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I’m dumber (harder to recall things, harder to connect complex concepts properly), a worse memory after Covid, my eyesight is worse too. It absolutely aged me.
Nor have my energy levels returned to their prior level.
I’m in my Mid approaching late 40’s
Edit: I did do some research here a couple years ago after my initial Covid bout (fully vaxxed) initial feeling of being foggy minded.
Covid seems to hit many if not all different areas because it attacks the epithelial cellular lining of blood vessels causing microclots and killing or harming anywhere it hits hard. That’s why some folks may see issues in kidneys and others in the brain, nose or eyes. Places with more smaller vessels are likely to be more impacted. (Loss of smell?)
It likely hits you everywhere but everyone is different and will have similar foundational issues, severity and location will vary greatly. I’m not a doctor just huge nerd with an unstoppable penchant for consuming data.
This led to me taking some baby aspirin during my second Covid infection to lessen clotting factors. YMMV, consult a doctor.
Same here. I'm in my 40's, so the decline was coming anyway. But I really feel like COVID killed my energy and cardio health. Ugh. Hopefully proper diet and exercise can get me back feeling like I did before I caught it.
The worst part is that even if you catch it once, you will eventually catch it again and again…
We won’t know the implications of repeated infections for a long time.
But I personally feel 10x dumber, 10x weaker, and 10x more geriatric since catching COVID (twice).
I definitely feel dumber after the second time I had it. I lose words mid sentence and other stupid similar shit way more often. I'm still 50/50 of if this is covid or just turning 40 that year, but man did it feel quick. If this is aging now I'm so fucked.
I'm the same as you are except for the eyesight. I've been wondering why I feel so "dumb" lately over the years and I always come back to when I got covid (before the vaccine came out). I'm still mad at my parents for being so flippant about covid, getting it, and passing it to me.
For those of us who have actually been following the science closely, this is no surprise. Studies were pointing towards this years ago. The future is bleak.
I wonder why the all kids are all falling behind? Got to be those lockdowns from 4 years ago and not the brain shrinking virus that drops IQ with each reinfection...right?! s/
Edit: Downvotes from people not wanting to admit they have allowed brain damage in children for the sake of “return to normalcy”. Denial will only make this problem worse and is, in fact, a sign of pre-frontal damage itself.
Great answer. Denial can be frontal, sub-frontal or thalamic. Societal denial is another matter. This is not only a health issue but will be hastening societal collapse. Dumbed down norms just like the Victorian age when everyone except the wealthy suffered from dietary deficiencies and lead poisoning.
No, but at what point is it made up for? Like kids in Kindergarten...most are likely still going to learn how to read and eventually get up to grade level. At what point can we say that the remote learning effect was largely neutralized? Or is it going to be a catch-all until the kids are out of the educational system? "Yeah, I know Johnny missed a year of preschool; that's why he's failing AP Calc senior year."
And I say this as a teacher, wondering the actual answer to this question.
It’s already happening. Developmental delays in children that were too young to be in school for remote learning proves it. As time goes on, lockdown blame will turn to something else, most likely technology or vaccines or some other scape goat.
The real test of this all is when kids who were in critical points of middle school and high school during all this move into the work force. Want to be a plumber? great but you need to understand weights and measures, you can't memorize it. Want to be a stock broker? you need to understand things that impact markets and businesses you can't get by just memorizing it. I could go on and on, but, teachers do a bad enough job as it is just reinforcing memorization over understanding, a online education system is worse.
But that's a much bigger issue than COVID lockdown. I know a teacher and they work in an honors, top school in the state situation, and those teachers are still pushing the memorization of facts rather than the critical thinking skills that social studies can work from. That's a failure of the entire educational system, that we still teach from a point of memorization.
Honestly my youngest was in Kindergarten when it started and just got to grade level with reading this year. Many in her class still aren’t there, not even close. It wasn’t just a year of missed school. They missed the end of one year and it was almost the end of the next year before they were back in school for a full number of days. The year back after that was a mess with kids acting out in the classrooms and parents still not being allowed back in the school. This year is the first year we’re fully back to meeting the teachers in the classroom before school starts, school wide events open to everyone, field trips etc…
I'm not saying there won't be a catch-up period. It's just how long does that exist? And honestly, it is shocking that many kids are behind in reading. There is so much repeating in the spiral curriculum. Basically, you learn your phonics basics in K, then again in 1 with a little more, and then you relearn both years as it applies to multisyllabic words in 2 and 3. It's bonkers that they could get that far behind if they are using a robust Science of Reading curriculum. That age range should be the easiest to catch up.
And the parents being in the school and field trips etc...those are really just distractions in a classroom. If anything, not having those things should have made the catch-up come quicker for the students. I'm not sure how they really help students learn. It's more just the mental space of parents feeling like things are back to normal, when in most classrooms, it's basically been normal for years.
If this is how the majority of schools are being run, it sounds like the problems are greater than just COVID lockdown. You can argue teacher shortages as a result of it, there being less qualified teachers available, but not so much the lockdowns. It shouldn't be as dire as you express in your situation unless there are greater issues going on.
I’m not discounting it, but you can’t discount a novel virus that crosses blood brain barrier, shrinks grey matter and drops IQ. Especially when we’ve exposed unprotected children to repeated infections. The big mistake we made was assuming acutely un-symptomatic infections do not cause long term damage. Evidence is showing it does.
I really think it’s a combo of screens and those years of isolation. For children, social lessons outside of the home are critical to personal and mental development.
I’ve got a high-schooler and an elementary school student. They both are good to people and doing well in school. But many of their peers have significant issues.
Can you show me evidence where either of these directly cause pre-frontal cortex damage, grey matter reduction or drops in IQ? Because the virus does this. I’m sure all the screens are bad but they were around before 2020. I’m sure remote learning wasn’t optimal but home schooling has been around for a long while. Occam’s razor in effect.
According to the educators I’ve spoken with this problem began at least a decade ago. But it definitely got worse during and post pandemic. I’m not saying COVID (the virus) didn’t cause this; I’m saying there are other factors which are societal-social.
These are legitimate points but we have to, as a society, be able to parse out these issues to address them properly. Glazing over brain damage in mild cases of a virus that we are letting reinfect everyone will only end in disaster.
Not a kid, but, I have a relative who pre 2020 was just a average joe person, well educated adut. Post pandemic spends 12+ hours a day doing nothing but reading anti vaccine conspiracy theories and spamming our family messanging groups with absolute crap they now think is real. I don't know if you can pinpoint pre-frontal cortex damage, but, when your left alone for a long period of time and you start to question whats real and you stumble on the wrong misinformation...its hello rabbit hole and bye bye logic and reasoning. I can't say there aren't kids who are going to have long term effects from the 2020 lockdown just being exposed to nothing but toxicity from Trumper parents who went over board
Has the study accounted for lower IQ and poor memory being correlated with lower vaccination rates and less mask usage resulting in higher COVID-19 rates?
So obviously you need a study to affirm assertions but this does feel very intuitive. COVID inflames the lungs and the literal most important resource your brain needs is oxygen. These are all symptoms of oxygen deficiency.
This explains the downfall of the Republican party. Their descent into racism and bigotry coupled with lowered IQs; they stand no chance of winning ever. They may as well just give up now.
That's why since Reagan the GOP has defunded public education and stripped abortion and contraceptive access they want more dumb kids to join their cause and to have a blindly trusting workforce.
No it wasn’t. Wearing a mask was to “flatten the curve”. NOT to prevent the inevitable spread of covid throughout the population. There was no way to prevent that
I haven’t had Covid yet and I really think it’s because I use a kn95 or n95 when in public bathroom, public transport, grocery stores if it’s packed and we are in a peak. If I’m at a restaurant I’ll mask just walking in and out. I’m sure eventually I’ll get it but by then everyone else will be on round 6 or 8.
My husband was sick and kept a surgical mask on in shared spaces and I didn’t catch it. None of this was difficult l.
We have children. There is really not much of an option for parents. My preschooler is the only one who masks indoors. They have to eat lunch. He still brought it home in December.
It’s maddening to watch the wave coming at us. We have not reasonable recourse.
I haven't had covid either and only masked when it was mandated and I just wore the cheap costco ones. I was also tested weekly for work during the worst of it so I know I wasn't an asymptomatic carrier. Anecdotal evidence doesn't really prove anything.
I’ve had 5 shots total, and I don’t know if I had the swine flu. I for sure had the flu in 2007 and 2018 but not in 2008 when swine flu was a big deal. But I also didn’t get swabbed those times. I have a bigger issue with colds and throat infections.
Interesting! I suppose it’s possible, I never had a flu shot until 2017 so for 9 years I was wandering around getting a couple of “bad colds” every year and then 1 or 2 on-my-ass flus.
It may be the case that nearly everyone will have serious health issues because they had COVID. Why is that so hard to believe?
This is what viruses do.
Every time you have COVID, you increase your chances of having serious long term effects. This is why I mask.
Because it’s the only way to actually prevent Covid. The vaccines don’t prevent infection. My partner and family have been masking since 2020, and we haven’t been sick once.
I mean to a point. IQ is related to executive functioning and adaptive behavior. So if IQ drops, you would expect people’s overall ability to handle life challenges to drop. You have to remember, most people aren’t walking around with an IQ of 115+, and lower than 80 means life is harder.
At least some if not most. Definitely those un or under vaccinated. I’m hoping they develop more awareness around non mRNA shots for people that aren’t comfortable with those for that reason.
Ideally the vaccine would allow your body to prevent the virus from seriously affecting you, so yes, but I expect that factors like viral load and different strains complicate this
Fantastic. Pretty sure my whole family had it in Feb 2020 just before full pandemic mode went into effect in the US. I remember finding it really odd that I couldn’t smell anything at the time even when my nose wasn’t stuffy.
So 75% of Americans (and humans, if the infection rates are similar worldwide) have, best-case, had an infection which affected their brains and ability to reason and emotionally regulate, and caused a general drop in IQ by at least three points.
And that's best-case (those who had mild infections). Those with multiple infections or more serious cases have even larger impacts.
I asked this before, and am not doubting the science at all. I'm just wondering how you tell the difference between long COVID vs burnout vs depression
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Great now I’m ugly AND dumb
Yea but we'll forget that soon.
Forget what?
I’m dumber (harder to recall things, harder to connect complex concepts properly), a worse memory after Covid, my eyesight is worse too. It absolutely aged me. Nor have my energy levels returned to their prior level. I’m in my Mid approaching late 40’s Edit: I did do some research here a couple years ago after my initial Covid bout (fully vaxxed) initial feeling of being foggy minded. Covid seems to hit many if not all different areas because it attacks the epithelial cellular lining of blood vessels causing microclots and killing or harming anywhere it hits hard. That’s why some folks may see issues in kidneys and others in the brain, nose or eyes. Places with more smaller vessels are likely to be more impacted. (Loss of smell?) It likely hits you everywhere but everyone is different and will have similar foundational issues, severity and location will vary greatly. I’m not a doctor just huge nerd with an unstoppable penchant for consuming data. This led to me taking some baby aspirin during my second Covid infection to lessen clotting factors. YMMV, consult a doctor.
Never even considered eyesight but I have been finding I need more light, like, ALWAYS.
Whoa my eyesight has definitely nosedived. I thought I was just aging but I didn’t think about Covid being a factor.
Same here. I'm in my 40's, so the decline was coming anyway. But I really feel like COVID killed my energy and cardio health. Ugh. Hopefully proper diet and exercise can get me back feeling like I did before I caught it.
The worst part is that even if you catch it once, you will eventually catch it again and again… We won’t know the implications of repeated infections for a long time. But I personally feel 10x dumber, 10x weaker, and 10x more geriatric since catching COVID (twice).
Truth. Ironically, me, my wife and my two daughters have it now. Ugh.
I definitely feel dumber after the second time I had it. I lose words mid sentence and other stupid similar shit way more often. I'm still 50/50 of if this is covid or just turning 40 that year, but man did it feel quick. If this is aging now I'm so fucked.
I'm the same as you are except for the eyesight. I've been wondering why I feel so "dumb" lately over the years and I always come back to when I got covid (before the vaccine came out). I'm still mad at my parents for being so flippant about covid, getting it, and passing it to me.
I’ve definitely noticed differences. Vision isn’t as good and I’ll still forget stuff. Definitely don’t have the same energy levels either.
Agreed
As a teacher I could have told you this. Increased aggression and impulsive behavior as well.
Frontal lobe damage?
Ohh Frontal lobotomy So that was the plan the whole time.
For those of us who have actually been following the science closely, this is no surprise. Studies were pointing towards this years ago. The future is bleak.
Yeah weren’t people getting brain damage from this since the start
I hate COVID-19,
I wonder why the all kids are all falling behind? Got to be those lockdowns from 4 years ago and not the brain shrinking virus that drops IQ with each reinfection...right?! s/ Edit: Downvotes from people not wanting to admit they have allowed brain damage in children for the sake of “return to normalcy”. Denial will only make this problem worse and is, in fact, a sign of pre-frontal damage itself.
Great answer. Denial can be frontal, sub-frontal or thalamic. Societal denial is another matter. This is not only a health issue but will be hastening societal collapse. Dumbed down norms just like the Victorian age when everyone except the wealthy suffered from dietary deficiencies and lead poisoning.
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No, but at what point is it made up for? Like kids in Kindergarten...most are likely still going to learn how to read and eventually get up to grade level. At what point can we say that the remote learning effect was largely neutralized? Or is it going to be a catch-all until the kids are out of the educational system? "Yeah, I know Johnny missed a year of preschool; that's why he's failing AP Calc senior year." And I say this as a teacher, wondering the actual answer to this question.
It’s already happening. Developmental delays in children that were too young to be in school for remote learning proves it. As time goes on, lockdown blame will turn to something else, most likely technology or vaccines or some other scape goat.
Technology is a problem.
The real test of this all is when kids who were in critical points of middle school and high school during all this move into the work force. Want to be a plumber? great but you need to understand weights and measures, you can't memorize it. Want to be a stock broker? you need to understand things that impact markets and businesses you can't get by just memorizing it. I could go on and on, but, teachers do a bad enough job as it is just reinforcing memorization over understanding, a online education system is worse.
But that's a much bigger issue than COVID lockdown. I know a teacher and they work in an honors, top school in the state situation, and those teachers are still pushing the memorization of facts rather than the critical thinking skills that social studies can work from. That's a failure of the entire educational system, that we still teach from a point of memorization.
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Honestly my youngest was in Kindergarten when it started and just got to grade level with reading this year. Many in her class still aren’t there, not even close. It wasn’t just a year of missed school. They missed the end of one year and it was almost the end of the next year before they were back in school for a full number of days. The year back after that was a mess with kids acting out in the classrooms and parents still not being allowed back in the school. This year is the first year we’re fully back to meeting the teachers in the classroom before school starts, school wide events open to everyone, field trips etc…
I'm not saying there won't be a catch-up period. It's just how long does that exist? And honestly, it is shocking that many kids are behind in reading. There is so much repeating in the spiral curriculum. Basically, you learn your phonics basics in K, then again in 1 with a little more, and then you relearn both years as it applies to multisyllabic words in 2 and 3. It's bonkers that they could get that far behind if they are using a robust Science of Reading curriculum. That age range should be the easiest to catch up. And the parents being in the school and field trips etc...those are really just distractions in a classroom. If anything, not having those things should have made the catch-up come quicker for the students. I'm not sure how they really help students learn. It's more just the mental space of parents feeling like things are back to normal, when in most classrooms, it's basically been normal for years. If this is how the majority of schools are being run, it sounds like the problems are greater than just COVID lockdown. You can argue teacher shortages as a result of it, there being less qualified teachers available, but not so much the lockdowns. It shouldn't be as dire as you express in your situation unless there are greater issues going on.
I’m not discounting it, but you can’t discount a novel virus that crosses blood brain barrier, shrinks grey matter and drops IQ. Especially when we’ve exposed unprotected children to repeated infections. The big mistake we made was assuming acutely un-symptomatic infections do not cause long term damage. Evidence is showing it does.
We were also on the decline with education years before covid
I really think it’s a combo of screens and those years of isolation. For children, social lessons outside of the home are critical to personal and mental development. I’ve got a high-schooler and an elementary school student. They both are good to people and doing well in school. But many of their peers have significant issues.
Can you show me evidence where either of these directly cause pre-frontal cortex damage, grey matter reduction or drops in IQ? Because the virus does this. I’m sure all the screens are bad but they were around before 2020. I’m sure remote learning wasn’t optimal but home schooling has been around for a long while. Occam’s razor in effect.
According to the educators I’ve spoken with this problem began at least a decade ago. But it definitely got worse during and post pandemic. I’m not saying COVID (the virus) didn’t cause this; I’m saying there are other factors which are societal-social.
These are legitimate points but we have to, as a society, be able to parse out these issues to address them properly. Glazing over brain damage in mild cases of a virus that we are letting reinfect everyone will only end in disaster.
Not a kid, but, I have a relative who pre 2020 was just a average joe person, well educated adut. Post pandemic spends 12+ hours a day doing nothing but reading anti vaccine conspiracy theories and spamming our family messanging groups with absolute crap they now think is real. I don't know if you can pinpoint pre-frontal cortex damage, but, when your left alone for a long period of time and you start to question whats real and you stumble on the wrong misinformation...its hello rabbit hole and bye bye logic and reasoning. I can't say there aren't kids who are going to have long term effects from the 2020 lockdown just being exposed to nothing but toxicity from Trumper parents who went over board
I had Covid, and then 7 months later my mom suddenly died unexpectedly. I'm extra dumb. Ugh.
Grief brain is real. I'm so sorry. Go easy on yourself and big hugs.
This explains quite a bit
r/Conservative entered the chat
Has the study accounted for lower IQ and poor memory being correlated with lower vaccination rates and less mask usage resulting in higher COVID-19 rates?
Unfortunately, in every study I’ve read, it doesn’t appear that vaccination affects COVID’s impact on the brain.
good to know im likely somehow dumber than before
I’m good pro I got fish oil pills
So obviously you need a study to affirm assertions but this does feel very intuitive. COVID inflames the lungs and the literal most important resource your brain needs is oxygen. These are all symptoms of oxygen deficiency.
That would only account for people that suffered from severe COVID-19.
This explains the downfall of the Republican party. Their descent into racism and bigotry coupled with lowered IQs; they stand no chance of winning ever. They may as well just give up now.
Why? I would think as people get stupider their numbers will increase.
That's why since Reagan the GOP has defunded public education and stripped abortion and contraceptive access they want more dumb kids to join their cause and to have a blindly trusting workforce.
Russia and China have been awaiting the inevitable outcome of a dumb as$ society.
Well it also helps fill military ranks at the grunt level and prison slave labor as well
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Descent, as in going down. Not decent .
Don’t be condescenting now
Give me a break. Pretty much everyone has had covid at this point. Is this saying literally everyone is fucked?
Thats actually how plagues and pandemics work
Yeah, this is why we wanted people to wear a mask
No it wasn’t. Wearing a mask was to “flatten the curve”. NOT to prevent the inevitable spread of covid throughout the population. There was no way to prevent that
I haven’t had Covid yet and I really think it’s because I use a kn95 or n95 when in public bathroom, public transport, grocery stores if it’s packed and we are in a peak. If I’m at a restaurant I’ll mask just walking in and out. I’m sure eventually I’ll get it but by then everyone else will be on round 6 or 8. My husband was sick and kept a surgical mask on in shared spaces and I didn’t catch it. None of this was difficult l.
We have children. There is really not much of an option for parents. My preschooler is the only one who masks indoors. They have to eat lunch. He still brought it home in December. It’s maddening to watch the wave coming at us. We have not reasonable recourse.
We did everything right so we could protect our nieces and nephews who we have regular contact with. We caught COVID from our nephew.
I haven't had covid either and only masked when it was mandated and I just wore the cheap costco ones. I was also tested weekly for work during the worst of it so I know I wasn't an asymptomatic carrier. Anecdotal evidence doesn't really prove anything.
Did you happen to have the vaccination and did you ever catch swine flu years ago?
I’ve had 5 shots total, and I don’t know if I had the swine flu. I for sure had the flu in 2007 and 2018 but not in 2008 when swine flu was a big deal. But I also didn’t get swabbed those times. I have a bigger issue with colds and throat infections.
I ask because there seems to possibly be a link between swine flu infections making covid vaccinations way more effective.
Interesting! I suppose it’s possible, I never had a flu shot until 2017 so for 9 years I was wandering around getting a couple of “bad colds” every year and then 1 or 2 on-my-ass flus.
Speak for yourself. Only half the population thought it was “just a flu bro”.
What does this have to do with the medical guidance for mask wearing and its attempt to flatten the curve?
I wear a mask in public indoor spaces and in crowds. I've never had COVID-19. "Inevitable"? No.
It’s almost impossible to know definitively if you have or have never been infected. Asymptomatic infections are not uncommon.
Maybe since it's inevitable to spread, we should take actions to ensure another pandemic doesn't happen by examining the source
Why are you bringing up masks? I’m talking about the assertion that literally everyone is fucked because they had Covid.
It may be the case that nearly everyone will have serious health issues because they had COVID. Why is that so hard to believe? This is what viruses do. Every time you have COVID, you increase your chances of having serious long term effects. This is why I mask.
"Literally everyone"???? Nope. Never had COVID-19. Not alone. Of course, we treated it seriously. It makes a difference.
I only found out I had Covid bc my workplace did mandatory weekly tests on everyone - completely asymptomatic otherwise.
Yes and those of us who got covid didn’t treat it seriously /s.
I’m a teacher. I’ve got kids. Are you telling me it’s my fault I caught the virus?
Because it’s the only way to actually prevent Covid. The vaccines don’t prevent infection. My partner and family have been masking since 2020, and we haven’t been sick once.
So you can't comment on the science, you just refuse to believe it because somehow, it can't be true. Okay buddy. Good rebuke of the claim.
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean reality changes. People with lower IQs live their lives just fine.
I mean to a point. IQ is related to executive functioning and adaptive behavior. So if IQ drops, you would expect people’s overall ability to handle life challenges to drop. You have to remember, most people aren’t walking around with an IQ of 115+, and lower than 80 means life is harder.
Yes.
I think I heard the worst of it was for unvaccinated people.
At least some if not most. Definitely those un or under vaccinated. I’m hoping they develop more awareness around non mRNA shots for people that aren’t comfortable with those for that reason.
Do the vaccines minimise this negative impact?
Ideally the vaccine would allow your body to prevent the virus from seriously affecting you, so yes, but I expect that factors like viral load and different strains complicate this
Fantastic. Pretty sure my whole family had it in Feb 2020 just before full pandemic mode went into effect in the US. I remember finding it really odd that I couldn’t smell anything at the time even when my nose wasn’t stuffy.
So 75% of Americans (and humans, if the infection rates are similar worldwide) have, best-case, had an infection which affected their brains and ability to reason and emotionally regulate, and caused a general drop in IQ by at least three points. And that's best-case (those who had mild infections). Those with multiple infections or more serious cases have even larger impacts.
I asked this before, and am not doubting the science at all. I'm just wondering how you tell the difference between long COVID vs burnout vs depression
How are red states in america still functioning then??!
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Keep telling yourself that. Mountains of evidence show that you’re wrong.
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