- Helldivers 2 has been pulled from Steam in 170 countries without PSN access, while Valve ignores its own policy to issue refunds for players with over 100 hours Gamesradar
- Sony Is Making A Truly Terrible Mistake With ‘Helldivers 2’ Forbes
- Steam’s biggest game just became unplayable for millions of us, refunds issued GAMINGbible
- ‘Ouch, right in the review score’: Arrowhead CEO reacts to Helldivers 2 review bombing, apologizes for PSN mandate communication PC Gamer
- Arrowhead CEO Apologizes As Helldivers 2 Is Review Bombed on Steam: ‘I Just Want to Make Great Games’ IGN
Tag Archives: ignores
‘You’ll Pay Dearly For…’: Netanyahu’s Chilling Warning; Israel Ignores U.S. Call For War ‘Pause’ – Hindustan Times
- ‘You’ll Pay Dearly For…’: Netanyahu’s Chilling Warning; Israel Ignores U.S. Call For War ‘Pause’ Hindustan Times
- Netanyahu: No ceasefire unless Hamas releases hostages The Times of Israel
- Israel-Hamas war: Israel’s PM rejects calls for ceasefire, Biden urges for pause | WION WION
- Israel-Hamas war live: Netanyahu again rules out ceasefire until Hamas returns hostages; death toll in Gaza rises to 9,770 The Guardian
- Netanyahu says no ceasefire till hostages return; Iran arrests ‘Israeli spies’ Hindustan Times
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Cheers for King Charles as he ignores Harry and Meghan
Londoners today left King Charles in no doubt that he enjoys their support in the wake of Harry and Meghan’s transatlantic tirades in their Netflix mini-series.
His Majesty was given a rockstar’s welcome as he arrived at the JW3 Jewish community centre in Finchley Road, North London, as the Jewish community prepares to celebrate Chanukah on Sunday.
The monarch has maintained his dignified silence and continued his duties while his son and daughter-in-law go rogue in California.
But he didn’t let the hurt show, dancing joyously to the Hora with members of the Jewish community, holding the hands of two pensioners and dancing in a circle to whoops and cheers.
Charles also looked delighted when a crowd gathered to chant his name outside. The King waved furiously and grinned at the well-wishers. It came after crowds turned out at Westminster Abbey to cheer William and Kate last night, shouting: ‘We love you’.
A delighted Charles is swung around the dancefloor as he visited the Jewish community in North London today
The monarch is said to have vowed never to watch the Netflix series, which Harry and Meghan have used to brutally attack Charles, William and Kate.
But while he has stayed silent on the Sussexes, Charles today spoke of his grief at the tragedy in Jersey.
King Charles III has sent a letter to residents in Jersey giving them his ‘deepest possible sympathy and condolences’ following the island’s recent tragedies.
In a letter signed by the King, he said: ‘My wife and I have been so dreadfully shocked and saddened by the terrible tragedies in St Helier and at sea off St Ouen’s Bay.’
It continued: ‘At this time of great sorrow and grief, my deepest possible sympathy and condolences go to the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and to all islanders who have been affected by these heart-breaking events.
‘Your immeasurable sense of loss and anguish is very keenly felt and, in the days ahead, the people of the Bailiwick of Jersey will remain in my thoughts and prayers.’
The King also looked delighted as crowds chanted his name, sparking an excited wave from the monarch
King Charles III during a visit to the JW3 Jewish community centre in London as the Jewish community prepares to celebrate Chanukah
The King shares a laugh with medical staff at the Finchley community centre
The Jewish community centre is open to all faiths and acts as a hub for the arts, culture, social action and learning in North London
Charles III is presented with a menorah at a pre-Chanukah reception hosted on site for Holocaust survivors
Last night Britons showed their deep affection for the Prince and Princess of Wales as they arrived at Westminster Abbey having maintained a dignified silence as Harry and Meghan went to war with them.
There were audible cheers from members of the public who shouted ‘Kate, we love you’ and ‘Prince William, we love you’ as they stood in the cold to greet the future king and queen.
Inside the Abbey last night, William – watched by the king, George and Charlotte and more than 15 family members – hailed the ‘spirit of togetherness’ at Christmas in the face of relentless attacks by his younger brother and his actress wife.
The Royal Family members gathered for the dignified display of solidarity hours after Harry and Meghan attacked the institution again and again in their Netflix documentary.
Poignantly, William read a passage from the late Queen’s 2012 Christmas message in which Her Majesty said she was ‘always struck by the spirit of togetherness’ at Christmas.
It was a time, she had added, ‘when we remember that God sent his only son to serve, not to be served’. Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace have said they will not comment on Harry and Meghan’s claims – with the King said to be determined never to watch the six-part series.
A royal source told the Mirror: ‘Some astonishing claims have been made but the family are determined to stick together and maintain a dignified silence. They will not be dragged into a tit-for-tat row.’
While the palaces have refused to comment on the claims, sources have made clear that there is immense sadness and frustration about the Sussexes’ decision to yet again air family problems in public.
There was no suggestion that William intended the striking message to be contrasted with the example of his own brother, who turned on his family in yesterday’s Netflix series. Indeed it was planned long before the documentary.
William, Kate, George and Charlotte were cheered and greeted with chants of ‘we love you’ as they stuck to their jobs in the wake of Harry and Meghan’s incessant TV attacks
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have declared war on Buckingham Palace with particular focus on William
The Princess of Wales arriving for the ‘Together at Christmas’ Carol Service at Westminster Abbey in London
Kate chats to a little boy during her Christmas carol concert at Westminster Abbey in central London on Thursday
Singing from the same hymn sheet: (Front row left to right) King Charles III, the Queen Consort, the Prince of Wales, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, the Princess of Wales and the Countess of Wessex during the ‘Together at Christmas’ Carol Service at Westminster Abbey on Thursday evening
George, William, Charlotte and Catherine depart the service to more cheers
King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla were all smiles as they left the ‘Together at Christmas’ Carol Service at Westminster Abbey
The Countess of Wessex Sophie leaving Princess Kate’s Christmas carol service on Thursday night
Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi depart from the ‘Together at Christmas’ Carol Service on Thursday evening
Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank arriving for the ‘Together at Christmas’ Carol Service at Westminster Abbey in London. The couple are close to the Sussexes
Lady Frederick Windsor attends the ‘Together at Christmas’ Carol Service at Westminster Abbey. Spearheaded by Catherine, Princess of Wales, and supported by The Royal Foundation, this year’s carol service is dedicated to Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
But it will have resonated with many of the 1,800 guests gathered in the Abbey for the concert, staged to recognise the ‘selfless efforts of individuals, families and communities across the UK, and celebrate and showcase the joy that human connection and togetherness can bring’.
Kensington Palace said the Together at Christmas carol service, the second concert Kate has hosted, was dedicated to the late Queen and the values she demonstrated throughout her life, including ‘duty, empathy, faith, service, kindness, compassion and support for others’.
The palace said these principles were ‘shared and personified by the inspirational guests who have been invited to the abbey in recognition of their tireless work to help and care for those around them’.
A Christmas tree was decorated with small Paddington Bear decorations, a nod to the late Queen’s famous comedy sketch, while guests were greeted with atmospheric snowflakes from a snow machine as they arrived at the entrance.
Kate met and thanked those taking part in the service, including Paddington star Hugh Bonneville and singer Melanie C.
The Waleses were perfectly coordinated, the duchess earing a festive burgundy coat dress believed to be from London-based Eponine, paired with £14 drop ruby earrings from Accessorize and a matching shimmering clutch and gloves, and burgundy heels.
Charlotte, seven, wore a matching £160 burgundy coast from Trotters Heritage, while William donned a complementary shade of navy paired with a matching men’s dress coat and a tie in burgundy.
Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, arrived not long after Kate and was soon joined by Princess Eugenie and Beatrice, who were with their husbands.
Eugenie was seen in the sixth episode of Harry and Meghan’s Netflix series, visiting the family at their home in Montecito, California.
Also present was Prince Michael of Kent and his wife Princess Michael. She hit the headlines last week when Netflix revisited the moment she wore a Blackamoor brooch to a Christmas lunch that was attended by Meghan in 2017.
The service will be broadcast on ITV1 on Christmas Eve as part of a Royal Carols: Together At Christmas programme, narrated by Catherine Zeta Jones and featuring an introduction by Kate.
Hours earlier, battle lines were drawn yesterday as Prince Harry accused his brother of ‘bullying’ him and Meghan out of the Royal Family.
In a brutal finale to the pair’s damning Netflix documentary series, he repeatedly attacked William and claimed to have been ‘terrified’ when he was ‘screamed and shouted’ at in a Sandringham showdown.
Harry said his brother authorised aides to brief against him and claimed their father Charles lied to his face at the same meeting. The Queen supposedly failed to intervene because her ‘ultimate mission’ was to protect ‘the institution’.
Harry, 38, suggested the elderly monarch was being manipulated by family members and courtiers for their own ends, thwarting his attempts to meet her to discuss his and Meghan’s plans to quit as working royals.
Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace declined to comment last night, preferring to keep a dignified silence.
Harry’s grandmother the Queen said before her death that ‘recollections may vary’ when it comes to many of the claims from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Harry and Meghan’s final Netflix episodes cover their wedding, leaving the UK and building a new life in the US
Harry and Meghan said that the royals were upset they were ‘better’ at the job, accusing the palace of briefing against them
The Royal Family put on a united front yesterday to attend a recording of the Princess of Wales’s Together at Christmas carol concert, which goes out on December 24.
More than 15 family members – including the King, Queen Consort, William and his two eldest children, George and Charlotte – attended the event at Westminster Abbey to celebrate community champions and highlight the life and legacy of Elizabeth II.
Well-wishers bellowed ‘We love you’ to the embattled family. William read a passage from the Queen’s 2012 Christmas Speech in which she said she was ‘always struck by the spirit of togetherness’ at Christmas.
Harry and Meghan saved their most damaging claims for the final three episodes of the six-part ‘docuseries’, part of a multi-million pound deal with Netflix.
Dave Chappelle SNL Monologue Ignores Anti-Trans Scandal, Mocks Kanye
Taking main stage at NBC’s Studio 8H on Saturday night, comedian Dave Chappelle used his monologue as host of this week’s “Saturday Night Live” to speak on current events, but declined to discuss anything related to recent anti-trans jokes he told which drew controversy.
Chappelle generated anger last year after the October release of “The Closer,” which included harmful remarks from the 49-year-old comedian about the transgender community and prompted immediate reaction from Netflix staffers. This included a staged walkout from transgender Netflix employees and allies after the streamer’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos defended Chappelle’s harmful jokes as artistic expression, supporting his “creative freedom.”
Instead, Chappelle spent the first stretch of his monologue commenting on rapper Kanye West’s recent antisemitic remarks, opening by saying, “Before I start tonight, I wanted to read a brief statement that I prepared: ‘I renounce antisemitism in all its forms and stand with my friends in the Jewish community’. And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.” He then proceeded to tell jokes about Kanye’s antisemitism scandal, as well as Kyrie Irving’s recent antisemitic tweet and apology.
Chappelle also made a few jokes that made the audience gasp, including, “I’ve been to Hollywood and this is what I saw: It’s a lot of Jews, it’s a lot. But that doesn’t mean anything. There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri, but that doesn’t mean we run the place.”
West and Chappelle have crossed creative paths before, more particularly during the early aughts of West’s rap career, in which the musician appeared on the Comedy Central series “Chappelle’s Show” as a musical guest. West also performed during an event that Chappelle threw in New York in 2004, which was turned into the documentary film “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party.”
This was Chappelle’s third hosting stint on “Saturday Night Live,” and all three gigs came the same week as a contentious national election. It appears as if series creator and showrunner Lorne Michaels has etched the standup as “SNL’s” immediate post-election host for major moments in the country’s political history. Following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, Chappelle hosted the show for the first time, with the standup’s monologue underscoring his worry about the country’s future but also imploring audiences to give Trump’s presidency a chance. Four years later, during the show’s COVID-impacted season, Chappelle hosted for the second time following a presidential election that saw current President Joe Biden unseat Trump from the presidency.
In terms of this year’s election, he mocked Herschel Walker and the so-called “End of the Trump Era.”
Later in the episode, there was a barbershop-themed sketch that also discussed current events, including more on West, Walker, the election, as well as pop culture obsessions like “Yellowstone” and Netflix’s “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”
In another sketch, classic “Chappelle’s Show” characters were revived for a “House of the Dragon” parody.
Don Bolduc Ignores Trump Endorsement as He Embraces DeSantis
Early on in the 2022 election cycle, you could find few candidates in the Republican Party more enthusiastic about former President Donald Trump than New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc.
During his last Senate bid, Bolduc praised supporters on social media who carried his campaign sign at Trump events. He attended several Trump rallies. He phone banked for the then-president during his 2020 reelection bid and—before his Republican primary in September—claimed to be the strongest candidate in the field to go to Washington to fight the liberal establishment and “restore President Trump’s America First agenda.” And when he won, the former president noticed.
“Strong words from President Trump,” Bolduc said in response to a congratulatory post from the former president in September. “Thank you, sir!”
But as Bolduc—who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed opponent by 8 points in 2020—has undergone a metamorphosis from a long-shot curiosity to a legitimate threat to unseat Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan, the former president’s influence on Bolduc’s populist campaign has all but disappeared.
Though Trump lent Bolduc his endorsement earlier this week, Bolduc’s campaign has completely ignored it, even as it proudly touted similar endorsements by high-profile conservatives like former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, CPAC leaders Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, and senators Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee.
Several days after Trump’s endorsement, Bolduc took to Twitter to highlight an additional show of support from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a rising star in the Republican Party some in the GOP base see as Trump’s heir apparent. In a debate following Trump’s endorsement, Bolduc also dodged an attack by Hassan seeking to tie him to the former president’s rhetoric about a stolen 2020 election, saying that “we need to focus on the future” before pivoting to an aside about inflation and gas prices.
In a state President Joe Biden won by near-double digits in 2020, it might be the most politically prudent strategy, particularly as polling shows Hassan with a slight edge heading into Election Day.
Scott Eisen/Getty Images
Throughout the campaign, Bolduc has regularly faced questions over his belief in the “big lie,” waffling back and forth over his previously stated position on whether Biden was legitimately elected in 2020. Trump’s endorsement earlier this week—which Trump said Bolduc requested—notably described Bolduc as a “strong and proud ‘Election Denier,’ a big reason that he won the nomination, but he then disavowed. He has since come back, at least on busing, but that is only a small part of N.H. Election Fraud.”
While Bolduc “welcomes the support of President Trump and anyone who wants to change the direction of this country,” his spokeswoman Kate Constantini told The Wall Street Journal earlier this week, he has yet to acknowledge it publicly.
In recent weeks, Bolduc has sought to depict himself as an independent-minded outsider, stumping around the state on a message focused on Democrats’ performance on the economy—”heating and eating,” he often says—as well as Hassan’s ties to the Biden administration.
A significant investment by Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund and senior guidance from the party’s top minds helped polish the gaffe-prone Bolduc into a legitimate contender, with his poll numbers rising from a low of 41 percent in early October to within 3 points of Hassan in the closing days of the campaign.
Trump, meanwhile, remains largely unpopular in the Granite State, with unfavorable ratings nearing 60 percent in recent polling conducted by Saint Anselm College. And Bolduc’s message—that Democratic policies aren’t working—is a popular one.
“It’s the same reason that President Biden is not in Manchester right now campaigning for Hassan,” Neil Levesque, executive director at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, told Newsweek. “Endorsements like these tend to wrap yourself with an unpopular person, and you get sort of tied to their own popularity and whatever issues they’re tied in with. I think voters generally can see through that and know where the candidates are, but certainly reminding them with an endorsement is not helpful a week before an election.
“I’m assuming that the former president has no idea how unpopular he is in New Hampshire,” he added. “Because I think if he did, and he really wanted Bolduc to win, he probably wouldn’t have done it.”
Newsweek has contacted Bolduc’s campaign for comment.
Doug Mastriano campaign blames ‘default Facebook setting’ for deleted videos, ignores other questions
Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor, is sounding the “fake news” alarm over a Monday Inquirer article about his disappearing Facebook videos, claiming that they were removed due to a “default Facebook setting” that automatically deleted the videos after 30 days.
His campaign did not address why the most recent video cited in the story — recorded in late June — had already disappeared within about a week, or why many videos that are older than 30 days have not been deleted.
Jenna Ellis, a Mastriano legal adviser and former attorney for Donald Trump who was involved in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, on Monday tweeted a statement attributed to an unnamed spokesman for the Mastriano campaign.
“The biased mainstream media is trying to manufacture a scandal, but they haven’t done their homework,” the statement said.
» READ MORE: Doug Mastriano is deleting his videos from Facebook as he runs for Pa. governor
The Mastriano campaign did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication of Monday’s Inquirer story. Nor did it respond to the New York Times when it later asked similar questions about why some videos remained and others vanished.
The Inquirer reported on Monday that at least 14 videos have disappeared from the Mastriano campaign Facebook page in the last three months. In them, he claims that global warming is based on “pop science,” theorizes that Republicans who don’t support him secretly “disdain veterans,” and reiterates his position that “life starts at conception.”
In the past, Mastriano has deleted tweets promoting the Qanon conspiracy theory, and other potentially problematic content. His Senate website has also been scrubbed of a plan he proposed early in the COVID-19 pandemic to lift medical privacy restrictions so the government could disclose the names and locations of people infected.
Since Monday’s article published, Mastriano has been criticized by Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, and other Democrats who accused him of trying to moderate his positions for the general election after prevailing in a cutthroat Republican primary in May.
“Doug Mastriano spends every day trafficking conspiracy theories and reminding voters his top priority is banning abortion with no exceptions,” Manuel Bonder, a campaign spokesman for Shapiro, told the New York Times. “No amount of clicking the delete button can change the fact that Mastriano is the most extreme, dangerous candidate in Pennsylvania history.”
The Mastriano campaign did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment.
Trump boasts he could once get Elon Musk to ‘drop to knees’ as he ignores Jan 6 hearing
Donald Trump boasted that he could get Elon Musk to “drop to his knees” and “beg” for his help as the former president ignored the latest January 6 bombshells to escalate his feud with the Tesla titan.
Mr Trump took to Truth Social as the electric vehicle entrepreneur was sued by Twitter for backing out of his $44bn purchase of the social media platform.
“When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, “drop to your knees and beg”, and he would have done it,” posted Mr Trump.
The one-term president attacked the world’s richest person on Tuesday, shortly after the January 6 committee hearing heard that he had tried to contact a witness in the probe and that the Department of Justice had been notified.
And he mocked Mr Musk over his new legal battle with Twitter, which he agreed to buy earlier this year.
“Now Elon should focus on getting himself out of the Twitter mess because he could owe $44 billion for something that’s perhaps worthless. Also, lots of competition for electric cars!” he wrote.
“P.S. Why was Elon allowed to break the $15 million stock purchase barrier on Twitter without any reporting? That is a very serious breach! Have fun Elon and @jack, go to it!”
Mr Trump’s derision came the day after the SpaceX boss said he thinks it is time for the Republican politician to “hang up his hat & sail into the sunset”.
“I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset. Dems should also call off the attack – don’t make it so that Trump’s only way to survive is to regain the Presidency,” Mr Musk wrote on Twitter.
This came a few days after Mr Trump called him a “bull**** artist” and claimed he had told him that he had voted for him twice.
Mr Musk has told his 100m followers on Twitter that he would support Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over Mr Trump in 2024, and that he had only voted Republican for the first time in June.
Justin Turner Ignores Critical Comments By Joe Musgrove
The Los Angeles Dodgers began their series against the San Diego Padres with a 3-1 win behind Justin Turner providing all the scoring with two home runs.
Turner’s solo homer off Joe Musgrove tied the game in the second inning, and his two-run shot in the seventh gave the Dodgers a decided lead. While the homers off Musgrove proved to be the difference, the Padres’ starter was dismissive of Turner.
“I don’t know what his numbers are against me. When he’s in the box, I don’t feel like he’s a huge threat,” Musgrove told reporters after the game. “He’s a good hitter, he’s done a lot of damage to the teams I’ve been on in the past.
“But out of all the guys in the lineup, I didn’t feel like he was a huge threat. I just didn’t execute pitches very well and he put good swings on them.”
Turner continued his hot hitting and slugged another homer on Saturday, but chose not to get involved in trading barbs with Musgrove.
“I’m not going to answer that,” Turner responded when asked if he wished to respond to Musgrove. “I’m not going to get into that. Just, whatever.”
Turner over his career is 5-for-12 (.417 batting average) with two home runs, four RBI and a 1.417 on-base plus slugging percentage against Musgrove.
Turner found better feeling
Having dealt with inconsistency throughout much of the season thus far, Turner said work last week with Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc unlocked a better feel.
“Been grinding through some stuff and feeling like I’ve been getting pretty close to breaking out. Getting results felt pretty good,” Turner said during the Padres series.
“It’s good to get results. I’m not going up there trying to hit homers. I’m trying to put together a good at-bat and hit the ball hard somewhere. Got a couple pretty good that went over the fence.”
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Biden lunches in DC, ignores questions on Ukraine as crisis with Russia escalates
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President Biden on Saturday left the White House for lunch with his granddaughters at a nearby restaurant while ignoring shouted questions about the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
As the world is gripped by a possible Russian invasion into Ukraine, Biden declined to address the situation after leaving a lunch just blocks from the White House.
“Good to see you,” Biden said, in response to a shouted question from the press pool on tensions with Russia/Ukraine.
PELOSI SAYS PUTIN WILL PAY EVEN WITHOUT UKRAINE INVASION: YOU CAN’T ‘BULLY THE WORLD AND TAKE A WALK’
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a congressional delegation spent the weekend in Germany at the Munich Security Conference in an effort to de-escalate tensions and build up diplomatic solutions.
President Joe Biden leaves The Hamilton restaurant in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022. Biden had lunch with granddaughters Finnegan Biden and Naomi Biden and Naomi’s fiancé Peter Neal.
((AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta))
Biden on Friday said he has been making calls to the congressional delegation in Munich as well as NATO allies amid the “rapidly escalating crisis in Ukraine.” The United States is prepared to enact severe sanctions if Russia further invades Ukraine and Biden said he’s “convinced” Russian President Vladimir Putin has made that decision.
BIDEN’S HANDLING OF THE RUSSIA UKRAINE CONFLICT ‘CONTEMPTIBLE’: FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST
On Saturday, Biden departed in the presidential motorcade at 12:22 pm for the very short ride to The Hamilton restaurant, just blocks from the White House. The motorcade arrived at the restaurant at 12:26 pm.
Biden was lunching with Hunter Biden’s daughters Finnegan Biden and Naomi Biden, as well as Peter Neal, Naomi’s fiancé. Biden left the restaurant at 1:26 p.m. in aviator sunglasses and a dark face mask and waved to a cheering crowd nearby.
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“What’s the latest on Ukraine, Mr. President?” a reporter asked.
“Good to see you,” Biden said in response, according to pool reporters.
Another reporter asked if Biden still thought Russia was determined to attack Ukraine and invade.
Biden didn’t acknowledge the question or respond to it.
‘Omicron the Pandemic Killer’ Idea Ignores Dangers of Long COVID
Infection preventionists and other health care professionals once again on the frontlines battling a COVID-19 surge need be wary of “mild” symptoms that could haunt them in the long run.
Sometimes lost among the evidence that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 might be a way to, ironically, end the pandemic–mild symptoms and high infectivity might get us to herd immunity—is this question: What about long COVID? That’s especially pertinent to infection preventionists (IPs) and other health care professionals who find themselves yet again on the frontlines of another surge.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), long COVID “is a range of symptoms that can last weeks or months after first being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 or can appear weeks after infection. Long COVID can happen to anyone who has had COVID-19, even if their illness was mild, or if they had no symptoms.”
Linda Spaulding, RN-BC, CIC, CHEC, CHOP, a member of Infection Control Today®’s Editorial Advisory Board (EAB), says that she’s “seen athletes in their 20s on the wait list for double lung transplants because of long COVID. That’s something that has long-term consequences. Some people talk of COVID fog. They just can’t put their thoughts together.”
In addition, even the treatments for those with long COVID can put toll on a patient’s body.
IPs and other health care workers on the frontlines are also in danger of contracting long COVID. “If health care workers have to give up their careers, then what comes next?,” says Spaulding, adding that the financial consequences of long COVID on the health care system could last “forever.”
A preprint study by Oxford University investigators on the medRxiv website, compares brain scans for SARS-CoV-2 infections in 394 COVID-19 patients who tested positive for the infection against 388 patients in a control group. “We identified significant effects of COVID-19 in the brain with a loss of grey matter in the left parahippocampal gyrus, the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the left insula,” the study states. “When looking over the entire cortical surface, these results extended to the anterior cingulate cortex, supramarginal gyrus and temporal pole.”
As noted by Kevin Kavanagh, MD, another member of ICT®’s EAB, a core difficulty in society’s attempt to guide COVID-19 from pandemic to endemic is that COVID is not just a respiratory virus. Kavanagh wrote in October that SARS-CoV-2 is similar to HIV because it can “silently spread throughout the host’s body and attack almost every organ.”
IPs and other health care workers are not immune to long COVID, but they are not always believed when they complain of symptoms, as reported in the Atlantic in November. The author writes that he “interviewed more than a dozen … health professionals from the United States and the United Kingdom who have long COVID. Most told me that they were shocked at how quickly they had been dismissed by their peers.”
Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, an infectious disease expert and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, has been saying throughout the pandemic that COVID-19 will devolve into a seasonal nuisance like the common cold and influenza. She told ICT® in a Q&A in September that “if you study the history of infectious diseases … there has not been a single infection that we have not been able to get through if they don’t infect the immune system or if we have an adequate vaccine. If you develop an effective vaccine for an infection, even in the face of vaccine hesitancy, lack of vaccine uptake, you are going to get there because immunity is the only thing that gets you through the pandemic.”
About Omicron, Gandhi recently told Bloomberg that “we’re now in a totally different phase. The virus is always going to be with us, but my hope is this variant causes so much immunity that it will quell the pandemic.”
On the other hand, some health care professionals warn that the system should brace itself for an onslaught of long COVID cases in February, after the current Omicron surge subsides, as many experts predict.
Bruce Patterson, MD, who works for the Chronic COVID Treatment Center, says it is too soon to determine whether Omicron can cause long COVID, but believes it will follow the same route as Delta in that regard. He tells the Deseret News in Utah that “I mean, given what we’ve heard and what we’ve seen, and Omicron just infecting everybody under the sun, we’ll see the same thing with an abundance of kids and adults.”
Kavanagh writes for ICT® that “much of the abandonment of public health measures has been spurred by a massive disinformation campaign which has successfully convinced a relatively large portion of our population that as long as one lives through COVID-19 all will be well. The young and healthy have especially embraced this narrative.”
It is a false narrative, Kavanagh warns, because “the premise that mild infections do not carry significant risks is false. In part this belief is driven by those who have not died from COVID-19 being counted as ‘recovered’ as opposed to ‘survived’. SARS-CoV-2 causes a system infection and is commonly detected in the heart and brain, exemplified by the loss of smell from brain tissue destruction and loss of cardiac function from myocarditis. Even those who develop ‘mild’ COVID-19 can develop long COVID-19 which in many cases lasts for a year or longer.”
Everybody but everybody hopes that this pandemic will end, but experts like Kavanagh point out there’s a difference between hoping and wishful thinking. In terms of evolutionary survival, viruses have billions of years of a head start on humans. And just as the world focuses less on Delta and more on Omicron, yet another variant has been spotted.
B.1.640.2 is so new that it doesn’t have an official name yet, but it’s being called the IHU variant because investigators with IHU Mediterranee Infection discovered it. Their study, also on medRxiv, states that the IHU variant contains “46 mutations and 37 deletions resulting in 30 amino acid substitutions and 12 deletions” and affects parts of the brain that control taste and smell, a point made by Anthony Harris, MD, in a recent Q&A with ICT®. “The reason why very likely you lose your sense of smell and taste is not from the virus infecting your nerves—the actual peripheral nerves here for the sense of taste and smell—but it affects the centers in your brain,” Harris said.
The IHU study states that the “data are another example of the unpredictability of the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants, and of their introduction in a given geographical area from abroad.”
The late comedian Gilda Radner, one of seven original cast members of Saturday Night Live, used one of her catchphrases for the title of her book chronicling her battle with cancer: It’s Always Something.
That seems to be the case with the COVID-19 pandemic, as well.