November 17, 2023

"I felt like I was permanently hung over, drunk, high and in a brain freeze all at once."

Said Emmanuel Aguirre, "a 30-year-old software engineer in the Bay Area [who] had Covid at the end of 2020," quoted in "Can’t Think, Can’t Remember: More Americans Say They’re in a Cognitive Fog/Adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s are driving the trend. Researchers point to long Covid as a major cause" (NYT).

We're told Aguirre "stopped dating, playing video games and reading novels, though he managed to keep his job, working remotely."

And look at this graph:

Assuming this change is real, is it from Covid? Why would Covid damage the brains of the young but not the old?
Long Covid is probably not the only factor driving the increase in disability, experts say.... Experts on disability data suggest that, among many factors likely responsible for the increase, rising A.D.H.D. and autism diagnoses in children could have led more people to recognize and report their cognitive difficulties.

That is, the damage to young brains isn't real. It's just, subjectively, more noticed and reported.

Then there's the idea that the problem was caused not by the disease but by the lockdown...

Then, during the pandemic, Americans spent more time alone, reported higher rates of depression and were prescribed more psychiatric medications....

.... the lockdown and the drugs people took to deal with the results of the lockdown.


63 comments:

Big Mike said...

Did he also get vaccinated?

Humperdink said...

Another 6 or 7 boosters ought to fix it. Pfizer's stock needs a boost also.

I would bet none of this data appear in VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System).

Jersey Fled said...

Is there anything that Covid can’t do?

Kate said...

The Biden years are a bad dream we're all trying to forget.

AMDG said...

How many of these people are/were heavy pot users in their teens and twenties?

Leland said...

stopped dating, playing video games and reading novels

This seems like lockdown issues. Stop dating is obvious when you are told to social distance and where do you take the date (besides home)? Can't go to a restaurant or a movie. Playing video games may seem like an easy lockdown thing to do, but one issue that was a problem throughout 2020 and 2021 was new games built for new hardware that was unobtainable due to a combination of lockdown supply chain issues and rampant scalpers. Lots of people got disgusted with the game market and quit playing. As for reading novels... 20 and 30 somethings read novels? I "read" a number of books, if you count listening to audiobooks. Otherwise, I quit reading printed novels in my mid 20s. Bookstores are few, during covid they were mostly closed, and then you get a book that loses it value faster than a used car. And seriously, were libraries open during the lockdown?

The only place to go was the French Laundry.

chuck said...

I would posit stress as the most likely factor. The Biden presidency has been all about ramping up stress.

robother said...

Sometimes there's a man, and I'm talking about Brandon here, sometimes there's a man for his time and place. He fits right in.

Jamie said...

I think it's also interesting that the graph shows a big DIP in cognitive impairment among the older cohort as the pandemic started. Were we all paying better attention, as if we knew this was something we were going to want to remember - "Back when your grandfather and I lived through the Plague Year..." -?

Gusty Winds said...

"Long COVID" = total bullshit.

Gerda Sprinchorn said...

There was an upward trend in the red line before the pandemic. At least one other thing is going on here.

West TX Intermediate Crude said...

It's "All of the Above."
Covid
Vaccines
Lockdown
ADHD, autism diagnoses, combined with the effects of medications used to treat these maladies
And, increased use of marijuana/THC in much more potent forms in vulnerable populations.
I would not exclude the brain-numbing effect of cognitive dissonance when young adults leave the cocoon of higher education and encounter the real world.

Wince said...

Aren’t those symptoms of low-T?

Richard said...

Back in the day, the Big Guy in the Sky in charge of rain wasn't going to end the drought for no stringy chicken. Nope. You had to pitch somebody's kid into the nearest volcano. Then it rained. It always eventually rains because nobody lives where it never eventually rains.
So, to ward off looming catastrophes, it is necessary to do stupid stuff. I mean, Stupid Stuff. The more counterintuitive, the better.
Four governors put the infected into nursing homes, with appalling results.
But the villain is Ron DeSantis because he didn't make people do stupid stuff.
So if you want a significant proportion of the electorate to beg to be made to do stupid stuff--and even more fun, make other people do even stupider stuff--like give up money and personal freedom, you need a looming catastrophe.
Once Covid faded, climate cnange reappeared and, boy, is the stupid stuff coming at us.
The young, having more recent experience with our education system, are more prone to panic and the need to do stupid stuff. Hence the age difference in the ability to pay attention to one's actual surroundings.

MadisonMan said...

Like others, I ponder the psychological damage of working from home, not interacting with others in real time. Being around others forces awareness.

Richard said...

Back in the day, the Big Guy in the Sky in charge of rain wasn't going to end the drought for no stringy chicken. Nope. You had to pitch somebody's kid into the nearest volcano. Then it rained. It always eventually rains because nobody lives where it never eventually rains.
So, to ward off looming catastrophes, it is necessary to do stupid stuff. I mean, Stupid Stuff. The more counterintuitive, the better.
Four governors put the infected into nursing homes, with appalling results.
But the villain is Ron DeSantis because he didn't make people do stupid stuff.
So if you want a significant proportion of the electorate to beg to be made to do stupid stuff--and even more fun, make other people do even stupider stuff--like give up money and personal freedom, you need a looming catastrophe.
Once Covid faded, climate cnange reappeared and, boy, is the stupid stuff coming at us.
The young, having more recent experience with our education system, are more prone to panic and the need to do stupid stuff. Hence the age difference in the ability to pay attention to one's actual surroundings.

Tofu King said...

I had diagnosed long covid early this year. I'm still dealing with physical and some cognitive issues. It feels like I aged about 10-15 years over a few months. Getting better now month by month, but I don't think I will return to the way I felt pre-covid. Was it the virus, the vaccines, the lockdown, something else? I don't expect I'll ever know. Life is like a box of chocolates.

Oligonicella said...

Yea, as the day of thanks approaches we should say "Three years have passed."
Then strip our sleeves and show a clean arm, bereft of the scars of abject servitude and say "I did not yield to the subjugation. I suffered through the indignities that I might stay unmarred and free."

Some may forget, but the unmarred amongst us will not forget the foolishness of our fellows as they wiped off all flat surfaces, stifled their breathing that they might try to stave off the unavoidable, staying their imaginary distance of safety from all others and watched through glass as their beloved elders died in lonely capture.

We will remember the liars and deceivers- Faucci and underlings who plotted in private, reaching out to our very enemies to work against our countrymen and usurping the very manner by which we speak one to another to quash and ruin those amongst us who would speak true about the facts. And to try to convince their countrymen to join them in strengthening their oppressions.

The story will wind that we unmarred shall remember this attempt at subjugation and shout forth every time it is tried to repeat. We shall remember those who joined the monarchs and tyrants and tried to shame us when it was they who succumbed, they who were led. We shall remember it all.

We few, we happy few, we unmarred and unbranded brothers;

Big Mike said...

How many of these people are/were heavy pot users in their teens and twenties?

Another good question.

gilbar said...

like others above have postulated..
i wonder how Emmanuel Aguirre knows So Much about being drunk and high

Breezy said...

Possibly a factor is social media - TikTok, instagram, etc. all we do is garbage in garbage out all day. It’s bound to dull certain brain parts. Older people didn’t have this issue when they were younger.

Aggie said...

Instant Gratification: Starting now! Go !

That's American culture since about, oh, 1950.

I don't doubt that long-Covid exists, but this ain't it.

tim maguire said...

That graph clearly indicates that it is not COVID.

There's no real evidence that long COVID even exists. Long COVID, as people here have probably noticed, is a loose collection of mild maladies that have no obvious connection but that they are reported to doctors after a bout with COVID. Of course, because they're mild maladies, it's possible that they aren't any more common than they ever were. They're just being reported more because people who have recently had COVID are encouraged to report them.

ThatsGoingToLeaveA said...

Ketones are the solution.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Did Crook Biden thank Xi for the virus?

Temujin said...

It's from staring at their phones all day.

Rocco said...

I wonder what that chart looks like for Joe Biden during the same timeframe.

Iman said...

It’s also these smart devices that are helping to destroy the attention spans and crushing the ability to focus.

Iman said...

Also devolution…

Saint Croix said...

When I hear "cognitive fog" I think "Prozac Nation"

kwo said...

I estimate a 5% chance of these numbers being real.

1. Study relies entirely on self-reporting.
2. There's no hypothesis as to how COVID (or vaccines, or lockdowns) affect cognition, just very loose coincidence.
3. As Gerda Sprinchorn pointed out above, the 18-44 trend line started rising before 2020. I'm fact both trend lines had been rising.

Maybe COVID can reduce cognition. This article does not provide much evidence of that.

Static Ping said...

The lockdown definitely had a negative impact on me. When I realized that I was getting very anti-social, not to mention not exactly following proper grooming habits, I got myself out of the house as soon as feasible. That's probably how I got COVID, but I don't think that was avoidable long term anyway.

Bruce Hayden said...

“ Did Crook Biden thank Xi for the virus?”

Why would he? We helped pay for it (thank you Dr Fauci), and apparently got our money’s worth.

Jupiter said...

"Was it the virus, the vaccines, the lockdown, something else? I don't expect I'll ever know. Life is like a box of chocolates."

It was the jab. Nattokinase helps.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Assuming this change is real, is it from Covid? Why would Covid damage the brains of the young but not the old?Long Covid is probably not the only factor driving the increase in disability, experts say.... “

As others have done here, you need to distinguish between the effects of the virus, and the vaccines. These studies are just now being done, because earlier, they were being actively suppressed as possible disinformation. We do know that most cases of repeated bouts of the virus in the same people are mostly of the vaccinated. If they didn’t catch the virus, and get natural immunity, many will likely never develop natural immunity, just an immunity to the long obsolete Wuhan variant spike proteins. The virus quickly mutated around the Wuhan spike protein generating vaccines, in order to infect more people. And thanks to a phenomenon colloquially known as “Original Antigenic Sin” (also known as over imprinting), the vaccines made whole virus imprinting almost impossible for many of the vaccinated. And the more boosters you got, the worse it was. Every subsequent shot or booster just made it impossible for immune systems to fight anything else, besides the massive load of Wuhan spike proteins, for the next month, or often two or more. In short, the ModRNA vaccines, esp after the first jab, screwed up their recipients’ immune system royally.

In regards to the virus and vaccines, note that the number here showing great difficulty continues to climb AFTER much of the country had the virus. The curve should have flattened a bit, over the last year or two, if the virus were the cause. But those slavishly accepting the government’s advice to keep getting boosted, continued to destroy their immune systems with the vaccines.

Josephbleau said...

I would go with the increased number of states legalizing high potency pot and the isolation of people at home. Stoners who work online.

Jersey Fled said...

Long Covid is one of those convenient illnesses that there is no diagnostic test for.

Yancey Ward said...

Since the uptrend pretty visually starts over a decade in the past for those 18-44, I would suggest that is evidence that is pretty firmly against the idea that this is due to COVID itself. As for the acceleration since 2020, I could point to vaccinations, lockdowns, increased use of pot, alcohol, and other drugs.

Of course, since all this data is self-reported, it most likely is just all bullshit data gathered from an increasingly self-centered, neurotic, and deluded age cohort. I would note that a good number of people in the 18-44 age cohort between 2010 and last year are now in the 44+ category as I write this.

Bruce Hayden said...

“There's no hypothesis as to how COVID (or vaccines, or lockdowns) affect cognition, just very loose coincidence”

As to vaccines, there are hypotheses. Thanks to the use of ModRNA (mRNA modified by replacing uridines with N1 Methylpseudouridines), the vaccines (themselves, and not the spike proteins they produce once in a cell) neatly evade the immune system, which normally very quickly destroys mRNA outside of cells. It also allows the ModRNA to cross the blood/brain barrier, where it goes on and infects brain cells, turning them into spike protein manufacturers. Normally, once cells start producing spike proteins, and they become visible to the immune system, they are destroyed. That is almost assuredly the cause of many of the vaccines side effects, such as myocarditis and pericarditis. But does it also result in the destruction of brain cells, now exhibiting spike proteins? Some experts believe that it does.

Spiros said...

It's probably obesity. Even high school kids are absolutely massive.

Narr said...

My wife exhibits many of these symptoms. She has had five or six jabs by now and lives the smartphone life.

She gets loud, stupid messages on it all day, so loud at times I hear it through the muted volume setting (she depends on her synced hearing aid).

I don't want any part of such a device or lifestyle. I told her it was becoming like that Vonnegut story about the handicapper-general. She said she doesn't remember it.

OTOH, I've got one of my wargaming pals coming over this afternoon, and she's cleaning the place up. I tell her not to bother--it's not like he will care. I think she's afraid he'll tell his wife.

Man the vacuum is loud.

Rich said...

It’s important to understand that long Covid is not CFS — chronic fatigue syndrome.

Long Covid sees the return of two or more of the myriad symptoms we know Covid can induce, and given it’s a vascular illness those symptoms are more debilitating than just lethargy CFS induces. That’s why it’s so confusing to the sufferer and the medical community. Given that the community is made up of humans, many medical personnel have been affected too, and it’s been relatively common (one in four or one in five chance of developing) that research has seen major strides already.

As a fit person, my only real concern is effects on organs, such as the heart. The number of people over 40 years old I know who are into sports but now experience strange heart rate readings during exercise and arrhythmias (etc) shows, to me, that the chance of weird experiences after a Covid-19 are higher than any CFS folk might experience after a viral infection, which is 1 in 100 to 1 in 200.

n.n said...

Inoculated inebriation? Masked fog? Social distancing? Vitamin deficiency? A sample case of something else? Bay area?

n.n said...

“ Did Crook Biden thank Xi for the virus?”

Why would he? We helped pay for it (thank you Dr Fauci), and apparently got our money’s worth.


Pharmaceutical arbitrage, a medical mandate, a psychiatric ward, and compliant population... there is statistical power in large numbers.

loudogblog said...

I suspect that most of this is psychological. Trauma seems to affect younger people more than older people.

It was especially bad here in California where we weren't allowed to leave the house except for shopping and medical reasons. No movies, no parks, no theme parks, no bars no restaurants, ect, ect. Remember how they sent all those cops to arrest that guy who was surfing all by himself? A lockdown like that will negatively affect most people's minds.

Plus, you had all that "we're all going to die!" hysteria in the media every day.

And then there was the worst of all....ALL THE TOILET PAPER DISAPPEARED FROM THE STORES!

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Boy that graph says a lot about the increasing disability of young people's brains since mobile phones went "smart" and no I don't think COVID had anything to do with it, other than give that demographic even more time to spend alone with the damned interface. It functions more like a portal than a phone for that group, and more so every year for the rest of us.

Kevin said...

"I felt like I was permanently hung over, drunk, high and in a brain freeze all at once."

People have been ditzy since the invention of people.

They just didn't have COVID to blame.

hombre said...

The cognitive fog for many in their 20s, 30s and forties preceded and survived COVID. Else QuidProJoe wouldn't be President.

hombre said...

The cognitive fog for many in their 20s, 30s and forties preceded and survived COVID. Else QuidProJoe wouldn't be President.

Rabel said...

The Census Bureau runs monthly, large-scale in-home and telephone surveys of a sample of the population called the CPS or Current Population Survey. Below is their description of the source of the data (the third question) which was the basis for the alarmist articles about long covid:

"The CPS [Current Population Survey] uses a set of six questions to identify persons with disabilities. In the CPS, persons are
classified as having a disability if there is a response
of "yes" to any of these questions. The disability
questions appear in the CPS in the following format:
This month we want to learn about people who have
physical, mental, or emotional conditions that cause
serious difficulty with their daily activities. Please
answer for household members who are 15 years and
over.
• Is anyone deaf or does anyone have serious
difficulty hearing?
• Is anyone blind or does anyone have serious
difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses?
• Because of a physical, mental, or emotional
condition, does anyone have serious
difficulty concentrating, remembering, or
making decisions?
• Does anyone have serious difficulty walking
or climbing stairs?
• Does anyone have difficulty dressing or
bathing?
• Because of a physical, mental, or emotional
condition, does anyone have difficulty doing
errands alone such as visiting a doctor's
office or shopping?"

There is no question about the general population's increasing inability to evaluate a data set without that analysis being overwhelmed by predetermined political opinions.

The results would be depressing.

Michael said...

One, two, three. Reinforcing each other.

1. Lockdowns
2. Dependence on social media.
3. Continuous Progressive crisis-mongering in schools, media, politics.

Older people developed some sense in the last century and have partial immunity.

Prof. M. Drout said...

All of these symptoms can be long-term results of ANY respiratory virus infection, not just Covid.

Back in 2017 I had a completely ordinary upper respiratory infection that was over in a week. And the the joint swelling and pain set in and lasted for almost two years. No one could figure out what was going on. Finally, I found a 80-year-old rheumatologist who, after taking MANY vials of my blood, said "You're going to be mad at me because I'm going to tell you I don't know what's wrong, but you should be happy because I've tested you for 15 of the most awful diseases known to man and you have none of them."

So he put me on hydroxychloroquine because "it sometimes works for this kind of thing. We have no idea why." One day, months later, I woke up and the pain in my hands, feet, knees, and elbows was just gone, 100% gone, never to return.

I wonder if the idiotic, media-driven reaction against hydroxychloroquine (just because Trump repeated what some doctor told him about it--he wasn't doing his own research late at night on the internet) has made doctors squeamish about using a perfectly good medication for exactly what it might work best for: long-term sequelae of viral infections.

Clyde said...

Maybe it's psychosomatic, like the trans craze among young people, along with the current intersectionality craze. If you're just a normal white person, you're despised by the intersectionality people, but if you're trans or brain-frozen or some other kind of victim, you can make the burden go away. I think that's why all the cool kids are doing it.

n.n said...

A pathogenuc prion, perhaps an anthropogenic spike protein that has migrated.

FullMoon said...


OTOH, I've got one of my wargaming pals coming over this afternoon, and she's cleaning the place up. I tell her not to bother--it's not like he will care. I think she's afraid he'll tell his wife.

Don't even need company, just tell her so=and-so called and said they will be there in a couple of hours.

iowan2 said...

psychosomatic/social contagion.

Everyone needs excuses, this is a pretty good one. Impossible to argue with.

Joe Smith said...

I know more than one person who claims to have 'long Covid.'

I think it's more like hypochondria.

Everyone wants to be a special snowflake...

Gospace said...

No one I know who skipped the covid shots that weren’t a vaccine who subsequently came down with covid has suffered any of these long term symptoms. Of course, that’s a fairly small circle, but still, it’s safe to assume that all these people took the shots.

And you know what else is people who didn’t get the shots aren’t suffering from? Sudden Death Syndrome. From official numbers it appears 95% of the US population 65 and older has had two or more doses. 12 more years until I hit 80. I’m willing to bet that in 12 years there’ll be fewer 80 year olds in the USA than there are today. By a significant percentage. Should help the social security funding problem. Provided there are enough 20-60 year olds healthy enough to be working still paying in.

walter said...

Spike protein affects the heart of younger men and boys more than older.
It seems entirely plausible cognitive damage might affect the young more.
An unjabbed ciient of mine has never fully resolved an odd cough he acquired in the depths of rona. He also has some impaired word recall since that.
I don't get folks being so adamant about long covid not existing from a man maipulated virus designed to do damage.

Oligonicella said...

iowan2:
psychosomatic/social contagion.

Everyone needs excuses, this is a pretty good one. Impossible to argue with.

That's why they boil everything down to feelz. You can't argue someone isn't feeling something, you can only tell them "I don't care."

Bunkypotatohead said...

Trying to breathe through a filthy mask for a year will do that to a person.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The Census Bureau runs monthly, large-scale in-home and telephone surveys of a sample of the population called the CPS or Current Population Survey.”

Back when I was at Census, that was Population Division, and they were just down the hall from us. We stole two of their best programmers for the Decennial, where I worked.

Mind your own business said...

The start of Covid was January 2020. The start of the Covid mRNA vaxx was 2021. Your graph seems a bit off .

I was told to WFH and not come in to the office in March 2020.

THe real acceleration in your graph starts when the vaxx came out.