"Spread the word, not the virus."
SARS2.ORG

"Considering how poorly
our attempt
to live
with the plague
is going for us
perhaps (perhaps)
we should redouble our efforts
to live
without the plague."

The USA CDC describes SARS-CoV-2 as a Biosafety Level 3 hazard. It should be evaluated seriously.

The important points to know about SARS-CoV-2, so we may overcome the mental blocks that prevent a rational response to this crisis:

1. the virus is airborne and spreads as an aerosol
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   1. The virus rides very light particles and can float for great duration and distance. Instead of the 2 meter rule (or 6 foot rule), imagine instead a "cigarette rule". If someone was smoking a cigarette at some other location near you, even behind a door or on a different floor, would you be able to smell it? If they smoked there 4 hours ago, would you enter that air space and still smell it? If you could smell their exhaled smoke particles, then you may be inhaling their virus particles too.
   2. Viable virus was found in aerosol samples collected from hospital rooms of patients with COVID-19.
   3. Mask mandates in the USA saved lives.
   
   
2. initial infection may be asymptomatic
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   1. 40% of people with primary infection would not know they are infected and spreading disease.
   2. Even asymptomatic people still have strong underlying viral load.
   3. For this reason alone, all people should be masked at all times indoors around other people. You think you're healthy, but your lack of symptoms is only 60% likely to be meaningful. Why unnecessarily risk the health of everyone around you?
   
   
3. infection causes widespread and persistent clotting
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   1. SARS-CoV-2 infection leads to vascular disease rather than only respiratory disease
   2. Even after initial infection, there is a huge 55% greater risk of clotting events like heart attack, stroke, and death. These post-infection clots affect people of all age groups, including an increase of about 30% for adults ages 25-44.
   3. Blood clots may appear throughout the body, damaging a great variety of organs and systems.
      • The virus damages bone marrow, eyes (retina), teeth and gums, and brain by causing clots, for example.
        1. Liver, kidneys, inner ear, and testicles can be damaged after direct infection.
        2. Skin, cornea, and bone (even in mild cases) can be changed by an infection.
      • Clots may also be responsible for the capillary damage found in skeletal muscles.
   4. Damage in the brain increases risk of neurologic and psychiatric disorder, even 2 years after infection. Some of this damage may result from lost capillaries, after brain endothelial cells are infected. Persistent, low-grade brainstem dysfunction (particularly the vagus nerve) may explain many symptoms of Long COVID.
   5. A journalist with Long COVID undergoing plasmapheresis shows on video an example of her own blood clotting during the procedure. For a while, there were similar reports that embalmers have noticed a large increase in clots. These reports often blame vaccines, however, which is an idea that is discredited because the whole virus is already there to provide reasonable cause. This clotting effect was noticed in 2020, which happened before vaccines were available.
   
   
4. infection causes immune system damage
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   1. There is immune suppression and evasion, meaning that people who are infected develop a greater risk of infection by any agent.
      1. The MSD Manuals list SARS-CoV-2 as one of 4 causes for acquired lymphocytopenia, sharing this distinction with HIV. We've known since 2020 that these two diseases share some similarities (pre-print) and differences.
      2. The virus infects and destroys CD4+ T cells (the "alarm system" for detecting illness, described here in plain language) in the lab, similar to HIV. This same result was found in another study.
      3. The virus evades CD8 T cells (the "enforcement system" for destroying cells) by producing protein ORF8, at least during early stage of infection, unique to this family of virus. Likewise, it produces ORF7a with immune evasion effects.
      4. The virus down-regulates CD19 expression in B cells.
      5. The virus down-regulates p53 gene expression during both acute and long term infection, which is a gene that helps destroy cells, apparently leaving us more susceptible to ongoing cancer development.
   2. There is autoimmune dysfunction, meaning that the immune system will target seemingly healthy tissue, similar to disease like lupus.
      • The virus can damage brain and liver by misdirecting the immune system to these tissues, for example.
      • This effect appears (in at least one pathway) 10-15 days after the onset of symptoms.
   3. Immune amnesia is sometimes seen, similar to an effect of measles, where the body's immune system forgets its knowledge of previous encounters with earlier pathogens or vaccines.
   4. Immune system dysfunction persists even in people with mild-to-moderate initial infection symptoms.
   5. Some specific opportunistic disease risks already known include pulmonary aspergillosis and mucormycosis, shingles, tuberculosis, and Epstein-Barr Virus. Potential associations to Kaposi's Sarcoma are beginning to appear, even in someone previously immunocompetent.
   6. Specifically among hospitalized patients in the USA, a few specific healthcare-associated infections occurred "between 2.7- and 3.7-fold higher in the COVID-19 population".
   7. An opposing opinion in this review says that protection against "hospitalization or severe disease" for a new SARS-CoV-2 infection remains high with vaccination or prior infection. It does not mention lymphocytopenia, though, and the CD4 T cell counts are not given for any of these people after 12 months, so the apparent good news may be premature. Also, this article suggests through omission that SARS-CoV-2 does not infect T cells like HIV, ignoring results mentioned here at point 4.A.2.
   
   
5. infection is permanent
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   1. Documentation exists of same-virus persistence (not reinfection) in some immune suppressed patients. Whole-genome sequencing confirms persistent B.1.177.1 infection (case 2, kidney transplant) at 13 months and persistent BA.2.3 infection (case 5, leukemia) at 10 weeks.
   2. We should have expected gastrointestinal persistence from the beginning, because sister virus SARS-CoV-1 (which caused SARS in 2002-2004) infected relatively few people, but at least in the lab it appeared to be a persistent infection in the human gastrointestinal system. Some news reports several years after the epidemic (like this one) noted that "patients not only weren't getting better as time went on - many seemed to be getting significantly worse", a worry backed by follow-up study.
      
      1. SARS-CoV-2 lab study suggests similar gastrointestinal system persistence, with viral rna found in gut mucosa 7 months after initial infection. The longest durations currently documented include 230 days, a case report of 462 days, an unconfirmed rumor of 480 days, and a case documented at 505 days.
      2. Evidence of SARS-CoV-2 activity can still be detected in plasma, stool, and urine 4 weeks after initial infection. It can be found in gastrointestinal and hepatic tissues for up to 180 days.
      3. SARS-CoV-2 is found in gastric and gallbladder tissues of patients undergoing bariatric surgery, even when they test negative on PCR prior to surgery.
      4. SARS-CoV-2 was found in the stool of newborn babies, suggesting "possible persistent intestinal viral reservoirs".
      5. Delta strain infection was traced through wastewater (pre-print), long after that strain was originally distributed in the community.
      6. SARS-CoV-2 shares with another famous virus the ability to infect CD4 T cells. This feature may also provide the same ability for gastrointestinal persistence in gut mucosa.
   3. SARS-CoV-2 infects brain, eyes, testicles, and heart. These sites have special significance because of their immune privilege. (The heart's privilege is limited to the valves.) Immune privilege means that the body will not launch an appropriate effort to clear viral infection at these locations. This neurobiological review notes that brain infection occurs in only a subset of cases, but it is a real possibility with each infection.
   4. Even without immune privilege, syncytia formation assists the spread of infection (including the brain) and delays neutralization. This process has been captured on video, and you can see it here. This process can allow SARS-CoV-2 to infect cells and tissue that it wouldn't normally access directly through ACE2 receptors.
   5. Additionally, the virus infects CD4+ T cells, which is one way that HIV becomes persistent when those cells move to the bone marrow, where bone marrow transplant is necessary to end the infection. SARS-CoV-2 has been found in bone marrow, along with several DNA viruses.
   6. Regardless of all these many methods of establishing permanence, an estimated 100+ million people have Long Covid. People who have Long Covid symptoms at 3 months, probably still have their symptoms at 6 months, 12 months, even 18 months. Additionally, postmortem studies find SARS-CoV-2 rna in organs throughout the body, and nobody knows what cost this collective assault will incur. The precautionary principle is paramount here.
   7. Doctors are now speaking on recorded video about the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
      • Dr. Daniel Chertow, Head of Emerging Pathogens Section, Clinical Center, NIAID at NIH, reports viral persistence in autopsies they performed. Dr. Chertow acknowledges some limitations of their cohort of 44 sources, but they did find evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in various systems for months after infection. He repeatedly calls attention to infected sites with immune privilege. Also notable, at 44:00 of the NIH video, they found variants in the brain that were NOT found in the respiratory system, suggesting the virus migrated from the respiratory system then adapted to its new environment in the brain as it multiplied there.
      • Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong spoke on CNN about autopsies done at Mount Sinai showing virus persistence in organs throughout the body at 7, 10, even 15 months after exposure. Watch the video (English), starting at 04:18. (Dr. Soon-Shiong's exact wording is contradictory, although the intention is clear. If anyone knows a citation for these autopsies, please report them to @sars2info at Mastodon.)
   8. Many permanent viral infections are already known, including RNA viruses. With these studies linked above, a cautious mind will assume (for now) viral persistance of SARS-CoV-2. If future studies can explain the above evidence while showing viral eradication, that would be very good news indeed.
   
   

(Note: The last 3 points above are discussed in more detail at this 2022 Science.org article.)

If you have Long Covid: If your doctor is ignoring you, then please check with Survivor Corps for suggestions in seeking help. They also offer a Long Covid Handbook. If you want to help advance human understanding of this condition, then consider looking for opportunities with the Patient-Led Research Collaborative. You can also watch for clinical trials from the Long Covid Research Initiative. If you want objective tests to help measure and document your particular symptoms, there are some formal and informal resources that may help you learn the language as you navigate your health issues with your doctor.

PROTECTION: Repeated infection is risky. Long term survival depends on everyone masking. If you are SARS2-positive, then you need to protect people near you from your variant, and you need to protect yourself from other variants. Each reinfection may increase risk for bad outcomes. If only 1 of 2 people in the same space are masked, then the total mask efficacy is reduced (see Table 1) to less than 1/4 of its original value. Masking is important, including in schools.

• Masks: Pick the best mask available to you. Official N95 masks are more effective than cloth masks. Everyone should upgrade to N95 (or FFP2 or KN95) from simple cloth masks as soon as they are able. During shortages, it's more important for medical staff to have this important resource. You can continue disinfecting surfaces, but masking is more important. You could also upgrade to the even more effective P100 (or FFP3) mask options, if supplies are available. Elastomeric masks provide the best seal against your face.
  
• Filters: It's also vital that all indoor shared space be HEPA filtered to remove aerosols. In the future, desktop air curtains may be effective in preventing aerosol transmission for jobs requiring direct customer interaction. People can easily assemble a Corsi-Rosenthal box for use at home, school, or work. Ask your child's teacher if they would use one in the classroom, if you built and donated it.
  
• Distance: Distance between people is important, because distance increases dilution of the virus concentration that you might be exposed to. An informal examination of school space per student shows an interesting correlation with absenteeism.
  

Avoid any level of exposure. If you are able, please continue to work/school from home, avoid errands, and avoid gatherings. Every small risk or mitigation adds up.

PROTECTION in USA healthcare settings: The CDC recommends that people wear the best mask available. They state (last verified 2022 September) you may bring your preferred mask, and healthcare facilities "should allow the use of a clean mask or respirator with higher level protection" than the one they provide to you. If told to switch to less protective equipment, you should show them this CDC guidance. If they are not convinced, you may ask to speak to their supervisor about the issue.

ACTIVISM: Long Covid survivors need their ACT UP movement, and they need it now. I hope that people will interrupt political speeches to shout these points, demand their local journalists investigate these topics, and go protest in front of government buildings with plague masks and posters that simplify these bullet points. We need an immediate and profound change of response globally from businesses, communities, and governments. Even ignoring official (undercounted) deaths due to COVID-19, the World Health Organization says excess deaths worldwide through 2021 December are at 14.91 million people. Clearly something is happening beyond the short window of time in which a death is counted as "COVID". The world must do SOMETHING differently to avert this continuing disaster.

INFORMATION: If you have stamina for reading long walls of information, I recommend "The risk of Long COVID explained", "Untreated", and "Persistent Viral Infections". Some people have compiled long lists of studies related to SARS-CoV-2 infection and its effects. If you're looking for something in particular, these resources are a good place to start: scientific publications on Long Covid / PASC, Research Aid Networks Long Covid Library, articles about reactivation - recurrent / viral persistence, a master thread of Twitter threads about damage to specific organs, an explanation of clotting from SARS-CoV-2, and a "Long-COVID Resource Guide".

This site information is provided by a concerned global citizen. When this site was created on 2022 May 07, SARS2 was not an official designation for disease. It is used here to amplify the voices of other people who distinguish the long-term consequences of infection with SARS-CoV-2 virus from the temporary condition known as COVID-19 that may develop upon initial infection.

"It’s not vaccines instead of masks, it’s not vaccines instead of distancing, it’s not vaccines instead of ventilation or hand hygiene. Do it all. Do it consistently. Do it well."
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization