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This spooky season, I want to talk about – once again – the under-discussed terrors of COVID-19 – and specifically what (the heck!) it’s doing to our brains. The fact that I could go on to detail the lingering effects of COVID-19 on a variety of our organs and body parts is scary enough, but for now, I’m going to focus on our noggins.
A recent study looked at the impact of COVID-19’s ability to damage our cognitive health on driving. In the study’s results it is written that “The OR of car crashes associated with COVID-19 was comparable to driving under the influence of alcohol at legal limits or driving with a seizure disorder,” and this is “regardless of Long COVID status”. Just as a possibility, that’s pretty terrifying!
Brain fog and other neurological effects are pretty commonly reported among people who experience ongoing symptoms (aka Long Covid) and can also happen during acute infection (the phase of active infection). These brain fog symptoms are similarly common in pediatric Long Covid patients – yet another demographic we continue to fail by allowing them to be repeatedly infected with this virus.
There is a host of evidence of the negative impact of COVID-19 on the brain, and it’s not always limited to cases of severe infection. It must be noted that there is a dark history behind IQ tests and their use in eugenics – but there are non-IQ indicators of the harm COVID-19 causes the brain.
Beyond the dangers of COVID-19, it’s scary how the widespread approach to illness has reverted to whatever we were doing before this pandemic started. There have not been significant enough efforts by the powers that be to spread information on the benefits of clean air, nor to actually implement air cleaning infrastructure, and many people still don’t even bother to wear a mask when they’re feeling unwell, meaning that the most vulnerable are excluded from most public places. Ultimately, repeatedly being infected with COVID-19 increases one’s risk of Long Covid, meaning that if nothing changes, that group of vulnerable people will only continue to grow. And that gives me the heebie-jeebies.