More sensationalism - this is possible anytime an illness causes fever, COVID isn’t special in this regard at all
From the article:
>“My worry is that we have millions of people with COVID-19 now. And if in a year’s time we have 10 million recovered people, and those people have cognitive deficits ... then that’s going to affect their ability to work and their ability to go about activities of daily living,” Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at Western University in Canada, told Reuters in an interview.
We see what the short term consequences are, now we should also consider potential long term consequences of this very widespread disease.
It's science's job to do the best it can to discover the facts which provide the fundamental information needed for useful actionable changes. Someone still needs to develop actionable policy based on that information, and then we have to decide as a society which actions we want to take.
Various scientists have provided short term control solutions and are working on even more of them. We've seen those solutions around the world effectively curbing the spread.
Different socieities and their governments have chosen what to do or not do with that information, and now you see the results across the world, depending on what people chose to do with that information.
If we understand long term implications as well as short term, this provides even more information to make useful actionable policy decisions.
Why is Reuters interviewing a neuroscientist from Western University in Canada about a study done at University College London? It's telling that the part you picked out comes from someone completely unrelated to the research.
The subject is neurology, the interviewee is a neuroscientist, and so is probably more qualified to opine than you or I or the Reuters journalist who submitted copy.
Further, the interviewee is a neuroscientist, but we have no idea why they were picked to comment, how deeply he's analyzed the research, what the context was that led to that quote, or how long Reuters spent talking to neuroscientists to get that quote.
Here’s the paper the article refers to: https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awaa240
There are numerous other findings in scientific literature that indicate that COVID-19 impacts the nervous system. As one example, the loss of the sense of smell is likely neurogenic.
The paper makes no attempt to draw a causative link between covid and the cited illnesses, nor could it, with a sample of less than 50.
Rare illnesses happen. Sometimes, they will happen in people with covid. Jumping to the conclusion that Y happened after X, therefore X caused Y, is the post hoc fallacy.
This is the paper being discussed by the article, and underscores the degree to which reporting on this subject has left rationality and science behind.
A group of doctors said they saw patients with X and Y, and that Y is somewhat rare. At best, this is suggestive that a proper study is required — which is exactly what they say when quoted in the reuters story.
The flu can attack the heart like many other viruses. Measles can cause immune system amnesia. RSV can cause inflammation in the middle ear. Chicken pox multiplies in the lung but hides in your nervous system until it comes out as shingles decades later. Pick any virus and you’ll learn of some crazy potential complications.
Brain damage isn't possible 'anytime an illness causes fever'. You have to have an incredibly high fever which is very, very rare even in cases of the flu.
What exactly is your goal here spreading objective falsehoods?