The dead town almost dies again … of Covid
OperaFrom the Denver Gazette:
… Opera Colorado that had the most to lose as it prepared to open “Die tote Stadt” (“The Dead City”) on Saturday … Cast in the dual roles of Marie and Marietta was powerhouse singer Sara Gartland, who was diagnosed with COVID last fall. It was only late into the rehearsal process that the vocal fatigue she was only recently experiencing was diagnosed as partial nerve paralysis of her laryngeal nerve caused by her previous COVID infection. Her role(s), said Opera Colorado’s Jennifer Colgan, comprise one of the most demanding in the opera repertoire, “which makes securing an understudy or cover difficult.” And finding an available last-minute replacement next to impossible.
But the Opera Colorado artistic team found Kara Shay Thomson, “one of the very small handful of sopranos in the world who knows the roles, let alone lives in North America and would not be delayed by visa processes,” Colgan said. “Not only was Ms. Thomson available, but she was on a plane to Denver within eight hours of receiving the phone call from Opera Colorado.”…
Read on here.
The Omicron variant (which most folk will have encountered by now), targets the upper respiratory tract, rather than the lower respiratory tract (lungs), thus it can cause ENT issues in some patients.
I came across a patient in late 2021 who presented with a blocked left nostril and somehow acquired an odd throat whistle on exhaling, which sounded like a toy teddy bear being squeezed. I wonder if anyone else has had this. The patient subsequently recovered although it took a year to get rid of the the teddy bear whistle!
It seems as the Sars-cov-2 virus mutated, each variant became more infectious (some evidence less pathogenic) than the previous one, hence the successive waves of infection on lightening up in autumn 2020 and mid 2021. Given than no one received vaccination much before January 2021, when the virus had converted to Delta, if you did not get the wild type Wuhan alpha strain which was the main one causing hospitalisation you had a much better chance of avoiding the severe symptoms.
A previous Sars-cov-2 infection, eg Delta or Alpha might lead to laryngeal nerve paralysis, Omicron however is more probable as it targets ENT. This might also explain the patient case with the teddy bear whistle.
I got Covid for the first time in late November, most likely this newer variant, and the worst symptom for me was terrible congestion. Both nostrils blocked, sleeping was almost impossible for several days. Breathed through my mouth, very unpleasant. Kept thinking my nose would clear, but it took almost a week. The
OTC meds helped but not enough. Can’t imagine how an opera singer would have felt going through it!
There are some reports in the literature showing evidence for the cause of laryngeal nerve paralysis in patients linked to those who have come off ventilation, also some who received the Pfizer-Moderna mRNA vaccine as an adverse reaction. Sars-cov-2 may be a contributory factor but may not necessarily be the cause in every case. As I mentioned, Omicron is the variant more likely as it has an ENT aetiology.
Thank you for acknowledging that it could have been a vaccine injury. Progress.
No, no reference to vaccines in the previous post. Shame. On you s-reading malicious disinformation, shame on Slippeddisc for not censoring you.
The cheerful voice of pro-censorship ignorance speaks. Read more carefully next time :
“evidence for the cause of laryngeal nerve paralysis in patients linked to those who have come off ventilation, also some who received the Pfizer-Moderna mRNA vaccine as an adverse reaction”
Long COVID is apparently being classed and treated as a neurological disease (see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/long-covid-now-looks-like-a-neurological-disease-helping-doctors-to-focus-treatments/ and other sources). This would be consistent with the partial paralysis of Ms. Gartland’s laryngeal nerve. I hope a successful treatment can be found!
“Long Covid” covers a multitude of sins Peter, Scientific American is not a medical journal however. The nerve paralysis has several causes, viral infection, stroke etc.
Readers might find this Mayo Clinic guide to Laryngeal nerve paralysis of interest. A viral infection is only one possible cause. Clearly someone singing eg Brunhilde for long periods might well over tax their vocal cords. Stroke is another indication.
My advice is if you have a concern, make an appointment to see your GP/family clinician and if necessary an ENT consultant. Rest is always a good idea too.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/vocal-cord-paralysis/symptoms-causes/syc-20378873#:~:text=Vocal%20cord%20paralysis%20is%20a,to%20speak%20and%20even%20breathe.
Why would someone without any clinical training mark Doc Martin down? If the person has a view on the nerve paralysis let him comment.
I see Prof. Norman Fenton has published papers on the ONS Covid-19 stats linked to mortality re: vaccine, interesting the ONS data is so flawed, they should have asked Norman to supervise the data analysis. It now seems masks were totally ineffective, the lockdown would have been more effective early, once it converted to Omicron, those ventilators could be mothballed.
The recent Cochrane Review by Jefferson et al seems to suggest masks were ineffective. However their methodology is flawed.
The Cochrane Review combined randomised controlled trials (RCTs) using meta-analysis. RCTs test an intervention in one group and compare it with a “control” group that doesn’t receive the intervention or receives a different intervention. A meta-analysis pools the results of multiple studies. They were comparing apples and oranges. N95 masks and clinical grade masks do reduce transmission as does ventilation. My impression is that the initial strains were less infectious but more pathogenic as it mutated, alpha, delta, Omicron it became more infectious but did not correlate with increased hospitalisations.
NEJM published papers showing evidence of immune evasion, after 2 shots mRNA (Pfizer-Moderna), immunity was near zero after 6 months post 2nd dose and 2 weeks post booster shot. Not surprising as it converted so quickly. The population remained unvaccinated in 2020, only a few had a shot in December 2020, most did not receive vaccination until spring 2021 by which time the original strain had converted to delta and then Omicron by October 2021.
I did not get it at all for some reason, I did wear N 95 masks and clinical grade respirators for most of 2020-21.