私は看護学生に病理学を教えています。2020年の春から毎学期、COVID19 について教えてきました。そして、毎学期毎に、新しいデータに対応するため、講義を変えなければなりませんでした。今学期もCovidを教えながら学生に言いました。他のことはともかく、少なくともその科学を理解しなさいと。1/n

I teach patho to nursing students. Every semester since spring of 2020, I have taught about Covid. And every semester to have to change my lecture to keep up with new data. I was teaching Covid this semester and I told them that if nothing else, understand the science 1/n

I explained how Covid attaches to ACE2 receptors in the nose, throat, heart, kidneys, and gut first. That’s why you see a runny nose, sore throat, myocarditis and acute kidney failure first. There aren’t as many ACE 2 receptors in the lungs, so Covid hits the lungs later.

That’s why you see lag time between initial infection and respiratory symptoms. More importantly, I explained that Covid is not just a lung disease, it is a massive systemic inflammatory response to the virus. Covid also upregulates a protein called bradykinin, causing clots.3

If nothing else, I told them to think of Covid as huge inflammatory process that causes injury, scarring and clots to form everywhere. That’s why we are seeing so many strokes, MIs, weird liver failure in peds, bowel ischemia, and long Covid. 4

It all points to chronic inflammation. There is no immunity as the variants keep changing, kind of like the flu, which is why we get flu shots every year. We’ve just let this run rampant, so a slew of Covid variants keep popping up, rendering treatments less effective. 5

The worst part of this was when one student said that their parents had gotten Covid and asked how to keep them safe from the complications. Another student piped in and said she had Covid 3 times and was she at risk too? It was my moment of reckoning. 6

I realized that there wasn’t much I could say except to protect themselves with masks, vaccinations, and to try not to get Covid again. I told them that if they had Covid, they were at higher risk of long Covid and lantern complications. There was nothing to be done 7

Except to protect themselves going forward. After that there was silence. One of my students then said how disappointed in government and public health leaders he was. Another told me she was disappointed in her professors and her school for not being more vigilant. 8

I told them that as long as they understood the patho of the disease, they could guard against misinformation. I told them to educate their families and patients about the science, not the rumors. This left me feeling so sad. What have we done? 9

If I can teach this to first semester nursing students, why couldn’t we have taught this to everyone? People do not understand the disease and no one bothers to explain it. Perhaps that’s why we have failed so miserably. 10

We need to backtrack and explain the disease before we start talking about immunity debt (a non issue) and endemicity. My students are so young. It’s heartbreaking. 11

I have been asked for some basic material on Covid. I made a quick YouTube video. Please forgive all the “umms” in it. This is just meant to be basic knowledge for people. If you find it helpful please share. https://youtu.be/AYwoNpa6fq0

One hugely important thing I need to add-getting Covid can lead to autoimmune disease. Covid causes autoantibodies to form. These autoantibodies attack our cells and tissues and cause many of the post Covid symptoms we see, such as shortness of breath, fatigue, and brain fog.12

Covid also causes B cell (antibodies) and T cell abnormalities and immunosuppression. The rise in RSV and Influenza that we are seeing is likely because of this immunosuppression, NOT immunity debt!!13

Immunity debt is a myth to cover up the fact that by letting Covid run rampant, we have now caused autoimmune disease and immunodeficiency. Anyone one who has gotten Covid is at risk, not just severe and long Covid.