Overlapping with this, something I've been getting a kick out of is how covid-19 has triggered a lot of pooling of information and more research relating to viruses, particularly herpes family, i.e. herpes simplex (sores typically on genitals, mouth or fingers), varicella (chicken pox & shingles), epstein barr (glandular fever and maybe ME/CFS).
I find myself particularly warmed by the exchange of information in relation to chronic fatigue and long covid.
I had glandular fever as a student and later had an episode of what my GP at the time not unkindly called yuppie flu. He said he couldn't fix it but would do his best to treat any symptoms, so don't hesitate to go to see him. Later, another flare up followed two different illnesses but at that time I was in the clutches of my ghastly local psychiatric system and was told it was 'retarded depression'. Twaddle.
A bit over three years ago, I had what my neurologist and I agreed seemed to be acute pancreatitis. Following that, I had the same sort of fatigue problems. They come and go. I haven't bothered telling my GP.
I think that it is probable that as the government continues to privatise the NHS, it will want to play down long covid, but it won't be able to stop this information exchange, this web of people with lived experience, including clinicians, and others that believe in it and research it.
Then if you add in what's being learnt about links between, for instance, epstein barr and conditions like multiple sclerosis, you've got an enmeshment with other sorts of researchers.
Meanwhile, there's been the learning curve in relation to new sorts of vaccines. Well, the drug companies will want to cling onto their patents, but that won't stop the general lessons of understanding viruses being learnt and built on.
Plus odd observations like how relative finger length predicts severity of covid-19. Relative finger length is known to be related to testosterone, but that's not the whole story. So that's the overlap between immunity, genetics and hormones.
So the bubonic plague discovery isn't just exciting in itself, it's happening at a time when a whole load of links are being researched.
My only big worry, which I think we can fight back against, is what I call the underlying temptation of politicians to go down the eugenics rabbit hole. Look how the likes of IDS and his mates got seriously hung up over epigenetics. Gosh all those poor people with bad behaviour apparently triggering some sort of switching on of bad genes turning them and their offspring into lazy benny scrounging chavs. Nothing to do with getting a raw deal in life in this wonderful society created and promoted by the IDS types in the world, surely? (I've got metaphorical steam coming out of my ears.)
So discoveries and research like this have enormous potential and we have to keep contributing to it and not let the politicians spoil it.
