Conor Browne

I hope so!

13. This is also why I am committed to discovering and developing technological solutions to near-field transmission that do not necessitate masking. I am convinced this can be done.

In short, my inspiration is both personal and rooted in the worst experiences of my life.

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12. This is why I am committed to developing technologies - using 'technologies' in a broad sense here - to drastically reduce the prevalence of infections of *all* pathogens globally, without ever having to resort to lockdowns again.

11. Six years of my own life wrecked by an unknown virus, the last years of my late mother's life blighted by SARS-CoV-2. First by the response to it, then by her own infection with it - which triggered her dementia. In addition, she never saw my face unmasked from March 2020.

10. My late mother suffered from generalised anxiety disorder her whole life, especially since the death of my late father in 1999, and I was the only person who could calm her. After five months of isolation, she was never the same. It damaged her badly.

9. ... both near-field and far-field transmission (air filtration and respirator masks respectively), I didn't get to see my late mother for nearly five months. She was bed bound, and her room was on the first floor, so I couldn't even 'window-visit' her.

8. Due to the brute-force lockdown of care homes that was necessary because of a lack of both key technologies (rapid and accurate testing being the most important one in this instance), and a lack of disseminated knowledge on the mitigation of...

7. As such, that cold in early 2001 wrecked five years of my life. Five years from a 'minor upper respiratory tract viral infection'.

Flash forward to 2020. My late mother is living in a nursing home in Northern Ireland when the Covid-19 pandemic begins.

6. After two years had passed, and my non-ALS diagnosis was secure, the bottle had well and truly got me. I only managed to quit in 2007. Five years lost to chronic illness and alcoholism. Here's the thing: as my neurologist explained, a common cause of CFS is a viral infection.

5. This possibility, as you might imagine, terrified me, which led to me self-medicating this terror with a vast amount of booze. Alcohol was also the only thing that stopped the twitching, so it was doubly addictive in that regard. So I rapidly plunged into alcoholism.

4. Regardless, the key caveat that the neurologist I saw stated was that the CFS diagnosis couldn't be entirely secure until two years had passed with no other symptoms, because of the small but very real possibility that I was in the early stages of ALS.

3. It's difficult to sleep with widespread muscle twitching, I assure you. These symptoms eventually led me to a neurologist, who diagnosed me with cramp-fasciculation syndrome (CFS). Later, another neurologist considered neuromyotonia to be a more accurate diagnosis.

2. I just took paracetamol and got on with it, and was completely fine in a few days. About a week later, I suddenly developed widespread and extensive muscle twitching - fasciculations. These fasciculations got severe really quickly, enough to cause chronic insomnia.

1. A recent conversation with a colleague threw into sharp relief exactly why I am so inspired to develop technologies to prevent pathogenic infection. So, if you'll indulge me, let me explain. In early 2002, I had what to all intents and purposes was a cold. Sniffles, cough etc.

My experience is that healthcare professionals in India are much more open to the concept than those in Europe and North America.

City doctors blame ‘long Covid’ for severe viral infections that have laid Kolkata low | Kolkata News - Times of India Kolkata: The pandemic may have ended three years ago but it continues to cast its shadow on the city's healthscape.A past history of ‘long or severe' .

'Immune dysregulation following Covid may compromise the body's ability to mount an effective defence against common respiratory pathogens'.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata...

You don't need to have a cough for the solution to work. It uses forced cough vocalization - so you just force a cough for about ten seconds.

There are certainly plans to make it available in Europe too!

3. Currently available in the US, and soon in Bangladesh.

Link:

RespiratoryScreening.com

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2. ... using AI powered cough analysis. While a screener and not a diagnostic, it has a sensitivity of 97% and a specificity of 75.5%, and is a huge leap forward in screening technology. It captures a 10 second cough sample and returns results in under 60 seconds.

1. I have to declare this an #ad because I’ve consulted for the company concerned, but this is another huge step forward for Covid-19 screening by @raisonance.bsky.social This is the first commercially available fully online clinical decision support screening solution for Covid-19...

Fundamentally, because a lot of the land is now used for agriculture.

Good overview of the Mournes here:

Mourne AONB | Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs share.google/7IsLFOrrDd3H...

Thanks - and Bearnagh is my favourite mountain in the Mournes, Mick!

A landscape photograph. The left foreground of the shot is dominated by a drystone wall that snakes down the slope of a very steep hill and up another. A saddle between two hills is in the exact centre of the shot, with a steep, rocky gorge visible to the left of the shot and another hill to the right. The landscape is green, but bleak. Not a single person is visible in the shot. In the distance, to the left of the shot, a mountain with two rocky colls on the summit can be seen. Dark clouds loom in the sky.

Looking down the Mourne Wall, from the summit of Slieve Donard, in the Mourne Mountains of Northern Ireland.

Always reactivation.

Evidence for:

Reactivation of Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV)
Reactivation of latent Tuberculosis (LTBI)
Reactivation of dormant cancer cells.

The downstream negative population health effects of unmitigated SARS-CoV-2 transmission are undeniable now.

3. Postencephalitic Parkinsonism (PEP) was a noted complication of encephalitis lethargica, the most well-known sequela of the Spanish Flu.

As such, there is precedent.

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2. ...of neurodegenerative diseases, particularly *Parkinson's*, which involves deregulation of dopaminergic pathways'.

*my emphasis.

Anosmia - a common symptom of Covid-19 - is a common very early symptom of Parkinson's Disease.

Long COVID: SARS-CoV-2 persists in the brainstem in the long term and deregulates neuronal activity Symptoms can persist in some SARS-CoV-2 patients several months after infection. Scientists at the Institut Pasteur have demonstrated in an animal model that SARS-CoV-2 infects the brain and persists ...

1. 'They observed that genes associated with neuronal metabolism and activity are deregulated in these animals' brains in a way that is reminiscent of the molecular signatures...

www.pasteur.fr/en/home/pres...

I didn't - I took on my trusty Sony RX100, a travel camera I bought about eight years ago. I carry it everywhere!

4. This has concerned me for years. The combination of constant re-infection, new-onset chronic diseases as sequelae of infection, and worsening of pre-existing chronic diseases through infection or re-infection.

Happening just slowly enough to be normalised.

/end