The danger is clear and present: COVID isn’t merely a respiratory illness; it’s a multi-dimensional threat impacting brain function, attacking almost all of the body’s organs, producing elevated risks of all kinds, and weakening our ability to fight off other diseases. Reinfections are thought to produce cumulative risks, and Long COVID is on the rise. Unfortunately, Long COVID is now being considered a long-term chronic illness — something many people will never fully recover from.
Dr. Phillip Alvelda, a former program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office that pioneered the synthetic biology industry and the development of mRNA vaccine technology, is the founder of Medio Labs, a COVID diagnostic testing company. He has stepped forward as a strong critic of government COVID management, accusing health agencies of inadequacy and even deception. Alvelda is pushing for accountability and immediate action to tackle Long COVID and fend off future pandemics with stronger public health strategies.
Contrary to public belief, he warns, COVID is not like the flu. New variants evolve much faster, making annual shots inadequate. He believes that if things continue as they are, with new COVID variants emerging and reinfections happening rapidly, the majority of Americans may eventually grapple with some form of Long COVID.
Let’s repeat that: At the current rate of infection, most Americans may get Long COVID.
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LP: A recent JAMA study found that US adults with Long COVID are more prone to depression and anxiety – and they’re struggling to afford treatment. Given the virus’s impact on the brain, I guess the link to mental health issues isn’t surprising.
PA: There are all kinds of weird things going on that could be related to COVID’s cognitive effects. I’ll give you an example. We’ve noticed since the start of the pandemic that accidents are increasing. A report published by TRIP, a transportation research nonprofit, found that traffic fatalities in California increased by 22% from 2019 to 2022. They also found the likelihood of being killed in a traffic crash increased by 28% over that period. Other data, like studies from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, came to similar conclusions, reporting that traffic fatalities hit a 16-year high across the country in 2021. The TRIP report also looked at traffic fatalities on a national level and found that traffic fatalities increased by 19%.
LP: What role might COVID play?
PA: Research points to the various ways COVID attacks the brain. Some people who have been infected have suffered motor control damage, and that could be a factor in car crashes. News is beginning to emerge about other ways COVID impacts driving. For example, in Ireland, a driver’s COVID-related brain fog was linked to a crash that killed an elderly couple.
Damage from COVID could be affecting people who are flying our planes, too. We’ve had pilots that had to quit because they couldn’t control the airplanes anymore. We know that medical events among U.S. military pilots were shown to have risen over 1,700% from 2019 to 2022, which the Pentagon attributes to the virus.
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LP: You’ve criticized the track record of the CDC and the WHO – particularly their stubborn denial that COVID is airborne.
PA: They knew the dangers of airborne transmission but refused to admit it for too long. They were warned repeatedly by scientists who studied aerosols. They instituted protections for themselves and for their kids against airborne transmission, but they didn’t tell the rest of us to do that.
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LP: How would you grade Biden on how he’s handled the pandemic?
PA: I’d give him an F. In some ways, he fails worse than Trump because more people have actually died from COVID on his watch than on Trump’s, though blame has to be shared with Republican governors and legislators who picked ideological fights opposing things like responsible masking, testing, vaccination, and ventilation improvements for partisan reasons. Biden’s administration has continued to promote the false idea that the vaccine is all that is needed, perpetuating the notion that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to do anything about it. Biden stopped the funding for surveillance and he stopped the funding for renewing vaccine advancement research. Trump allowed 400,000 people to die unnecessarily. The Biden administration policies have allowed more than 800,000 to 900,000 and counting.
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LP: The situation with bird flu is certainly getting more concerning with the CDC confirming that a third person in the U.S. has tested positive after being exposed to infected cows.
PA: Unfortunately, we’re repeating many of the same mistakes because we now know that the bird flu has made the jump to several species. The most important one now, of course, is the dairy cows. The dairy farmers have been refusing to let the government come in and inspect and test the cows. A team from Ohio State tested milk from a supermarket and found that 50% of the milk they tested was positive for bird flu viral particles.
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PA: There’s a serious risk now in allowing the virus to freely evolve within the cow population. Each cow acts as a breeding ground for countless genetic mutations, potentially leading to strains capable of jumping to other species. If any of those countless genetic experiments within each cow prove successful in developing a strain transmissible to humans, we could face another pandemic – only this one could have a 58% death rate. Did you see the movie “Contagion?” It was remarkably accurate in its apocalyptic nature. And that virus only had a 20% death rate. If the bird flu makes the jump to human-to-human transition with even half of its current lethality, that would be disastrous.
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Rhaenyra's whole promo line about needing to be seen as a ruler with "sword and shield" and showing that clip of her pointing the sword... but knowing that in reality she's never used a real weapon in her life, never learned to fight with a sword, and never learned a single thing about warfare and strategy... like yes as a 14 year old she said she'd rather ride to battle and glory but then she never pursued any of those interests or got any training despite it obviously being available to her as the heir to the throne and a Targaryen woman... sure they wanna push this Visenya angle on her but in reality she's more like her sister Rhaenys... like how are they gonna try and make this specific girlboss angle work when she's never done anything in her life where she could remotely be able to effectively rule as some "sword and shield" figure
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With Dappleduo releasing playlists I'm reminded of when everyone's spotify wrapped was dropping and Richas showed Dappers wrapped to Pac, who said something like "Oh he listens to gamer music", and Richas misheard and thought he said "gay music", and then proceeded to hand Pac this
A screenshot of Richas telling Dapper that Pac called his music gay.
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"That great wide Ricciardo grin throws people off the scent, can lead the uninitiated to assume he’s a pussy cat. He’s an assassin.
Those smiles are genuine, his default, but they are also his shield. He is a genuine happy-go-lucky spirit, with a natural informality that covers a full-on intensity about his racing and total self-belief.
It’s not just that he’s always smiling; he will invariably be the one up for a silly prank or a funny video and he has friends in virtually every team in the paddock from catering staff through to senior engineers. In ordinary life he’d be seen as just a fun guy. In the sterile and serious environment of the F1 paddock he’s like a breath of fresh air."
Mark Hughes | The Smiling Assassin | MotorSport Magazine Dec 2015
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