18 thoughts on “Pandemic News Thread – February 25 – March 2, 2024”
Impact of COVID-19 versus other pneumonia on in-hospital mortality and functional decline among Japanese dialysis patients: a retrospective cohort study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55697-z
Ikenouchi, et al. 02 March 2024
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These findings suggest that COVID-19 leads to more severe pneumonia and comorbidities in patients with kidney diseases compared to other types of pneumonia.
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In conclusion, our findings indicate that COVID-19 poses a significant risk of in-hospital mortality and a decline in ADL [activities of daily living] among patients on dialysis during the initial three waves of the pandemic.
Monotreme, there is an excellent article in “Atlantic ” mag azine “Why are we still flu-ifying Covid”. Search for the title and it will pop right up. Read it and weep. (S-2FLU)
After being kept in the dark for years, we now know why Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng were fired from Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Lab (NML), Canada’s highest security lab and the country’s only facility authorized to handle deadly viruses such as Ebola.
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Allegations surface that Cheng potentially breached security policies regarding students under his supervision who tried to improperly remove laboratory materials from the CSCHAH.
One instance on Oct. 12, 2018, saw an attempted removal of two clear plastic bags, containing 10 vials each, by people known as “restricted visitors.” The incident on Oct. 31, 2018, saw other visitors accompanied by Cheng attempt to leave the CSCHAH with two empty Styrofoam containers.
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The report also reveals that in May 2018, Cheng was sent vials of mouse protein via courier from China marked as “kitchen utensils”. Cheng’s explanation that the broker deliberately mislabelled the package shipped from China for ease of shipping satisfied the investigator.
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April 9, 2020
A secret CSIS Act security assessment sent to PHAC’s executive director of security reveals that Qiu and Cheng were listed as co-authors on an NML research paper that included individuals linked to the Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) in China.
“Online information states AMMS is the highest medical research institution of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and has offensive Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW) capabilities,” the document said.
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One of the TTP [Thousand Talents Program] applications according to CSIS declares Qiu as the applicant and the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the declaring entity, stating that her work term was from 2019 to 2022.
TTP participants are given up to $1 million in research subsidies and may enjoy preferential PRC tax and visa treatment, housing subsidies and prioritized medical care in China, the report said.
CSIS also uncovered the existence of an unfinalized employment agreement between Hebei Medical University in China and Qiu from 2018 to 2022. Qiu graduated from an immunology program at Hebei Medical University, which is located in Shijiazhuang.
The agreement stipulated that she would be provided with funding of approximately $1.2 million and that her compensation would be the equivalent of $15,000 per month when onsite
Qiu listed the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Hebei Medical University, China’s National Institute for Food and Drug Control and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology in CVs that were provided for Chinese audiences, security investigators discovered. But she had omitted her Chinese links on her CV when she provided it to Canadian audiences, including in her applications at PHAC.
CSIS discovered that Qiu was nominated for an “international cooperation award” by China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences for using “Canada’s Level 4 Biosecurity Laboratory as a base to assist China to improve its capability to fight highly-pathogenic pathogens… and achieved brilliant results.”
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Comments: The scientific establishment in the US and Canada have aided and abetted Chinese spies who were trained and given resources with which to create viruses which have been used and will continue to be used to kill us. And no one seems to mind very much.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service determined that one of two scientists fired from Canada’s most secure microbiology lab worked closely and covertly with Chinese government labs and collaborated with “institutions whose goals have potentially lethal military applications.”
On Wednesday, the government released hundreds of pages related to the firing of Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng from the national microbiology lab in Winnipeg. The pair were escorted out of the lab in 2019 and fired in 2021.
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“The Service assess that Ms. Qiu developed deep, cooperative relationships with a variety of People’s Republic of China institutions and has intentionally transferred scientific knowledge and materials to China in order to benefit the PRC government,” reads a letter from January 2021 recommending her security clearance be revoked.
CSIS discovered Qiu had applied for and likely received a position under China’s Thousand Talents Program, a government sponsored program to recruit Chinese experts, which also allows them to keep jobs in Western countries.
Qiu’s position came through the Wuhan Institute of Virology and CSIS determined that the Thousand Talents Program offers researchers up to $1 million in research subsidies and better access to visas and Chinese health care.
The dismissal of Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, has been shrouded in mystery ever since the couple were escorted from Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory in 2019 and formally fired two years later
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In one instance, Qiu told investigators a 2018 trip to China was a personal vacation. But she eventually admitted the trip was paid for by Wuhan Institute for Virology and that she met the a senior member of the organization during the trip. Investigators also found evidence of application from Qiu agreeing to work for the Wuhan Virology Institute for at least two months each year, with the aim of augmenting China’s “biosecurity platform for new and potent infectious disease research”, according to the CSIS report.
Qiu admitted she sent an Ebola sample to China’s national institute for food and drug control, which was attempting to develop an inhibitor to the virus. But she did so without a material transfer agreement or collaboration agreement.
Qiu also allowed two employees of a Chinese institution, “whose work is not aligned with Canadian interests” access to the lab.
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Canada’s Liberal government has fought the release of the documents for years. The government initially released heavily redacted documents, which left opposition parties frustrated with what they felt was a lack of candour by Justin Trudeau’s government. A recent unified motion by opposition parties finally compelled the release of the investigation.
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Comment: I remind you that the Guardian is a left-leaning publication. Whatever you think of Trudeau’s other qualities, he is a traitor to Canada, pure and simple.
Two scientists who worked at Canada’s top microbiology lab passed on secret scientific information to China, and one of them was a “realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security,” documents from the national intelligence agency and a security investigation show.
The hundreds of pages of reports about the two researchers, Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng, who were married and born in China, were released to the House of Commons late Wednesday after a national security review by a special parliamentary committee and a panel of three retired senior judges.
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The Canadian Security Intelligence Service also found that Dr. Qiu repeatedly misrepresented her ties to researchers and organizations in China, relationships it characterized as “close and clandestine.”
In one secret report, the intelligence agency said that when she was asked about her exchanges with scientists and organizations in China, she “continued to make blanket denials, feign ignorance or tell outright lies.”
An internal investigation report for the Public Health Agency of Canada, which includes the lab, shows that the couple fell under suspicion in 2018, when Dr. Qiu was named an inventor on a patent granted in China that appeared to use research developed by the agency for an Ebola vaccine.
That revelation, in turn, suggested that the couple had engaged in several violations of security rules at the laboratory, portions of which are designed for work on the world’s most lethal microbes, including ones that could be used for biological warfare.
Those breaches included attempts by graduate students of Dr. Qiu at the University of Manitoba, all of whom were Chinese nationals, to remove material from the lab and being allowed to wander through the facility unescorted.
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Exactly what information Dr. Qiu may have provided to China and how China may have used it is not clear either from the internal investigation or the intelligence agency reports.
The intelligence service said that many of the institutions she worked with researched “potentially lethal military applications.” When asked as part of an internal investigation about the potential military uses of her work, Dr. Qiu said that the idea had not occurred to her, the documents show.
The internal investigation found that a trip Dr. Qiu made to Beijing in 2018 was paid for by a Chinese biotechnology company.
Mr. Holland said that the lab’s management had demonstrated an “inadequate understanding of the threat of foreign interference.”
He added, “I believe that an earnest effort was made to adhere to those policies, but not with the rigor that was required.”
In a statement, Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, said that the Chinese government and its agencies, “including the People’s Liberation Army, were allowed to infiltrate Canada’s top-level lab.” The statement added, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China, “They were able to transfer sensitive intellectual property and dangerous pathogens to the P.R.C.”
In this large community-based study, we found that Covid-19 was associated with longer-term objectively measurable cognitive deficits. The difference of approximately −0.2 SD in the global cognitive score in the groups of participants who had symptoms that had resolved, as compared with the no–Covid-19 group, is classified as “small” according to Cohen’s effect sizes24; this deficit would equate to a difference of −3 points on a typical IQ scale, in which 1 SD equals 15 points. Participants with unresolved persistent symptoms had a greater mean difference of approximately −0.4 SD. This downward shift was most evident at the distribution extreme,25 with a probability of task performance below the cutoff point for moderate impairment (−2 SD) that was 2.4 times as high among these participants as that in the no–Covid-19 group. ICU admission was associated with larger cognitive differences relative to the no–Covid-19 group (−0.63 SD, equivalent to a difference of −9 IQ points), with the probability of a score that was below −2 SD being 3.6 times as high as that in the no–Covid-19 group; this finding aligns with previous findings of medium-to-large-scale cognitive deficits in patients hospitalized in a critical care unit.2,26,27
In addition to brain fog, COVID-19 can lead to an array of problems, including headaches, seizure disorders, strokes, sleep problems, and tingling and paralysis of the nerves, as well as several mental health disorders.
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Most recently, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine assessed cognitive abilities such as memory, planning and spatial reasoning in nearly 113,000 people who had previously had COVID-19. The researchers found that those who had been infected had significant deficits in memory and executive task performance.
This decline was evident among those infected in the early phase of the pandemic and those infected when the Delta and Omicron variants were dominant. These findings show that the risk of cognitive decline did not abate as the pandemic virus evolved from the ancestral strain to omicron.
In the same study, those who had mild and resolved COVID-19 showed cognitive decline equivalent to a three-point loss of IQ. In comparison, those with unresolved persistent symptoms, such as people with persistent shortness of breath or fatigue, had a six-point loss in IQ. Those who had been admitted to the intensive care unit for COVID-19 had a nine-point loss in IQ. Reinfection with the virus contributed an additional two-point loss in IQ, as compared with no reinfection.
Generally the average IQ is about 100. An IQ above 130 indicates a highly gifted individual, while an IQ below 70 generally indicates a level of intellectual disability that may require significant societal support.
To put the finding of the New England Journal of Medicine study into perspective, I estimate that a three-point downward shift in IQ would increase the number of U.S. adults with an IQ less than 70 from 4.7 million to 7.5 million – an increase of 2.8 million adults with a level of cognitive impairment that requires significant societal support.
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Taken together, these studies show that COVID-19 poses a serious risk to brain health, even in mild cases, and the effects are now being revealed at the population level.
A recent analysis of the U.S. Current Population Survey showed that after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, an additional 1 million working-age Americans reported having “serious difficulty” remembering, concentrating or making decisions than at any time in the preceding 15 years. Most disconcertingly, this was mostly driven by younger adults between the ages of 18 to 44.
Data from the European Union shows a similar trend – in 2022, 15% of people in the EU reported memory and concentration issues.
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The growing body of research now confirms that COVID-19 should be considered a virus with a significant impact on the brain. The implications are far-reaching, from individuals experiencing cognitive struggles to the potential impact on populations and the economy.
In the four years since the SARS-CoV-2 virus was unleashed on the world, data have steadily accumulated supporting the hypothesis that it emerged from a laboratory. The latest information, released last month, makes a formidable case that the virus is the product of laboratory synthesis, not of nature.
The pooled proportion of pediatric COVID-19 patients with neurological symptoms and exhibiting abnormal neuroimaging findings was 43.74%. These findings were further categorized into neurovascular findings (8.22%), ADEM-like lesions (7.69%), encephalitic pattern (13.95%), myelitis (4.60%), transient splenial lesions (16.26%), and other abnormalities (12.03%).
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In conclusion, a substantial proportion of pediatric COVID-19 patients with neurological symptoms have abnormal neuroimaging findings, underscoring the need for vigilant monitoring of neurological complications in this vulnerable population.
Of the 138 participants, 76 (55.1%) were female and 62 (44.9%) were male. The mean age was 45.9 years (± 13.0), with an average educational attainment of 10.4 years (± 3.7). Roughly 50% of the patients reported significant memory and concentration issues (p<0.001). Thirty-three participants underwent detailed cognitive assessments, revealing a 2:1 female-to-male ratio and a significantly higher prevalence of depression in female participants. Cognitive deficits were diagnosed in five (15.2%) participants via the MMSE and in 26 (78.8%) via the MOCA test, with notable deficits in visuospatial/executive functions, language repeat, and deferred recall (p<0.001). A lower educational level was correlated with higher cognitive deficits (p=0.03).
Bird flu has been detected for the first time on mainland Antarctica, raising concerns it could be the cause of the next pandemic.
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The group used the highest-grade protective measures to avoid transmitting the virus to people, a leap that University of Sydney School of Veterinary Science professor Michael Ward said would have the potential to cause the next pandemic.
“There’s a big public health concern because before Covid everyone was saying bird influenza is going to be the next pandemic,” he said.
“Covid came in and sort of leapfrogged it, but it’s still very high up on the agenda as one of the viruses that has the potential to cause a pandemic.
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“What’s happened in Australia before has mostly involved people working with chickens and poultry, either farmers, sorters or slaughterers, that have close contact with the animals,” Mr Ward said.
“But the concern is, once it’s getting into people and it does that regularly, it gets to the point where it doesn’t need the chicken anymore, and it can just go from person to person, and that’s when you’ve got the pandemic.”
“As with many issues around long COVID, brain fog is likely a combination of persistent infection by SARS-CoV-2 [as reported in a new study Trusted Source published in 2023] and host immune/metabolic changes that occur either concomitantly or as a follow-on. Worryingly, changes to the brain, including reductions in grey matter, have been noted even in patients that aren’t necessarily associated with neurological symptoms.”
Research reported in Nature Neuroscience Trusted Source, which used dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging Trusted Source (DCE-MRI) on people with long COVID with or without reported brain fog, has backed up these findings. The researchers found not only significantly increased BBB [Blood Brain Barrier] permeability in the group with brain fog, but also reduced global brain volume and white matter volume.
The researchers suggest that “long COVID-derived brain fog is associated with BBB disruption and sustained systemic inflammation,” adding that their “data suggest that BBB disruption occurs during acute infection and long COVID, where it is strongly associated with cognitive impairment.”
The Junta de Andalucía’s Ministry of Health has identified three cases of monkeypox (Mpox) in the region, affecting two adults and a six-year-old boy in Seville “in a mild manner”. Due to its “possible incidence in the school environment”, both the health and education departments have alerted the parents of the child’s classmates to inform them of the actions to be carried out in the school itself, as well as the preventive measures to be taken against the disease, including vaccination “as soon as possible and exclusively for the child’s classmates”. Mpox is mainly spread by prolonged and close physical contact, or through the secretions of the infected person.
An “apocalyptic” mass mortality event that has left thousands of sea lions and elephant seals dead on the beaches of South America is raising alarms among some California sea mammal experts who fear similar scenes could play out along California’s Pacific Coast and other continents as the H5N1 bird flu continues its march across the globe.
The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus has become notorious for its devastating affects on wild and domestic bird populations over the last four years, but only recently has it inflicted so many deaths in a mammal population.
Up until now, the ability of the virus to jump from mammal to mammal has been limited, but the scale of infections and deaths in South America has raised troubling questions about whether something has changed.
While it remains unclear whether this particular strain of H5N1 has improved its ability to pass easily between mammals, such a development would have potentially devastating consquences for endangered and non-endangered species alike.
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In October, the mortality rate for newborn elephant seal pups reached 96% on one beach in Argentina — astronomically higher than the 0.8% mortality rate observed there in 2022.
“Ten days and it’s done. There’s nothing left alive,” Uhart said.
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“I think countries need to start preparing for the response efforts that’s needed for … big biosafety concerns,” she said. “It does have a high mortality rate in people and we’re talking about a lot of virus on the landscape.”
Monotreme's Blog 
Impact of COVID-19 versus other pneumonia on in-hospital mortality and functional decline among Japanese dialysis patients: a retrospective cohort study
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55697-z
Ikenouchi, et al. 02 March 2024
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Monotreme, there is an excellent article in “Atlantic ” mag azine “Why are we still flu-ifying Covid”. Search for the title and it will pop right up. Read it and weep. (S-2FLU)
I’ve seen it. Sad.
How the investigation and firing of two high-security virus scientists over leaks to China unfolded
https://nationalpost.com/news/how-firing-of-two-high-security-virus-scientists-unfolded
Catherine Lévesque Mar 02, 2024
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Comments: The scientific establishment in the US and Canada have aided and abetted Chinese spies who were trained and given resources with which to create viruses which have been used and will continue to be used to kill us. And no one seems to mind very much.
Fired scientists at Winnipeg lab worked closely and covertly with Chinese government, CSIS report says
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/fired-winnipeg-scientists-worked-with-chinese-csis
Ryan Tumilty, Catherine Lévesque Feb 28, 2024
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Scientist fed classified information to China, says Canada intelligence report
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/29/canada-scientist-classified-information-china-wuhan
Leyland Cecco February 29, 2024
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Comment: I remind you that the Guardian is a left-leaning publication. Whatever you think of Trudeau’s other qualities, he is a traitor to Canada, pure and simple.
2 Scientists in Canada Passed On Secrets to China, Investigations Find
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/world/canada/canada-china-science-secrets.htm l
Feb. 29, 2024 Ian Austen
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Cognition and Memory after Covid-19 in a Large Community Sample
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2311330
Hampshire et al. February 29, 2024
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Research suggests COVID-19 affects brain age and IQ score
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-iq-brain-age-cognitive-health/
Ziyad Al-Aly February 28, 2024
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Avian influenza virus is adapting to spread to marine mammals
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-avian-influenza-virus-marine-mammals.html
Kat Kerlin February 28, 2024
Where Did Covid Come From?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-did-covid-come-from-new-evidence-lab-leak-hypothesis-78be1c39
Nicholas Wade February 28, 2024
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Neuroimaging findings in children with COVID-19 infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55597-2
Safadieh et al. 27 February 2024
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The Impact of Long COVID on Cognitive Performance and Sleep Quality: An Analysis of the Rancagua Chilean Study (RACHIS).
https://www.cureus.com/articles/224863-the-impact-of-long-covid-on-cognitive-performance-and-sleep-quality-an-analysis-of-the-rancagua-chilean-study-rachis#!/
Aceituno et al. February 27, 2024
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Nightmare’: Grim sign of next pandemic
http://tinyurl.com/5n8yc2p5
Madeleine Achenza February 28, 2024
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NCDC reports 476 Lassa fever cases, 84 deaths in 23 states [Nigeria]
https://tribuneonlineng.com/ncdc-reports-476-lassa-fever-cases-84-deaths-in-23-states/
Kazeem Biriowo February 23, 2024
What have we learned about brain fog in long COVID so far?
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-have-we-learned-about-brain-fog-in-long-covid-so-far
Katharine Lang February 26, 2024
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Three cases of monkeypox confirmed in Andalucía, including a six-year-old boy [Spain]
https://www.surinenglish.com/andalucia/three-cases-monkeypox-confirmed-andalucia-including-sixyearold-20240226105314-nt.html
26 February 2024
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What is driving the spread of avian flu?
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-02-25/what-is-driving-the-spread-of-avian-flu
Susanne Rust Feb. 25, 202
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