r/COVID19_Pandemic

This is huge news.

Various studies have strongly suggested gut viral persistence, but to my knowledge this is the first one that’s truly come out and documented it.

The amazing researchers at UCSF’s LIINC program, who began as HIV researchers and expanded their work to Long COVID, have just published this groundbreaking preprint.

They found single- and double-stranded viral RNA in cells lining the intestine. Because these cells normally turn over within days, this means that the viral RNA is being newly produced- it’s not just leftover from acute infection.

(When scientists use the phrase “turn over” in the context, this means that all of the cells that were present replicated to form new cells and then died off. This means that all of the cells in that cell type are completely replaced by new cells within days).

So they found viral RNA that had been newly produced.

They also found signs that the immune system was struggling to clear the virus. Part of the immune system was trying to fight, yet key parts of the response were also being suppressed by the virus itself - meaning the immune system was locked trying to perpetually fight a battle that it could not win.

This is really huge news. While this research is still only in preprint form, this team has a great reputation and has been published in many high-level journals such as Nature and The Lancet, so we have every reason to believe this work will eventually pass peer-review as well.

The evidence base here also strongly supports the rationale for immunomodulatory treatments which as Antkiva, as this may help to overcome the ways in which the virus is suppressing the immune response.

All in all, this is fantastic work and we’re so glad to see it!

What does everyone think- does this fit with your understanding of what Long COVID is? How do you think the virus might be hiding from the immune response?

Let us know what you think!

Paywall free version: https://archive.is/NIGhp

This article: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/08/10/oufh-a10.html

Related:

• [3 August 2026] Congo Ebola outbreak becomes second largest ever recorded https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/08/03/qoit-a03.html

I made a discord server for covid conscious people from across the world, please join!

https://discord.gg/7NRHDVYnM

>Background

>COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of long COVID; however, its role in preventing major post-COVID cardiovascular disease (CVD), and whether protection differs when vaccination is administered before or after SARS-CoV-2 infection, remains unclear.

>Purpose

>We aimed to assess whether COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of post-COVID CVD, including dose–response effects, and to compare the protective effects of vaccination before versus after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

>Methods

>We included 496,338 COVID-19 positive and 1,537,275 COVID-19 negative individuals, with hospitalisations and diagnoses recorded during 2019–2025. Pre-infection vaccination effects were assessed using causal mediation analysis, with SARS-CoV-2 infection and reinfection as mediators. Post-infection vaccination was evaluated using target trial emulation, and dose–response were examined with Cox models. Outcomes included total CVD, stroke, heart failure (HF), acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and acute coronary syndrome (ACS), ascertained using ICD codes.

>Results

>Vaccination was associated with lower hazard of post-COVID CVD (HR 0.68, 95% CI 0.66, 0.71), with consistent reductions for stroke, heart failure, AMI, and ACS, and a clear dose-response relationship. Vaccination before infection reduced the absolute risk by 2.00% (95% CI: 1.92, 2.04%), mainly through direct protection (ARR 1.73%) with smaller proportion mediated through prevention of infection (ARR 0.27%). Significant absolute risk reductions were for stroke (0.26%), heart failure (0.38%), AMI (0.23%), and ACS (0.33%). Vaccination after infection was also protective (total CVD ARR 1.40%) with reductions across outcomes.

>Conclusion

>COVID-19 vaccination before or after SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with significant reductions in post-COVID CVD, preventing approximately 1–2 events per 100 individuals.

A controversial 2024 study that some vaccine skeptics used to argue that millions of people likely died as a result of COVID vaccines has been retracted over misinformation and issues with the research.

The article…analyzed data from 47 Western countries and concluded that there had been more than three million excess deaths between 2020 and 2022, a statistic known as excess mortality.

The study did not specifically cite vaccines and lockdown measure as the reasons for the deaths, but the authors noted that COVID vaccines that were deployed to save lives also appeared to be responsible for a large number of “suspected adverse events.”

A month after the study appeared in the journal, the BMJ began an investigation into its quality, as did the Netherland’s Princess Máxima Center, a pediatric hospital, where three of the paper’s four co-authors then worked.

…corresponding author and now independent researcher Saskia Mostert, testified before a U.S. congressional subcommittee about the report’s findings in June 2026.

At that hearing, Mostert told lawmakers that she and her co-authors encountered “blind and irrational fury” after the paper’s publication, and she said she had resigned from the Princess Máxima Center after it opened its scientific integrity investigation. She alleged the negative response was used a means to “discredit, intimidate, isolate and silence those raising unwelcome scientific questions.”

In its retraction notice, the BMJ…said Mostert wasn’t available to cooperate with the investigation held by the center and initially could not be contacted by the BMJ before she later told the journal’s investigators that other researchers had done most of the work.

The Princess Máxima Center’s report detailing its own findings “concluded ... that the article pays disproportionate attention to the possibility that COVID-19 containment measures and vaccination might have caused excess mortality,” according to the BMJ’s retraction notice.

“Despite the fact that the authors do not investigate the causes for excess mortality, the introduction and discussion of the article are largely focused on how to explain the excess mortality.”

The center’s report also alleged that the study’s authors cherry-picked data to support their arguments and ignored data that opposed them.

Full article: https://archive.ph/4SDlv

Study: Virus reactivation in acute and long COVID-19 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10740-z

>Abstract

>Chronic viral infections are ubiquitous in humans, with individuals carrying multiple viruses that can reactivate during physiological stress, including severe illness^(1). Notably, SARS-CoV-2 infection has been shown to reactivate chronic viruses such as Epstein–Barr virus and cytomegalovirus, yet the full extent, temporal dynamics and immunological impact of viral reactivation in COVID-19 remain incompletely understood^(2),^(3),^(4),^(5),^(6),^(7). Here, leveraging multi-omic longitudinal data from 1,154 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 from the Immunophenotyping Assessment in a COVID-19 Cohort (IMPACC) study, we reveal significant reactivation of Herpesviridae and Anelloviridae during acute COVID-19, with distinct temporal dynamics for different viruses, and demonstrate that reactivation correlates with disease severity, host immune effects and clinical outcomes. Although our results do not establish causation between virus reactivation and clinical outcomes, we highlight the prevalence of chronic viral reactivation during acute COVID-19 and long COVID. Our findings challenge the prevailing view that chronic viral reactivation is primarily a consequence of immunosuppression, demonstrating that reactivations occur frequently in immunocompetent individuals during severe illness and in association with increased systemic inflammation. Additionally, we demonstrate persistence of viral reactivation in convalescence, and report an association of Anelloviridae with long COVID. This study provides immune, transcriptomic and metabolomic signatures of viral reactivation that could inform future strategies to prognosticate and treat acute COVID-19 and long COVID.

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