While the @cdcgov still classifies #covid as a respiratory disease on its site, this belief is no longer deemed correct by the global research community: COVID has been routinely found to be a #vascular disease, and an airborne one, transmitted by respiratory droplets and aerosols. (Check the comments for all sources, linked for easy reading.)
What’s more new to the research community - but less-so to patients who physically live this reality - is the likelihood of #LongCovid being an autoimmune disorder, potentially triggered by a combination of immunological and inflammatory factors, as an outcome of the systemic vascular damage that occurs in patients. Snowball effect, my pals [see feed for the analogy].
Science is still evolving and the pathophysiology and pathogenesis of Long COVID is still not confidently known, but *if* Long COVID is a new (or existing) autoimmune disorder, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to inquire as to whether #MECFS, #chroniclyme and other infection-initiated chronic illnesses may also be characterized as such as well, as our antiphospholipid levels, anti-collagen antibodies, herpetic viral reactivations, interleukin levels and more have significant overlap amongst various infection-initiated chronic illnesses.
Many of us are developing or have developed rheumatoid factors, recurrent swollen glands, hair loss, cognitive impairments, mottling, numbness or tingling in extremities and more (all common autoimmune symptoms), and to think that a viral or bacterial disease that remains untreated and prolonged *wouldn’t* develop autoimmunity, is more difficult to conceptualize than the likelihood of autoimmunity itself.
The immune system can only defend itself for so long, before becoming unrecognizable and turning on itself (as a perceived threat).
Although I’ve written ad nauseam about the vascular nature of COVID (scroll my feed to see 2 such shares, in addition to the ‘autoimmune’ reel on my page), this graphic was prompted by a little-discussed Senate hearing with Dr. Fauci that occurred earlier this week, and one that the entire Long COVID community, medical research communities, and general public should be aware of.
(All sources linked in original Instagram post.)