Summary
Covid Impacts: Immune Dysfunction	Quick overview of the early theories on immune dysfunctionfollowing infection.
The Immunology of Long Covid	Monumental publication inNature. Extremely approachable for non-scientific audience. Describes everything from prevalance to symptoms.

Gastroenterology

Title	Summary
Long COVID Means Increased Risk of Long-Term Gastrointestinal Problems	Inidviduals who have been infected with covid-19 are 36% more likely to develope GI disorders (liver problems, pancreatitis, IBS, acid reflex, ulcers, etc.) a year after infection..

Nephrology

Title	Summary
Long-Term Effect of COVID-19 Infection on Kidney Function Among COVID-19 Patients Followed in Post-COVID Recovery Clinics in British Columbia, Canada	The study participants experienced susbstantial decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate with high prevelance of proteinuria. Could be an extension of the vascular damage caused by covid infection.

Pediatrics

Title	Summary
Study: 1 in 6 Kids Have Persistent Covid Symptoms For 3 Months After Infection	Systematic Review inPediatrics of 31 studies. “It was thought at first that the pediatric population was relatively spared from the long-term effects of COVID-19 after infection,” the authors said. “But this changed rapidly with increasing reports and studies of pediatric patients not fully recovering from acute COVID-19.”
Long Covid is Disabling Kids. Why We Ignore It	Emphasizes how general symptoms such as fatigure and brain fog can be due to a vast range of reasons from benign to concerning, with covid causing much of its long-term symptoms due to blood clots and neurological damage.
Prevalence of Mental Health Problems Among Children with Long Covid	Children with previous covid-19 infection had more than two times higher odds of having anxiety or depression, and 14% higher odds of apetite problems.
Clinical and Subclinical Acute Kidney Injury in Children with Mild-to-Moderate COVID-19	This article is particularly ominous for a couple of reasons. Many long covid associated publications primarily focus on symptomatic long covid. This study goes into more detail and finds long term kidney damage in pediatrics following mild covid infection, even when the child does not exhibit clinically diagnostic features. The findings were so strong that the researchers concluded that even children with mild/moderate COVID-19 disease courses should be evaluated for acute kidney injury and subclinical AKI.
Not ‘little adults’: Experts say long COVID undercounted, misdiagnosed in kids	Describes the hurdles in gathering reliable data with high internal and external validity when trying to estimate pediatric long covid prevalence.
Mid- and Long-Term Atrio-Ventricular Functional Changes in Children after Recovery from COVID-19	“These findings imply that subclinical LV dysfunction may also be a typical characteristic of COVID-19 infection in children and are concerning given the predictive value of LV longitudinal strain in the general population.” A harrowing statement about the common prevalence of this infection-induced pathophysiological feature and its strong reliability in predicting a person’s mobidity/mortality.

National Statistics

Title	Summary
Rising Ill-Health and Economic Inactivity Because of Long-Term Sickness, UK: 2019 to 2023	More working-age people are self-reporting long-term health conditions, with 36% saying that they had at least one long-term health condition in Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2023, up from 31% in the same period in 2019 and 29% in 2016
Population With a Disability, 16 Years and Over	From U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Our Model Suggests That Global Deaths Remain 5% Above Pre-Covid Forecasts	Attributing these excess deaths to covid makes it the fourth-leading cause of death. The CDC currently lists covid as the 3rd leading cause of death. This is even worse than it seems because the two causes above it, “heart disease” and “cancer”, are categories of disease. Neither are specific/individual diseases, but more of umbrella terms that capture many separate diseases such as strokes, embolisms, infarctions, lung cancer, kidney cancer, etc. Covid is 1 disease and manages to be right up there with categorical collections of multiple diseases.
Worst Excess Deaths in Q1 Since Covid Second Wave	The first quarter of 2023 had the worst excess mortality since the pandemic’s second wave in the first quarter of 2021
German Federal Minister of Health States Vascular Damage Increases Risk of Death After Infection	Many expected Germany’s life expectency to rebound to pre-pandemic levels in 2022, but they fell again. Germany’s federal minister of health explicity link the decline to the impact of covid on the body outside of the acute phase.
Excess Deaths Thread	Comprehensive collection of various sources that describe excess mortality as a global phenomenon.
Office for Health Improvement and Disparities of the UK Excess Mortality Visualizations	Great interactive visualization from the UK OHID that displays weekly deaths versus the expected mortality had the pandemic not occured. Eexpacted numbers calculated using data from 2015-2019.
Wastewater tracking for the United States	Collection of resources for analyzing U.S. wastewater data with resources to help understand the results.

News

Title	Summary
Does the Risk of Getting Long Covid Increase Each Time You Get Reinfected?	Washington St. Louis clinical epidemiologist shares perspectives on the risks of reinfection and long term damage.
Covid May Have Permanently Damaged People’s Immunity	2 NZ physicians describe their experiences of seeing more youngerdemographics in the ED.
Covid-19 pandemic is not over	Down-to-Earth summary of the current situation and long term effects of infection.
Public Health Reset Urgently Required	Straightforward action plan for public health to drastically reduce spread.
We May Be The Last Maskers	Quick article on why experts in public health continue to mask.
HHS: THe More Often You Get COVID, The Higher Your Risk of Complications	Twitter post by the Department of Health and Human Services
Almost 7% of Adults and 1% of Kids Have Struggled With Long Covid, Survey Finds	“Edwards is also seeing patients who have classic long Covid symptoms but only develop them after being sick with something else, like the flu or strep. ‘Our hypothesis is that Covid makes some sort of change, but it’s subtle enough that the patient tolerates it until it’s put under some sort of additional stress,” Edwards said. “Our suspicion is that it’s not the flu or step that’s causing classic long Covid symptoms. It’s the flu or strep that’s unmasking the damage that Covid had done.‘”
After N.B.’s Deadliest Year, COVID-Related Strokes and Heart Attacks are in the Spotlight	Starts with a testimony of a 32 year old with new onset cardiac complications following covid infection. Follows it up with epidemiologist saying vascular damage by covid apparent on population scale through excess mortality.
Collection of Global News Headlines Stating Chronic Illness at All-Time Highs	Collection of international news articles with translations covering the global phenomenon of increased morbidity
Gamling with Covid: Repeat Infections are Damaging Us	“We’re seeing the effects of Long Covid and repeat infections on the workforce and economy already. In Britain,2.6 million people are now out of work due to long-term sickness. Data from America shows the same trend.”

General Virology

Title	Summary
Seasonality of Common Human Coronaviruses	Seasonality trends of common alpha and betacoronaviruses.
The Lifecycle of SARS-CoV-2	Great molecular animation of how covid-19 infects cells.

I am Infected. What do I do?

Title	Summary
I have COVID! What Should My Kids and I Take To Reduce Chances of Severe Illness and Long COVID?

Testimonials

Title	Summary
Long covid Has Derailed My Life. Make No Mistake: It Could Yours, Too

Resources

Title	Summary
The John Snow Project	Visually appealing and very easy to send to others
People’s CDC	Active group run by many scientists and individuals in public health. Great source of information and positive actions to take such as petitions for permanent mask mandates in healthcare.
Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts	Personal site of epidemiologist Michael Olesen

Craziness

Title	Summary
More Young Americans are Dying - and it’s not from Covid	An interesting article that is well aware with the pronounced increase in excess mortality starting in 2020. Completely neglects long term effects of covid. ”Among working people 35 to 44 years old, a stunning 34% more died than expected in the last quarter of 2022, with above-average rates in other working-age groups, too.” Covid has been well described as an endothelial disease, which conrtributes to the increased risk of dying of a heart attack or stroke after acute infection. These are deaths that are attributable to covid because they would not have occured with infection, but this article completely neglects that and goes on wondering what could be the cause of this “unnatural loss of life” on a global scale since 2020.