Being Updated Keeps Me Sane Why I’m always seeking newer information on COVID-19

My everyday routine

     Open my laptop. Check out tweets of the variant hunters and researchers whom I’ve been following these years. They are so trustworthy that I always jump to articles, data sets and websites that they introduce in their tweets. The topic is mainly COVID-19; especially newly found variants, the infectious situation and trends of the world and new treatments and medicines, etc.. That’s my daily routine.
     Recently world scientists have been focusing on a new sub-variant, Eris or EG.5 (sub-variants of the Omicron family), which is likely to be more transmissible than any of its former relatives. Surprisingly it was reported that high fever is not one of its main symptoms anymore.

Trinity of damages: the immune, the mitochondria and the brain/nerve

     COVID-19 is caused by a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2. The virus affects not only the respiratory tract but also any organ or cell including the immune cells, the mitochondria and the brain/nerve cells. While the first symptoms are gone and test negative, 10% to 30% of the infected have Long Covid; persistent coughs, fatigue, headaches, pains of muscle or joint, diabetes, kidney failure, brain fog, etc.. What’s going on?
     I’m not a scientist and I can’t explain the precise mechanism. However, I will show the outline of a big picture of it; SC2 (SARS-CoV-2) affects the immune cells, the mitochondria and the brain/nerve cells through plural mechanisms, such as activating of inflammation, abnormal autoimmunity and decreasing of innate immunity.
     The immune cells are like bodyguards and warriors against pathogens as well as their own miscopied cells. The mitochondria are like power generating plants that change what we eat into energy. The brain and nerve cells regulate our cognitive function and motor system of both voluntary and involuntary muscles. SC2s can impair all three crucial functions even if the symptoms in the initial stage are mild.

PR failure makes recognition gaps among Japanese people

   　 The Japanese government has neglected to make people correctly understand what the COVID-19 is like. So there are people with low COVID literacy as well as deniers or minimizers unexpectedly close to you.
     Furthermore, the Kishida cabinet, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare or MHLW and the mainstream media have been keeping silent all about COVID since Prime Minister Kishida announced in March that the government basically would NOT require any particular behavior restriction of people, and COVID-19 would be revised into level 5 from 2. In my view, that was such a big mistake that quite a number of people have interpreted the announcement as NO-NEED MASKS and VIRUS IS GONE.
     The truth is that the number of symptomatic patients and hospital admission has been increasing since May with less accessibility to testing and anti-virus medicines. In July emergency calls for an ambulance overwhelmed the capacity in big cities. It has been reported that infectious outbreaks occurred in many schools, offices, hospitals and nursing homes. Human resource shortage became a serious issue in various types of working places.
     And another truth is that quite a number of people don’t see such problems and think that the pandemic is over and it’s time to go out and enjoy anything which has been absent in the previous three and half years of their lives; the festivals, the music concerts, the theater plays, the sports games, etc..
     I feel as if I was seeing parallel worlds which will never meet at even one point. It is apparent to me that nothing is common with such deniers and minimizers because I have learned how terribly SC2s destroy us.

Every government seems to have run out of their guts, resources and funds

     When I read news articles and posts on SNS from other countries, I know the situation is similar everywhere now. Every government seems to have run out of their guts, resources, and funds because the virus repeats mutations so frequently, newly emerged variants spread so fast, a huge number of people get infected at a time and the capacity of the medical service system implodes. They just cannot help.
     I have personally realized that governance as well as bureaucracy in every field had already malfunctioned for a long time before the pandemic in Japan. Industry and technology also have been far behind other developed countries.
     Am I afraid of COVID-19? Yes, of course. Nothing is reliable because the Japanese government does almost nothing scientific, reasonable and efficient about COVID prevention. They can’t build any smart systems with digital technologies for us. Thinking about that, I’d like to be desperate and suicide.
     Therefore I will go on with my routine. I think updating on COVID-19 is the only way to keep me sane. The more I learn about it, the more I can prepare just in case.