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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD 🏴‍☠️

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD 🏴‍☠️
@TheAngryEpi

Sep 23, 2022
7 tweets
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New study of post-COVID19 neurological disorders at 1 year after infection. This study is enormous and very well-conducted. It shows that there is a significantly increased risk of numerous adverse neurological events following SARS-CoV-2 infection. nature.com/articles/s4159…

Figure from linked study showing significantly increased risk for several neurological outcomes, with an excess burden observed for 77/1000 COVID19 patients.
This is not the time to declare the pandemic to be “over”. This paper shows that the excess burden of neurological outcomes was estimated to occur at a rate of ~71/1000 people. Severity of acute case increased odds of neurological outcome, but even those with milder cases at risk
Figure showing that for each of these outcomes the risk was highest for those admitted to the ICU during acute infection, but risks also elevated for those who were not hospitalized.
The numbers of those still affected at one year are huge on a population level. Absolutely enormous. Please do everything you can to avoid infection. I’ll be masking indoors in public with a KN95, N95, or KF94 for the foreseeable future. I hope you do, too. 💜
It is important to note that this study used data from before mid-January 2021. This means that it was pre-vaccine. Vaccines have been shown to reduce the risk for LongCOVID, though the magnitude of effect is unknown.
Another limitation of the study is that unfortunately it is 70% white participants. The risk of LongCOVID increases with hospitalization, and African American and Hispanic individuals are twice as likely to be hospitalized with COVID19 compared to whites.
For more on disparities related to LongCOVID, please read here. There are extremely serious problems related to structural racism in every step of the SARS-COV-2 pathway, including long-term effects. technologyreview.com/2022/09/20/105…
People with LongCOVID often struggle with getting healthcare providers to believe them about their symptoms. This is common with other diseases, such as MS. And it’s worst of all for people of color, especially women of color.
Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD 🏴‍☠️
Epidemiologist. Mom. Angry, presently. If you are going through hell, keep going. -Churchill (maybe). BLACK LIVES MATTER ✊https://t.co/SpPlUUIN3e
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