Dr. Maura Boldrini is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at Columbia University who specializes in pain management. As a result, when COVID-19 laid siege to New York City in the early days of the pandemic, she was in an enviable position to discover that the respiratory sickness also created a startling number of symptoms that were related to the nervous system.

Memory lapses are common. Fatigue. There’s a fog in my head. Paranoia. Hallucinations. Psychosis.

In general, these types of mood and psychiatric symptoms appear throughout adolescence or early adulthood, however, the COVID-19 patients who had them were substantially older than the general population. The fact that there was nothing in their family histories that suggested they could be sensitive to these types of disorders added another twist to the story. 

These findings, according to Boldrini and others, indicate that COVID-19 is capable of launching a direct attack on the brain. However, as far as experts can tell, the coronavirus is not capable of infiltrating the brain beyond its perimeter.

According to Boldrini, there is a potential that these puzzling symptoms are the result of inflammation, which is the immune system’s “all hands on deck” response to an invading organism. Blood clots are known to be triggered by inflammation, while inflammation is known to be triggered by blood clots. It’s a lot like what occurs to people who have had traumatic brain injuries.

In an interview with my colleague Amina Khan, she explained that “people who have this kind of trauma in the brain have presented with sudden changes in behavior and personality, as well as suicide and other brain symptoms.” 

Boldrini has collected the brains of more than 40 COVID-19 victims in order to understand more about the event. Her lab at the New York State Psychiatric Institute is filled with dozens of crates containing paper-thin slices of brain tissue, which she uses for research.

Boldrini’s army of scientists is aiming to re-create a crime scene, one cell at a time, by doing laborious activities such as counting cells, studying their interactions with one another, measuring gene expression, and cataloging proteins. It is possible that the insights made by these researchers will help safeguard the brains of future COVID-19 patients — as well as give light on the causes of dementia and mental illness in general. 

“I believe that this could be extremely beneficial in the fight against the stigma associated with psychiatric illness,” Boldrini added. “The brain is an organ, just like any other organ,” says the author.

COVID-19 vaccinations are not lethal, but misinformation about the vaccine can be.

“Vaccines are lethal.” “The COVID Vaccines Are Poisonous.”

Protesters gathered at Los Angeles City Hall on Monday to express their dissatisfaction with the city’s severe vaccine requirements, as evidenced by some of the signs held aloft by the demonstrators. As a reminder, the city now wants proof of full vaccination in order to access a variety of companies, and city employees have until Dec. 18 to demonstrate that they are fully vaccinated or to obtain a medical or religious exemption.)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 433 million doses of the vaccine have been administered to more than 224 million Americans, and yet some of the thousands of people who attended the protest appeared sincere when they said they were concerned about the safety of the shots. A surge of major adverse effects would be impossible to conceal in the United States, where two-thirds of the population has now been at least partially immunized.

Nonetheless, Michael McMahon stated that his reservations about the “still-experimental” injection outweighed his commitment to his profession as a police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. The 14-year veteran surrendered his badge and firearm on Friday because he refused to undergo a COVID-19 vaccine shot (not even the one made by Pfizer and BioNTech, which has received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration).

McMahon informed the crowd that it had been “one of the most difficult days of my life.”

Others came to the demonstration because they are opposed to vaccine requirements on a philosophical level. Cindy Lazo’s sentiments were conveyed in a handmade placard she was holding: “I’m not anti-Vaxx. “I’m strongly opposed to mandates.”

Another contingent, on the other hand, was motivated by politics. Some Republicans popularized the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” to criticize President Biden, and signs and T-shirts proclaimed “Let’s Go Brandon.” The radical Proud Boys were promoted on hats. The attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, according to at least one placard on the wall, and one of the speakers was Dr. Simone Gold, a participant in the rebellion and the founder of a group that disseminate false information about COVID-19. For her role in the attack, Gold is facing federal counts of violent entry and disorderly conduct, and she is currently awaiting trial.

Officials who imposed vaccine mandates, according to Gold, had a specific purpose in mind: “to create a world in which humans believe that they require overlords to think for them.”

Rather than making money, their purpose is to save lives. More than 753,000 people in the United States have died as a result of COVID-19, with more than half of those deaths occurring after the first COVID-19 vaccination was approved for use in the United States. 

Following an increase in hospitalizations in areas with poor vaccination rates, according to the most recent data from California, there is renewed concern that the situation could deteriorate further as the holiday season approaches. The number of people admitted to hospitals in Riverside, San Bernardino, and Fresno counties have increased by more than 20% in recent weeks.

According to Dan Lynch, head of the Central California Emergency Medical Services Agency, “the bigger hospitals are probably between 110 percent and 130 percent of normal capacity” in Fresno County. ‘We’re seeing a significant amount of traffic in the hospital emergency departments.’

Although vaccination rates have been reasonably high in some sections of the state, this hasn’t been enough to keep hospitalizations from growing in others. According to the Orange County Department of Public Health, the number of inpatients with COVID-19 has increased by 16 percent since Halloween. That could be explained by the fact that people’s immunity to vaccines is eroding.

So far, a large number of Californians have not felt the need to obtain booster shots on a whim. So, for example, despite the fact that boosters are advised for all seniors, less than one-third of state citizens 65 and older have received the additional dose so far.

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, tweeted early Tuesday morning, “Keep your immunity up.” “Go get yourself a booster. 

Newsom is not the only one who believes this. The National Basketball Association and the National Basketball Players Association are both in the same boat. 

Players, coaches, and referees who had the Johnson & Johnson vaccination more than two months ago, or either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine at least six months ago, are encouraged to get booster doses, according to the two organizations.

Despite the fact that just a tiny number of players have been infected with a breakthrough infection, the league is closely monitoring the efficiency of the vaccines. When the new season began last month, an estimated 97 percent of players had been vaccinated, a figure that was far higher than the 80.8 percent rate for adults in the United States as a whole.