OT: Keyontae Johnson UF

[upstater]

Screaming is probably the right word, because there is virtually zero evidence of any meaningful long term effects in young people.
There have been at least 2 studies suggesting potential long term effects from myocarditis in young people. Both were retracted/corrected.

The problem here is very obvious. There is a massive bias among researchers to be the first to publish any novel results concerning SARS-CoV-2 and the impact of Covid-19. That bias led the PennState researchers to publish unscientific, unsupported conclusions that they retracted. Same thing with the German study. Bizarrely, to me, it seems that there are many people who want young people to be affected more than thy are - misery loves company, I guess.

A study published earlier this month in Cardiovascular Pathology examined actual autopsies performed on Covid-19 fatalities. The conclusion? The rate of myocarditis in Covid-19 fatalities, as determined from an actual examination of the heart, and not a scan or troponin assay, is very small, and is, "not the dominant mechanism of cardiac injury."

I've noted this elsewhere - one of the big challenges with SARS-CoV-2 is all the emotion and bizarre cultural polarization it has caused, none of which is based on science.

This young man has suffered an incredible tragedy. We owe it to him, and to decency, to not use him as an unwilling pawn.

Mt. Sinai Hospital claims it has a lot of so-called long haulers come in, and the doctors were baffled by the post-Covid symptoms. There haven't been any studies. OK. But that doesn't mean the medical community doesn't acknowledge a syndrome or even a disease. Nor is there even much controversy over the idea that bacterial or viral infection can lead to several kinds of syndromes or diseases, especially blood vessel diseases, which is specifically what was diagnosed by the doctors at Mt. Sinai. And for many in these communities of people who have these diseases post-infection (not Covid specifically) a common complaint is that very few studies are ever done. The POTS specialists at Mt. Sinai are seeing these people and remarking on classic/familiar their symptoms are. Meanwhile the people treating Covid patients are confused because they haven't seen anything like it.

 

[upstater]

To play devil's advocate, there's a lot of nuance necessary here.

The longer-term effects aren't and can't fully be known - but that's the case with a *lot* of things. The evidence right now is sparse but not indicative of widespread long-term effects. But we also can't shut the world down until we know for sure.

There definitely needs to be research into this case - but it has to be more complex than if it's just related to Covid, that's too non-specific. Is this the case of someone who had Covid, but had a pre-existing cardiovascular condition that likely would've surfaced in the same way that it did? Is this incident most likely the result of his prior Covid diagnosis and wouldn't have happened if he wasn't? These are the kinds of questions that can lead to more informed decisions about next steps rather than reactive knee-jerk decisions based on loose evidence and click bait-y headlines.

I think you guys haven't been keeping up with the doctors who are reporting on post-Covid. And medical science has long accepted that infectious disease, from viruses and bacteria, can do damage. It's not even a controversial idea. The Mayo Clinic has en entire website devoted to it. And from what I've read about the common symptoms among the people who continue to experience symptoms after clearing the infection, the symptoms are remarkably familiar to those who have suffered from other infections.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

It's really difficult to marry these reports of "we've never seen this" with articles like this from a really good source (who you won't find quoted on Parler.)

 

[huskymedic]

A study published earlier this month in Cardiovascular Pathology examined actual autopsies performed on Covid-19 fatalities. The conclusion? The rate of myocarditis in Covid-19 fatalities, as determined from an actual examination of the heart, and not a scan or troponin assay, is very small, and is, "not the dominant mechanism of cardiac injury."

I’m curious... what was the average/median age of the study cohort?

 

[upstater]

It's really difficult to marry these reports of "we've never seen this" with articles like this from a really good source (who you won't find quoted on Parler.)

That article said nothing about post Covid illness though.

 

[BParkDog]

I’m curious... what was the average/median age of the study cohort?

"The median age of the autopsy cohort was 75 and 97.6% had one or more comorbidities. "
But, quite obviously, we aren't going to see a lot of autopsies on young people, because this disease isn't killing them so much (127 deaths in the U.S. under the age of 18 as of Dec. 2, and many, if not most, with co-morbidities).
Myocarditis is rare in COVID-19 autopsies: cardiovascular findings across 277 postmortem examinations (nih.gov)

 

[BParkDog]

Mt. Sinai Hospital claims it has a lot of so-called long haulers come in, and the doctors were baffled by the post-Covid symptoms. There haven't been any studies. OK.

Without controlled, peer-reviewed studies, it's not "OK". It's just guess work, anecdotal stories, and self-reported illnesses that are all subject to extreme bias. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry who want to blame their shortness of breath on Covid-19 residuals and report such to their PCP do nothing more than present an hypothesis that may be worth studying.

Meanwhile the people treating Covid patients are confused because they haven't seen anything like it.

Again, stories are nice. But the flat-earthers and creationists love them too.
It's about science. Without a study, it's not science. It's medical professionals making observations. Interesting, but not science.

 

[UCTitleTown]

The long term impacts are scary. I worked with a woman whose husband had strep that attacked his heart muscle. He was impaired the rest of his life and shifted to a desk job before dying at 60. I know we're talking Covid, but please take strep seriously. If you think you might have it, see a doctor ASAP to treat it.

 

[Chin Diesel]

As long as we're recklessly speculating, let's hope it's not an overdose like Len Bias.

 

[BParkDog]

The long term impacts are scary. I worked with a woman whose husband had strep that attacked his heart muscle. He was impaired the rest of his life and shifted to a desk job before dying at 60. I know where talking Covid, but please take strep seriously. If you think you might have it, see a doctor ASAP to treat it.

Ran a lab once where we had all the students randomly swab various surfaces (bathroom stalls, door handles, and so on) to check for alpha/beta/gamma hemolytic bacteria. We'd streak them all out on blood agar. It was always interesting to see which plates had bacterial colonies that cleared (lysed, or popped) blood cells in the agar, which started off blood red throughout. You'd find many that grew, but didn't lyse (gamma), some grew and partially lysed (alpha), causing the red to turn yellowish. The last bunch, however, lysed completely, leaving all the red gone in patches around the bacterial colonies. Beta-hemolytic. Rare, but we got one or two a semester.

One semester I came in on day 2 and one plate was completely cleared. I mean, colonies everywhere, and all blood lysed. The beta-hemolytic organism? Steptococcus Pyogenes! The source? Turns out it was a female student's throat. I re-streaked, same thing. She was an asymptomatic carrier of strep. Unreal.

 

[upstater]

Without controlled, peer-reviewed studies, it's not "OK". It's just guess work, anecdotal stories, and self-reported illnesses that are all subject to extreme bias. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry who want to blame their shortness of breath on Covid-19 residuals and report such to their PCP do nothing more than present an hypothesis that may be worth studying.

Again, stories are nice. But the flat-earthers and creationists love them too.
It's about science. Without a study, it's not science. It's medical professionals making observations. Interesting, but not science.

This isn't true at all. You can go to Mayo Clinic and the top hospitals in the US to be treated for illnesses that have had few studies done, illnesses that are not well understood. There are people specializing in these illnesses at our top institutions.

 

[navery12]

A time honored tradition, Boneyard experts vs the medical experts

 

[Improviser]

Without controlled, peer-reviewed studies, it's not "OK". It's just guess work, anecdotal stories, and self-reported illnesses that are all subject to extreme bias. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry who want to blame their shortness of breath on Covid-19 residuals and report such to their PCP do nothing more than present an hypothesis that may be worth studying.

Again, stories are nice. But the flat-earthers and creationists love them too.
It's about science. Without a study, it's not science. It's medical professionals making observations. Interesting, but not science.

Clearly, controlled, peer-reviewed studies, are the most accurate definition of a medical condition, but not every medical condition has been studied that way. The clinical observations of a qualified medical doctor have diagnostic value, absent any study. It does not make the diagnosis non-scientific. He relies on prior patients he as treated who experienced similar symptoms and does testing to try to identify the particular condition.

Most, but not all conditions can be understood after blood testing and radiological studies. But, many times, the studies are not conclusive, and the pain persists. Then, they blame it on depression which may be unfair to the patient.

One lady, I knew found out she had Ehlers Danlos only after consulting a geneticist. So that may be an option for symptoms that do not fit any profile.

 

[jdb50]

life insurance companies are using covid as a reason to deny coverage to new customer applicants. This means they see covid infection but having survived (for now) as a risk for premature death that they do not want to take the risk on. Money talks on the argued points about this being no big deal long term.

 

[Chin Diesel]

life insurance companies are using covid as a reason to deny coverage to new customer applicants. This means they see covid infection but having survived (for now) as a risk for premature death that they do not want to take the risk on. Money talks on the argued points about this being no big deal long term.

Conversely they can say the person seeking insurance has to prove there isn't any long-term effects of COVID.

 

[Yardigan]

life insurance companies are using covid as a reason to deny coverage to new customer applicants. This means they see covid infection but having survived (for now) as a risk for premature death that they do not want to take the risk on. Money talks on the argued points about this being no big deal long term.

A kind of pre-existing condition discrimination? Why isn't there as much outrage about pre-ex for life insurance as there is for health insurance?

 

[Chin Diesel]

A kind of pre-existing condition discrimination? Why isn't there as much outrage about pre-ex for life insurance as there is for health insurance?

Because a bunch more people earn their living with unrestricted payments for health care as compared to life insurance.

 

[BParkDog]

The clinical observations of a qualified medical doctor have diagnostic value, absent any study.

True.

It does not make the diagnosis non-scientific.

Well, we probably agree at some basic level, and we might just be parsing words. "Clinical observations" of a medical doctor, are, to me, 100% not scientific. That doesn't mean, "not useful" or "not rational," but merely, "not scientific."

What is science. I'll go with Mega-Corp-Monopoly Google's first provided definition: "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment."

The key word in all of that is "experiment." Secondarily, focus on "systematic study."

A doctor reporting his/her findings regarding patients is not an experiment, and is probably not a "systematic study."

Again, we may be just parsing words here.

Ultimately, I read and trust peer-reviewed publications. Beyond that, there is so much noise that it is usually not worth listening. Doctors providing notes from the front lines is . . . interesting, laudable, brave, heart warming, and so on. But it is not science.

 

[zls44]

This was horrifying to watch live. Wasn't sure if they'd put the video out, but I saw it on the satellite [awful humblebrag there, I know] and it was haunting. His teammates' reaction just as much.

I don't know if COVID caused it, I don't know if it even had any impact- but that's whats so scary. We don't know what we don't know and this kid is fighting for his life.

 

[superjohn]

It's really difficult to marry these reports of "we've never seen this" with articles like this from a really good source (who you won't find quoted on Parler.)

Dr. Michael Mina has been talking constantly about how we can crush the virus with easy and cheap home testing but the FDA won't approve it.

 

[Hi-Low]

As long as we're recklessly speculating, let's hope it's not an overdose like Len Bias.

To equate with Bias is idiotic...Bias died in an off campus apt.

 

[auror]

Screaming is probably the right word, because there is virtually zero evidence of any meaningful long term effects in young people.
There have been at least 2 studies suggesting potential long term effects from myocarditis in young people. Both were retracted/corrected.

The problem here is very obvious. There is a massive bias among researchers to be the first to publish any novel results concerning SARS-CoV-2 and the impact of Covid-19. That bias led the PennState researchers to publish unscientific, unsupported conclusions that they retracted. Same thing with the German study. Bizarrely, to me, it seems that there are many people who want young people to be affected more than thy are - misery loves company, I guess.

A study published earlier this month in Cardiovascular Pathology examined actual autopsies performed on Covid-19 fatalities. The conclusion? The rate of myocarditis in Covid-19 fatalities, as determined from an actual examination of the heart, and not a scan or troponin assay, is very small, and is, "not the dominant mechanism of cardiac injury."

I've noted this elsewhere - one of the big challenges with SARS-CoV-2 is all the emotion and bizarre cultural polarization it has caused, none of which is based on science.

This young man has suffered an incredible tragedy. We owe it to him, and to decency, to not use him as an unwilling pawn.

The Ohio State researchers (not Penn State) did not retract their findings. They merely reached out to the media to spin them differently. They said "We found 85% without myocarditis" instead of the reported "We found an alarming 15% with myocarditis!" Either way, their small sample size data results remain. They argued in the "retraction" that one could resume sport, presuming that those with myocarditis take the necessary 3 months off.

Are we checking and giving athletes with myocarditis 3 months off?

 

[upstater]

True.

Well, we probably agree at some basic level, and we might just be parsing words. "Clinical observations" of a medical doctor, are, to me, 100% not scientific. That doesn't mean, "not useful" or "not rational," but merely, "not scientific."

What is science. I'll go with Mega-Corp-Monopoly Google's first provided definition: "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment."

The key word in all of that is "experiment." Secondarily, focus on "systematic study."

A doctor reporting his/her findings regarding patients is not an experiment, and is probably not a "systematic study."

Again, we may be just parsing words here.

Ultimately, I read and trust peer-reviewed publications. Beyond that, there is so much noise that it is usually not worth listening. Doctors providing notes from the front lines is . . . interesting, laudable, brave, heart warming, and so on. But it is not science.

Don't scientists need money to conduct their studies and research? What gets funded? There's a lot out there that doesn't get funded. There are cardiologists out there treating people for blood-vessel diseases that haven't been studied extensively yet--if at all--and they are giving them medications and therapies. The causes are defined as idiopathic even if, in the next breath, the diseases are noted to have begun shortly after infection.

 

[MilliniumPrince]

The video is rough, reminds me of watching Hank collapse as a kid...

That was my first thought. I hope he doesn't have Marfan's.

No matter right now. Like everyone else, I hope he recovers to live a long life.

 

[BParkDog]

The Ohio State researchers (not Penn State) did not retract their findings.

It was a Penn State's director of athletic medicine, Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli , who presented the original data, publicly, that "30-35% of all Big10 athletes had myocarditis after Covid-19." It was flatly untrue, probably a lie, and later claimed to be "outdated numbers from a preliminary study." Had to eventually own up the published number - which was 15%. We're talking about a worldwide pandemic and this guy, and MD presumably, is casually throwing out numbers. Should have been fired on the spot for negligence, if it was true that he just didn't know that his numbers were dated, or should have been fired for malpractice if he did know. In any event, his lie/misinformation alarmed many people, and is one more example of the hysteria surrounding this virus/illness.

I just, quickly, looked at the Ohio State study - not going to read the original. Conclusion was: "Using CMR imaging, 15% of athletes in the study were shown to possibly have myocarditis."

Again, every researcher out there is looking for something. Using a scan to say that 15% "possibly" have myocarditis is exactly why the pathologists published their study two months later . . . turns out imaging is not definitively reliable, but pulling out the heart and cutting it into sections is.

But you can't make a splash with, "Big10 athletes appear normal after Covid-19." No fame/promotion/publication/funding there.

Time will tell.

If I had to guess, when we look back in 20 years we will conclude that we sorely misunderstood the amount of damage being caused by lockdowns/distancing/cancellations/masking and so on. I'm not making an argument that anything currently being done is correct or incorrect . . . just making the point that I think that the damage being done by the cure/prevention is not being recognized at this point.