Post-covid cognitive issues correlate with less secure blood-brain barrier.

Link. Needs more work but I like this theory. I suspect it’s not COVID specific.

“Campbell added that it was possible people with a tighter blood-brain barrier might be better protected from brain fog should they develop long Covid, explaining why the symptom did not arise in all patients.”

In other words a less tight BBB may be a preexisting condition (genetic?) that makes post-viral neurological dysfunction more likely. So not due to COVID but a variation that makes brain more susceptible to COVID (or other viral) injury.

New biology – The Obelisks.

Link. “small RNA species, hitherto unknown, that seem to be colonizing bacteria in the human oral mucosa and gut. These things are a bit like viroids, which are circular RNA species that are pathogens in plant species, but they have no sequence relationships with any known viroid.”

From a preprint. Remnants of the primeval RNA world? Able to cause disease?