COVID Advisor

Approximately 10% of people who’ve had COVID-19 experience prolonged symptoms — that is, longer than the typical two weeks. In some cases, weeks and months longer. There are people who experience relapses after they’ve appeared to make a full recovery. Long Haulers Symptoms Their typical symptoms can include:  Cognitive issues Erratic heartbeat Fatigue Gastrointestinal issues Intolerance to physical or mental activity Low-grade fever Muscle and joint pain Shortness of breath NB: A syndrome is not a disease. It’s a group of signs and symptoms that may accompany more than one specific disease. In this case, the syndrome affects some people who have contracted the virus that causes COVID-19 and can mimic the symptoms of other, seemingly unrelated diseases. COVID-19 long haulers report that these symptoms flare up unpredictably. They are often in different combinations and can be debilitating for days and

Bruce Patterson  MD is a former Stanford researcher with quite a record. The former Medical Director of Diagnostic Virology at Stanford University Hospitals and Clinics, Patterson has co-authored around 90 papers – most prior to 2011 – at about the time he left the University and created the incellDx diagnostic laboratory. Over the past ten years, incellDx has focused mostly on  cancer screening  and has produced products to test for HPV, CMV, antibodies, and others. Over the past two years, though, Patterson has jumped back into the publication field, co-authoring  7 papers on COVID-19  with more to come. In June of 2020, Patterson reported that he’d identified the cause of the so-called  “cytokine storm” in COVID-19. “When we were developing a cytokine quantification assay for possible COVID trials in China, we discovered that infected patients had consistently high levels of CCL5/RANTES in plasma which in some cases was 100 times normal depending on the severity of the disease.” Pat

Bruce Patterson MD had made a lot of news with his assertion that very high levels of a chemokine called CCL5/RANTES were directing immune cells to go on the attack in long COVID. Patterson’s first study suggested that a weak adaptive immune response to the virus was causing the immune system, in a last-ditch effort, to recruit large numbers of monocytes to take care of the problem, instead. Having monocytes do the work of T and B-cells is going to cause damage. The body would be much happier off using the smart bombs T and B-cells bring to the fight instead of the napalm monocytes do. The monocytes are supposed to hold the line until the cavalry – the T and B-cells arrived: they’re not really designed to clean up the mess after their lines have been breached. In Army parlance, a similar situation in Vietnam called for a “ broken arrow -danger close”  strike where an artillery strike just around their position was called in as they were about to be overrun. The hope was that the strike