Slack / Private Message Drop — page 141

[Robert Garry] Science has always been political, but often in a good way. NIH has usually been at least somewhat off limits. Not with this administration obviously. [2020-08-20 07:52:42] [Robert Garry] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/long-haulers-covid-19-recognition-support-groups-symptoms/61 5382/ Ed is the best in the business. This article however has some stuff in it that is rather troublesome: One examples: "Several studies have found that most COVID-19 patients produce antibodies that recognize the new coronavirus, and that these molecules endure for months. Their presence should confirm whether a long-hauler was indeed infected. But there's a catch: Most existing antibody studies focused on either hospitalized patients or those with mild symptoms and swift recoveries. By contrast, Putrino told me that in his survey of 1,400 long-haulers, two-thirds of those who have had antibody tests got negative results, even though their symptoms were consistent with COVID-19. Nichols, for example, tested negative for antibodies after twice testing positive for the coronavirus itself. "Just because you're negative for antibodies doesn't mean you didn't have COVID-19," Putrino said." Really??? - "two-thirds of those who have had antibody tests got negative results" - I'm incredulous... [2020-08-20 07:54:07] [Kristian Andersen] Yeah, it was an issue in his first article too - I suspect the vast majority of these people are, in fact, not COVID survivors... [2020-08-20 08:06:34] [Robert Garry] CFS is a real thing, but faking it is also real as is fake COVID. [2020-08-20 08:17:24] [Robert Garry] So unlike Ed - you would have thought he might have included someone just a little bit skeptical. [2020-08-20 08:19:48] [Kristian Andersen] Yeah, I think he has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to these people - they have very personal stories and are clearly sick, but it's just not clear that it's due to COVID. [2020-08-20 08:20:17] [Kristian Andersen] (and I'm not saying long-term COVID isn't a thing - it definitely is, and probably more so than we realize). [2020-08-20 08:26:01] [Robert Garry] Agreed - Ian will have job security for some time to come... [2020-08-21 08:55:12] [Kristian Andersen] Just FYI - a little background on that mine... [shared file(s) ] [2020-08-21 14:34:18] [Eddie Holmes] Interesting. I also heard that they could not rule out a fungus. Who is this person? Even if it was a coronavirus there's no evidence that it was RaTG13 and RaTG13 is not the source of SARS-CoV-2. [2020-08-21 14:38:19] [Kristian Andersen] Not sure who the person is... Maybe him/her: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quang-tuan-pham-49a400103/?originalSubdomain=au