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by randm_sequence
1188 days ago
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LongCOVID is a persistent viral infection. Most RNA viruses that afflict humans are persistent (like Hepatitis). Right now, zero dollars are being invested in developing the diagnostics required to detect the virus. Thus, an irrefutable test is not available. Note that SARS and MERS patients also longhauled. If you look at other species, a coronavirus (FIPV) can infect cats in a chronic fashion. In fact, Feline Infectious Peritonitis Virus is treated with the *exact* same antivirals as COVID. It is incredibly difficult to detect FIPV in cats due to irregular shedding by the virus. There are now dozens of papers that have detected SARS-CoV2 viral RNA and viral proteins in longhaulers up to 12+ months after the initial infection. HIV initially causes a flu like illness in over half of individuals who contract the virus. These symptoms clear. The virus is still in the body and, untreated, results in AIDS and ultimately death. |
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No, this is an opinion, not a fact.
> Most RNA viruses that afflict humans are persistent (like Hepatitis).
No. The genome structure of a virus an orthogonal property, and extrapolating that "this is an RNA virus, therefore it must cause latent infection" is wrong.
Just to underscore the point: the most common examples of latent human infection -- HSV1 & 2 -- are double-stranded DNA viruses. HIV also causes latent infection, but has a completely different RNA structure.
It's like saying, "a car has an engine, a plane also has an engine, therefore I can fly in my car".
> Right now, zero dollars are being invested in developing the diagnostics required to detect the virus.
Also false. PCR is exquisitely sensitive. There is approximately zero chance that we could fail to detect latent viral infections with PCR, and many, many labs are working on this. The NIH just funneled something like a billion and a half dollars into "Long Covid research", and you can bet that diagnosis is a big part of this.
I have read at least a half-dozen papers in the last two years where people tried to find "latent" SARS CoV2 in various body tissues. If we aren't seeing latent infection, it's not because nobody is trying to find it.
> If you look at other species, a coronavirus (FIPV) can infect cats in a chronic fashion.
The fact that some unrelated virus in another species exhibits latent infection is...unrelated. You're leaping to conclusions.
> It is incredibly difficult to detect FIPV in cats due to irregular shedding by the virus.
When a viral infection is in its latent form, it's latent, and isn't causing active infection. So yes, it's hard to detect, but it also shouldn't be causing symptoms.
You don't get to have it both ways: claiming that the virus is so rare and hidden that we can't find it with molecular tools capable of finding a single copy of RNA, and simultaneously claiming that it's causing systemic, disabling illness. Both things cannot be true at the same time.