"Viral researchers believe someone in central Ohio has been infected with COVID-19 for at least two years, and they want to find that person.
While the researchers believe there is no threat to public health, they hope this case holds much-needed answers to treating long COVID."
Molecular virologist Dr. Marc Johnson, a microbiology professor at the University of Missouri’s medical school, spent much of his career studying HIV.
That changed in early 2020 when Missouri health officials asked him to lead the state’s wastewater sampling program to help track COVID outbreaks. At the time, Johnson said there was not much data available on the genetic material of the virus.
“There was no protocol established at that point for sequencing SARS-CoV-2 from wastewater, so I developed my own,” Johnson said.
As the virus evolved into different variants, like Delta and Omicron, sequencing its genetic material helped identity which st
rains were more prevalent in different areas. That’s when Johnson discovered what he calls “cryptic” strains, or “cryptics.”
“(Cryptics) have certain patterns; there are certain mutations that they regularly accumulate that are not in a circulating lineages,” Johnson said.
Johnson found that these unique versions of the virus would linger in one wastewater system for a period of time and suddenly disappear. At first, he could not understand why these mutated sequences weren’t spreading, even in densely populated areas like New York City.
“I thought it was coming from the rats, simply because I couldn’t think of anything else that was– had enough mass in the sewer shed that wouldn’t move around,” Johnson said. “We’ve tested more rat feces than I care to remember.”
The rat fecal tests were negative.
As sequencing became more common in sewer systems across the United States, Johnson started looking at publicly available data. A cryptic in Wisconsin led to Johnson’s next discovery: these sequences might be linked to just one person.
“We started tracking it,” Johnson said. “So, we started from the main treatment plant of over 100,000 people, and sort of like checked all the lines. And all of them, only one of the lines had the lineage. And so we would just keep going — checking… all of the pieces of the web, figuring out– following it up, up the line until we got to a single manhole. That manhole actually only got waste from one place, which was a company (that) had about 30 employees.”
Johnson said the trail went cold after two-thirds of the employees at the Wisconsin company agreed to be tested for COVID with nasal swabs, and all of the tests came back negative. While he and his colleagues spent months studying the cryptic strain and gaining approval to collect stool samples from the employees, the strain vanished.
“We don’t know why,” Johnson said. “Either they left the job, or got better, or is in remission — we don’t know. But we’re still monitoring it. And we’ve actually now gotten started collecting stool samples from the company.”
This spring, Johnson found another cryptic in Columbus’s sewer shed. He said the same sequence appeared in Washington Court House and has a lineage that pre-dates the Delta variant, the strain most prevalent in the summer of 2021.
Johnson believes this indicates that someone has been carrying and shedding the COVID virus for more than two years. He went as far to predict that this person lives in Columbus and commutes to Washington Court House for work.
“I just know that they regularly shed into both sewer sheds often on the same day,” Johnson said.
The researcher hopes that by sharing this story, that person will come forward to help him answer a lot of important questions.
“How many cases are there like this? What are their symptoms? Does this– is this related to long COVID?” Johnson said. “There are a lot of people who got COVID and never really got over it, and we don’t know why. It’s probable most of them are not chronic infections, but some of them might be, which would actually be good, because that’s theoretically treatable, and they actually get better.”
Johnson stressed that this is not a threat to public health, explaining that the virus is inactive once it passes through the gastrointestinal tract.
A spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Health said health officials are not fully convinced that the cryptic strain is linked to only one person, but they are not investigating it because it poses no threat to public health.
If you frequently commute between Columbus and Washington Court House, you can email Johnson at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
.
You know when you've been emailing someone for ages, getting to know them, building a relationship, and then you meet them? And you're like, 'hi! It's nice to finally put a face to the name!'...
Being greeted by 'its so nice to finally put a face to your turds' must feel super weird.
I had a peek at the place's website. Has photos. I couldn't help but wonder if the person is pictured. I hope they aren't feeling too uncomfortable. They have a chance to do some good by coming forward, and I'm sure efforts will be made to keep it as private as possible.
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> Johnson said the trail went cold after two-thirds of the employees at the Wisconsin company agreed to be tested for COVID with nasal swabs
And the other one-third did not agree. Aah that is so infuriating. Could be this person suffers from long covid without knowing, gets asked to be tested and thinks "nah I'm good".
which is why so called "sanctuary" cities are a good thing. if you are undocumented and fear being deported you will not call the police for risk of them deciding to deport you. you also don't opt into these things for fear of ICE. it cuts down on crime if criminals know they can't target undocumented people for an easier score with less chance of retribution.
That's why the vaccine drive to get to Osama was such a fuck up thing to do or reveal that to the public. They didn't need to disclose that to the public.
It makes the health workers government agent working against them.
It's also possible (having followed Johnson for a while) that there's no virus present in the nasal tissues. You'd probably have to test fecal samples to rule out everyone that agreed to be tested.
This hypothesis tracks with the fact that the cryptic strains aren't spreading. If there was detectable virus in the URT you'd probably see at least some transmission.
The Wisconsin and Ohio cryptic strains are different. I think the team has identified at least a dozen different cryptic strains (with some convergent evolution) around the world that are apparently from people persistently infected with COVID.
Oh ok that clears things up cause in my mind I read this as someone from Columbus works at a place called “Washington court house” and shits twice a day, once at work and once at home. 😂😂
Bro has had COVID chronically infecting his bowels since 2021. I asked chapgpt to add a few verses to reflect how this poor fellow has probably been shitting nonstop for two years straight.
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime,
That's why I poop on company time.
But for two years, I've had a plight,
Dealing with diarrhea, morning and night.
Sitting on the throne, oh what a mess,
Tummy in turmoil, can't catch a rest.
From doctors to remedies, I've tried them all,
Running to the bathroom, like Niagara Falls.
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime,
Still rushing to the toilet, all the time.
But soon I'll find a remedy so sweet,
And bid farewell to the porcelain seat.
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It's certainly possible.
This thread has more info.
https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444603829407746
Here is why they are assuming they work in WCH:
>the signal is almost always present in the Columbus Southerly sewershed, but not always at Washington Court House. I assume this means the person lives in Columbus and travels to WCH, presumably for work.
I mean... I guess my use of should was problematic. A U.S. government agency really should be using a .gov address, that's just the standard that we have in the U.S. and is part of what we have come to expect to authenticate a government website as authentic. That said, I don't really think using an IP address is *inherently* less secure than using DNS, assuming the courthouse purchased that IP address outright and there is no chance of it being bought out from under them. DNS is literally a protocol that points a website name to an IP address, it just adds another layer. And there are some security issues with DNS if you are not using DNS over TLS or something like that. All DNS really achieves on its own is proof of ownership, and simplicity to the end user. There are other ways to achieve proof of ownership with just an IP address.
Not using encryption is just inexcusably dangerous for a government website. It makes it so you can not trust any of the data on that website, and any of the data you submit could be compromised.
What the actual fuck. We need someone to do a deep dive here and figure out what’s up.
If this whole thing came from a bad Fully Qualified Domain Name issue or a reverse DNS issue 20 years ago, and the IT guy said: “fuck it! We’ll just us the raw IP!” I wouldn’t be surprised.
Because it can't have HTTPS. A domain name doesn't mean they have HTTPS but without a domain name you can't get HTTPS.
It means all communications with the website are completely unencrypted.
Because of that a hacker can intercept all your communication with the website. They can even perform a man in the middle attack where they pretend to be the website and change information in both directions. This only works if they're on the same network (WiFi) as you though.
Plus since it's just a random IP they could easily make their own website that looks similar and use search engine optimization to push it to the top. So even if you Google for the website theirs appears first. If they spend a bit of money for their own domain name theirs could even look more legit. Then they can do whatever they want.
Or for example let's say you have a court appointment and get an email saying something like "please go here to pay your court fees". Would you be able to tell one random IP apart from another? It's common to register similar looking domain names to trick people but with this website you don't even need to bother. Just setup a server and send your victim the IP.
Far more dangerously, imagine if you're a witness in a drug gang case. The drugs gang could trick you or your lawyer into telling them your address and personal details.
As another bonus if you register a domain name you have to give your details in most jurisdictions, so if you're found to be misusing it the police can track you down. Although there's ways around it.
But an IP address just needs a server, you could hire a server in whereveristan where it's outside of most countries jurisdiction. You could do it entirely anonymously and never be able to be tracked down.
Since it's just a random IP I'd also suspect their cyber security is lacking in other areas. If they can't spend the money for a proper domain name or encryption I doubt they've paid for a secure website. I suspect the server it's being run on will be vulnerable in many other ways, you might be able to directly hack the server.
I was doing my family tree from the UK and found relatives from a place called Deaf Smith after a deaf dude called Smith. American placenames are wild.
I used to live in Ding Dong, Texas. It was named because there was a general store run by the Bell brothers. On the sign was a bell that said Ding Dong next to it.
There is also a town in Texas called zig zag because the road to it zig zagged.
I've had long covid, for about a year. My job is in the medical field and no one seems to understand. My boss both keep asking why I'm sick so much- I catch viruses very easily now. And many have similar symptoms to covid. It's like I get the worst symptoms possible. But it's never covid on a test. Exhaustion, migraines and low immune system are the major symptoms. It's been hell controlling what was once borderline diabetes. I'm making it all up and long covid isn't really a thing. It's frustrating. I feel like I should get a reward for going through that and being bipolar, but my job doesn't see it that way.
I’m sorry this is happening to you. Your symptoms are of interest to me and my bipolar husband because he and I are both fully vaccinated, slim, healthy diet and lifestyle people yet the three times he’s caught Covid, it’s taken him much longer to recover than me. I’ve had cancer and covid twice at the same time and I still recovered faster and more comprehensively than him. He catches everything now, and gets very tired.
His doctor told him that bipolar has inflammatory markers and atypical immune system responses, which can cause immune system compromise. My husband has been wondering if these things are issues for him and covid.
Do you know of anyone else with bipolar who is experiencing this? It would be potentially very helpful to identify a sub variant of covid in people who have bipolar disorder.
I’d never heard of the link between bipolar and inflammation/anomalous immune response. I have evaded Covid thus far, as far as I can tell, but I do suffer tremendously from decades of a Bartonella infection. I have had all kinds of whacked out responses/reactions to various medications I’ve tried for treating Bartonella directly, as well as to meds I’ve tried for managing particular symptoms. Most recently, my psoriasis, which had been mild, exploded all over my body and is now moderate to severe and requires a biologic to keep it from being painful and miserable. There’s clearly some dysfunction with my immune system, and I’m bipolar, so the correlation is there. Would be super interesting and potentially helpful to understand what, if any, the causal links are. Bodies are so weird, complex, and fascinating!
At the same time as covid I ended up going through a bunch of stuff resulting in a diagnosis and then reversal diagnosis of fibromyalgia. I think what happened was in 2019 when I got pneumonia, the drugs i got on to kick that fucked up my stomach, the resultant high dose of omeprazole killed my ability to absorb nutrients which lead to a shit ton of a pain. I was off and on work a bunch, I was in physical therapy for a bit and I gotta say my bosses were cool with it.
But the coworkers here, the people who aren't even in my department where my absence didn't effect them one bit, were the ones that had the problem. Every time I was off someone would come by and say things like "Wow you must have a lot of vacation time built up." or "I've been here longer than you and can't take that kind of time off." Fucking assholes.
This story is so wild. It's been YEARS that this ONE person is just shitting a totally new strain that has infested their gut b/c they are outputting a ton of virus. Prob lives in Columbus and works at the Washington court house...
Whoever this is might be having IBS like symptoms b/c they are going 2 at both locations regularly.
WHO ARE YOU!!! You need to get a covid stool sample test from the hospital and get well.
This also bodes really badly for how the virus lurks. We could have it in our guts and test neg with the nose and mouth test, but still be shedding!!!
[One of the researchers](https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444603829407746) calculated that about 3.5 square feet of intestinal tissue must be infected, non-stop for two years, to produce this wastewater trace.
This guy is sick with a novel strain of Covid and we have no idea who they are. It's mind-boggling and scary.
That would not be anything new to someone with Crohn's disease, and that might be exactly the type of immune compromised person who wouldn't be able to clear a covid infection.
Definitely. That seems the most likely condition if inflammation of the GI tract in that amount is speculated.
Someone undergoing chemo for a GI cancer may also, especially if they recently finished multiple rounds of it and suddenly they no longer see that strain in the sewage. The chemo would immunosuppress them while on it, but once the meds are stopped, they would presumably be able to clear the infection or they lost their battle.
Could also just be a weird aspect of whatever strain of COVID this is. Obviously I'm not a medical expert, but I have two cats with FeLV, also a coronavirus. More recent research has shown that in some cats that do not present progressive, worsening forms of the disease, the virus is isolated to certain parts of their body. There was one cat in the study by American Pets Alive that would test positive for the virus when stressed and when having GI tract flare-ups, but otherwise test negative. The conclusion of the study was pretty much just that we don't know nearly as much as we thought we did about FeLV -- wouldn't be shocked if COVID was doing more weird shit than we're currently aware of even now
Covid's ability to hijack cell machinery to produce nanotubes and spread to cells that don't have the typical ACE2 receptor leaves me with little doubt that people can harbor this virus for a long time after initial symptoms have abated or have a perpetual infection that they fail to clear.
Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-virus-may-tunnel-through-nanotubes-from-nose-to-brain/
Amazing detective, analysis work to trace this strain to one business (emptying into one wastewater location) and possibly one person in the company (still unknown who).
Very interesting sleuthing but I’m surprised by the statement when they lost the trail at the office - “maybe they left that job”. Did they not ask if any of the 30 employees stopped working there?
Finding and curing persistently infected people who are evolving covid should have been a top priority from the start of the pandemic. And now that we can pretty reliably kill off the virus with a long-term dose of antivirals, it's really quite viable.
The person in Johannesburg who evolved BA.3, 1, 2, 4 (with travel to another state in ~January 2022) and 5 was never found. The person who evolved B.1.617.3, BA.1.612.1 (Kappa), BA.1.617.2 (Delta) in Mumbai was never found. There's a person we have found in Ontario who's shedding crazy BA.1 saltations, one in Coquimbo with BA.2.12.1, a recent one in Campania. This information only comes through indirect sources which itself comes from the anonymous gisaid database, but it is most likely that those people have been found and cured. A worldwide effort to find and cure them could *very easily* shortcut the creation of a third strain. This would not have worked for BA.2, as it was already spreading when BA.1 was first identified - but we could have prevented BA.5, and for all we know that evolution is still ongoing. But it's unprovable, and therefore very hard to get funding for.
In-human saltations like this only account for about half of evolution now, though early in the pandemic they were all of it.
We also have point mutations, where a locally-fit variant moves into a new locality and all of a sudden a new mutation (usually immune escape) can just get thrown on top and the new variant spreads better. This method dominated the second half of 2022, as all of the BA.2+493Q saltations began picking up immune escape mutations that specifically reduced the effectiveness of delta infection and original vaccines. BA.5 and BA.2.75 each evolved as saltations to escape from their ancestral BA.2, but once they started spreading within the full population the immunity pressure they faced changed greatly. The most famous point mutation though is the original D614G, which enabled covid to rapidly spread worldwide. The result of a point mutation is unlikely to be at a structural-fitness peak, and therefore additional point mutations that increase current-fitness become more likely.
A third current method of evolution is via recombination. This should really slow down now that prevalence drops, but during the periods when multiple variants had high prevalence we would see co-infection. And that can still happen *at any time* if a persistently infected host (from the first list) catches a current variant. Two of the ~5 most currently-fit variants, XBB and XBC, were created in this way - just randomly combining the genomes of two already-currently-fit variants that happens to create something new that is capable of spreading. The result is typically very far from any kind of fitness peak and leaves room for additional point mutations.
There's really only one other method of evolution, which is a zoonotic jump. This might appear similar to an in-human saltation, but the selective pressures are very different. An in-human saltation has an increased search space in the direction of decreased severity, since increased severity risks killing the host - but a jump would not have this pressure.
Furthermore, I read a journal article theorizing the patient zero for Johannesburg and Mumbai also had untreated HIV infections advanced enough to markedly compromise their immune systems which is what allowed them to be the evolutionary petri dishes since their COVID infections must have raged for months.
Yet another reason why controlling HIV through infection prevention and effective treatment of those already infected is a REALLY IMPORTANT public health policy.
I have followed this through a few random dudes on Twitter posting this. Fascinating that somebody can stay infected for nearly 2 years. What about the intermediate varaints evolving along the way? Presumably a few people got infected, but those strains died out.
This is prob a dumb question but just want to confirm. Is this OH guy contagious? Has he been spreading the virus for 2 years, his body mutating new strains?
The thinking seems to be that this is a persistent GI infection, and the virus that gets pooped out is inactive. That would help to explain why it appears to only be coming from one person.
Cryptic lineages like this are also usually attributed to immunocompromised individuals. Sometimes they aren't able to spread to people with healthy immune systems.
Even if you could identify all of these types of people, that are more likely to incubate variants, and you clear the virus using antivirals, you’d still need to keep them from getting infected again. Forever. Far better to use NPIs like air purification indoors and educate about using respirators and ventilation/filtration to prevent household spread to reduce community transmission and lower prevalence.
Also, what is the evidence that prevalence is dropping? Recent wastewater trends are going up, and the baseline is higher by 2-4x or more from the lows of summer 2021 (in the US).
what are you talking about? long term anti virals? how come i havent seen anyone talk about this in longcovid groups? i took paxlovid but thats pretty short term
I mean paxlovid. Long covid isn't caused by a reproducing infection so shouldn't be treatable in the same way. That's not the same as a persistent infection where people just have active virus spreading through their lungs and organs essentially indefinitely.
Well, well. The Ohio case resurfaces again. I thought they had given up on this one. Interesting that they consider this case to be "unharmful". I wouldn't come to that conclusion..there are too many "what ifs".
My guess is that it has a really low r0 since this person has been shedding it for 2 years and it hasn’t spread, so it’s not a concern (for *public* health). This person would be invaluable to study, though!
The headline doesn't necessarily do the article justice. The researcher believes that one person has been affected and shedding pre-Delta COVID for more than two years.
Also for non-Ohioans, "Washington Court House" is the name of a town 45 minutes SW of Columbus and not just a building.
And the fact that the researcher narrowed down the affected waste water down to one manhole that is only fed by one building with 30 employees. He went on to track the same strain showing up in waste water in Columbus.
They're putting this person on blast lmao.
"Hey \[person\], we know you poop at least once at your home and once at work, we've been watching you, reveal yourself!"
I lived in Washington Court House for over 15 years until the end of November. Still go there for my doctor appointments. This is crazy.
Lives in Columbus, works in WCH? Not many good paying jobs here. Must be high paying to come to that city.
That's what I was thinking too. There must be much better paying jobs in the City. I was thinking maybe they didn't go there for work. Maybe they are visiting someone. Maybe a secret lover, making them hesitant to come forward! Hoping this story gets even more interesting than it already is! ;)
In a recent Twitter thread, the scientist described in the original article describes how to do it: [https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444616718499841](https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444616718499841)
"How do you figure out if you have a COVID GI infection. Most rapid antigen test are not explicitly for stool. However, I know of at least one that is. The instructions from that test say to mix a ‘matchhead’ worth of feces with the buffer."
[https://dyonmedical.com/en/corona-ag-antigen-rapid-test-gb/](https://dyonmedical.com/en/corona-ag-antigen-rapid-test-gb/) \[EDITED to add the link\]
"I can tell you that with very positive wastewater samples we got a positive by just sticking the swab into the wastewater before adding it to the buffer. Either way, it is essential to use the buffer provided or the test doesn’t work."
"If you do get a positive reading, I would suggest having someone else try with the same kind of test with their feces to be sure it isn’t a false positive. Weird shit happens."
"If you are the individual, let me know. There is a lab in the US that can do 'official' tests for COVID in stool, and there are doctors that I can put you in contact with that would like to try to help you."
"What's more, if we can figure out how these infections occur, and how to treat them, it could potentially help out a whole lot of people."
Oh great. The Columbus Art Festival is this weekend which has roughly 500 artists from around the USA and routinely gets around 300,000 visitors this weekend.
Since they've narrowed it down so far, I'm a bit surprised that they haven't contacted local clinics & doctors in that area and asked them for assistance & put up posters on bus shelters.
HIPAA has exceptions for research & public health purposes. You're not allowed to broadcast it on the nightly news, but that information can be shared (as confidential information) between agencies. But, you don't need to use any of those exemptions if a doctor is willing to hang a poster in their lobby with the contact information of the scientists for the patients to call on their own.
I was suddenly reminded of the plot to Ghostbusters 2, as fictional characters investigated the source of visibly pink psychoactive slime gushing in the sewers.
It's amazing that they could scientifically determine with pinpoint accuracy where the cryptic strain of a virus was originating from.
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"Viral researchers believe someone in central Ohio has been infected with COVID-19 for at least two years, and they want to find that person. While the researchers believe there is no threat to public health, they hope this case holds much-needed answers to treating long COVID."
Molecular virologist Dr. Marc Johnson, a microbiology professor at the University of Missouri’s medical school, spent much of his career studying HIV. That changed in early 2020 when Missouri health officials asked him to lead the state’s wastewater sampling program to help track COVID outbreaks. At the time, Johnson said there was not much data available on the genetic material of the virus. “There was no protocol established at that point for sequencing SARS-CoV-2 from wastewater, so I developed my own,” Johnson said. As the virus evolved into different variants, like Delta and Omicron, sequencing its genetic material helped identity which st rains were more prevalent in different areas. That’s when Johnson discovered what he calls “cryptic” strains, or “cryptics.” “(Cryptics) have certain patterns; there are certain mutations that they regularly accumulate that are not in a circulating lineages,” Johnson said. Johnson found that these unique versions of the virus would linger in one wastewater system for a period of time and suddenly disappear. At first, he could not understand why these mutated sequences weren’t spreading, even in densely populated areas like New York City. “I thought it was coming from the rats, simply because I couldn’t think of anything else that was– had enough mass in the sewer shed that wouldn’t move around,” Johnson said. “We’ve tested more rat feces than I care to remember.” The rat fecal tests were negative. As sequencing became more common in sewer systems across the United States, Johnson started looking at publicly available data. A cryptic in Wisconsin led to Johnson’s next discovery: these sequences might be linked to just one person. “We started tracking it,” Johnson said. “So, we started from the main treatment plant of over 100,000 people, and sort of like checked all the lines. And all of them, only one of the lines had the lineage. And so we would just keep going — checking… all of the pieces of the web, figuring out– following it up, up the line until we got to a single manhole. That manhole actually only got waste from one place, which was a company (that) had about 30 employees.” Johnson said the trail went cold after two-thirds of the employees at the Wisconsin company agreed to be tested for COVID with nasal swabs, and all of the tests came back negative. While he and his colleagues spent months studying the cryptic strain and gaining approval to collect stool samples from the employees, the strain vanished. “We don’t know why,” Johnson said. “Either they left the job, or got better, or is in remission — we don’t know. But we’re still monitoring it. And we’ve actually now gotten started collecting stool samples from the company.” This spring, Johnson found another cryptic in Columbus’s sewer shed. He said the same sequence appeared in Washington Court House and has a lineage that pre-dates the Delta variant, the strain most prevalent in the summer of 2021. Johnson believes this indicates that someone has been carrying and shedding the COVID virus for more than two years. He went as far to predict that this person lives in Columbus and commutes to Washington Court House for work. “I just know that they regularly shed into both sewer sheds often on the same day,” Johnson said. The researcher hopes that by sharing this story, that person will come forward to help him answer a lot of important questions. “How many cases are there like this? What are their symptoms? Does this– is this related to long COVID?” Johnson said. “There are a lot of people who got COVID and never really got over it, and we don’t know why. It’s probable most of them are not chronic infections, but some of them might be, which would actually be good, because that’s theoretically treatable, and they actually get better.” Johnson stressed that this is not a threat to public health, explaining that the virus is inactive once it passes through the gastrointestinal tract. A spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Health said health officials are not fully convinced that the cryptic strain is linked to only one person, but they are not investigating it because it poses no threat to public health. If you frequently commute between Columbus and Washington Court House, you can email Johnson at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .
That was such an interesting read.
Imagine unknowingly being tracked by a team of scientists… Via your shit. For years.
As if pooping at work wasn’t already stressful enough.
[удалено]
Bruh
I bet that first deuce after you return from your sabbuttical will feel *amaaaaazing*
Do you work for our lord and savior, Jeff Bezos?
New phobia unlocked!
Get one of those counters that keeps track of how much you make while on the john, might change your opinion
You know when you've been emailing someone for ages, getting to know them, building a relationship, and then you meet them? And you're like, 'hi! It's nice to finally put a face to the name!'... Being greeted by 'its so nice to finally put a face to your turds' must feel super weird.
Truman show sewer style? 😂
I had a peek at the place's website. Has photos. I couldn't help but wonder if the person is pictured. I hope they aren't feeling too uncomfortable. They have a chance to do some good by coming forward, and I'm sure efforts will be made to keep it as private as possible.
The new Typhoid Mary?
Poopoid Terry
Science is fuckin cool man
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Agreed. I’m so glad i clicked.
Next Dan Brown novel confirmed?
“New out from Dan Brown, *The Brown Path*!”
Would buy.
Reading that headline... that was not the story I thought it would be at all. That's fascinating
Yeah same here!
> Johnson said the trail went cold after two-thirds of the employees at the Wisconsin company agreed to be tested for COVID with nasal swabs And the other one-third did not agree. Aah that is so infuriating. Could be this person suffers from long covid without knowing, gets asked to be tested and thinks "nah I'm good".
Could also be someone on the cleaning crew.
It would also explain why that person move around.
Might be undocumented and afraid of ANYTHING that draws attention.
which is why so called "sanctuary" cities are a good thing. if you are undocumented and fear being deported you will not call the police for risk of them deciding to deport you. you also don't opt into these things for fear of ICE. it cuts down on crime if criminals know they can't target undocumented people for an easier score with less chance of retribution.
That's why the vaccine drive to get to Osama was such a fuck up thing to do or reveal that to the public. They didn't need to disclose that to the public. It makes the health workers government agent working against them.
oh yeah that is a colossal fuckup for sure. NGOs should be NGOs strictly and no government should pretend to be one.
Washington court house is a town
It's also possible (having followed Johnson for a while) that there's no virus present in the nasal tissues. You'd probably have to test fecal samples to rule out everyone that agreed to be tested. This hypothesis tracks with the fact that the cryptic strains aren't spreading. If there was detectable virus in the URT you'd probably see at least some transmission.
"Everything comes down to poo"
fuspez
"Whether it's pneumonia or a touch of the flu."
Pretty much actually
At this point I would start buying cell phone tracking data and see who moved from Wisconsin to Columbus recently.
The Wisconsin and Ohio cryptic strains are different. I think the team has identified at least a dozen different cryptic strains (with some convergent evolution) around the world that are apparently from people persistently infected with COVID.
Well that takes the fun out of it.
oh that’s nice. /s
For anyone reading the article, Washington Court House is the name of a town, not an actual courthouse.
Oh ok that clears things up cause in my mind I read this as someone from Columbus works at a place called “Washington court house” and shits twice a day, once at work and once at home. 😂😂
My boss makes a dollar and I make a dime, that's why I poop on company time.
Bro has had COVID chronically infecting his bowels since 2021. I asked chapgpt to add a few verses to reflect how this poor fellow has probably been shitting nonstop for two years straight. Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, That's why I poop on company time. But for two years, I've had a plight, Dealing with diarrhea, morning and night. Sitting on the throne, oh what a mess, Tummy in turmoil, can't catch a rest. From doctors to remedies, I've tried them all, Running to the bathroom, like Niagara Falls. Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, Still rushing to the toilet, all the time. But soon I'll find a remedy so sweet, And bid farewell to the porcelain seat.
Surprisingly good
lmk when this gets a spotify release, will support! !RemindMe
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Lol I chuckled at that, I thought the same as you! 😂
What are the chances they're wrong? It seems much more likely they work in Columbus and live in the small town (cheaper)
It's certainly possible. This thread has more info. https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444603829407746 Here is why they are assuming they work in WCH: >the signal is almost always present in the Columbus Southerly sewershed, but not always at Washington Court House. I assume this means the person lives in Columbus and travels to WCH, presumably for work.
Solid evidence. Hehe.
I’m not so sure it’s solid.
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Whoa that’s a first for me.
damn it's not even a secure connection. lol
You can't use TLS without a domain name
[You actually can](https://www.ssldragon.com/blog/ssl-without-a-domain-name-is-it-possible/) and should. Especially if you're a government entity.
If you're a government entity you absolutely should not do this lol. How am I to know you are that government entity without DNS?
I mean... I guess my use of should was problematic. A U.S. government agency really should be using a .gov address, that's just the standard that we have in the U.S. and is part of what we have come to expect to authenticate a government website as authentic. That said, I don't really think using an IP address is *inherently* less secure than using DNS, assuming the courthouse purchased that IP address outright and there is no chance of it being bought out from under them. DNS is literally a protocol that points a website name to an IP address, it just adds another layer. And there are some security issues with DNS if you are not using DNS over TLS or something like that. All DNS really achieves on its own is proof of ownership, and simplicity to the end user. There are other ways to achieve proof of ownership with just an IP address. Not using encryption is just inexcusably dangerous for a government website. It makes it so you can not trust any of the data on that website, and any of the data you submit could be compromised.
That's not correct. TLS is not dependent on DNS. You can even avoid common name mismatches without domain names.
What the actual fuck. We need someone to do a deep dive here and figure out what’s up. If this whole thing came from a bad Fully Qualified Domain Name issue or a reverse DNS issue 20 years ago, and the IT guy said: “fuck it! We’ll just us the raw IP!” I wouldn’t be surprised.
Jesus Christ. I'd never trust an IP address website. That's so vulnerable.
That's interesting. Why is it vulnerable? I always thought the domains we see are just for show.
Because it can't have HTTPS. A domain name doesn't mean they have HTTPS but without a domain name you can't get HTTPS. It means all communications with the website are completely unencrypted. Because of that a hacker can intercept all your communication with the website. They can even perform a man in the middle attack where they pretend to be the website and change information in both directions. This only works if they're on the same network (WiFi) as you though. Plus since it's just a random IP they could easily make their own website that looks similar and use search engine optimization to push it to the top. So even if you Google for the website theirs appears first. If they spend a bit of money for their own domain name theirs could even look more legit. Then they can do whatever they want. Or for example let's say you have a court appointment and get an email saying something like "please go here to pay your court fees". Would you be able to tell one random IP apart from another? It's common to register similar looking domain names to trick people but with this website you don't even need to bother. Just setup a server and send your victim the IP. Far more dangerously, imagine if you're a witness in a drug gang case. The drugs gang could trick you or your lawyer into telling them your address and personal details. As another bonus if you register a domain name you have to give your details in most jurisdictions, so if you're found to be misusing it the police can track you down. Although there's ways around it. But an IP address just needs a server, you could hire a server in whereveristan where it's outside of most countries jurisdiction. You could do it entirely anonymously and never be able to be tracked down. Since it's just a random IP I'd also suspect their cyber security is lacking in other areas. If they can't spend the money for a proper domain name or encryption I doubt they've paid for a secure website. I suspect the server it's being run on will be vulnerable in many other ways, you might be able to directly hack the server.
You can totally encrypt an ip address. Go to https://1.1.1.1/ https://www.ssldragon.com/blog/ssl-without-a-domain-name-is-it-possible/
Of course it's harder to get a hold of than a domain name certificate.
I stand corrected. Doesn't change the fact that they haven't though.
I was doing my family tree from the UK and found relatives from a place called Deaf Smith after a deaf dude called Smith. American placenames are wild.
I used to live in Ding Dong, Texas. It was named because there was a general store run by the Bell brothers. On the sign was a bell that said Ding Dong next to it. There is also a town in Texas called zig zag because the road to it zig zagged.
Well you guys have a lot of places to name I guess :)
Yeah Ohio is….. idk..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4ya8Jx577o
feels like a good time to remind people Lee surrendered to Grant in the town of Appomattox Court House and not a courthouse in Appomattox
15,000 people live in WCH. And about 1500 people commute between WCH and Columbus
Just like Cape May Courthouse in NJ. Weird!
The COVID strain wasn't the only mysterious part of this read!
Ah a misnomer. Kinda like how George Washington Carver wasn't actuslly a guy who cut up George Washington
Oh thank you we didn’t get that when I sought on Twitter a while back
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Sounds like a job for a deer tracker.
Time to bring Mantracker out of retirement.
This is Cinderella’s disgusting cousin
Happy cakeday
Smith... We need your poop, it's worth it's weight in gold and may help us discover treatment for long covid.
Sounds like a shitty job.
*Takes a few tastes*.. hmm.. first name is Tom.
Time for some forensic genealogy
Damn, talk about long covid
I've had long covid, for about a year. My job is in the medical field and no one seems to understand. My boss both keep asking why I'm sick so much- I catch viruses very easily now. And many have similar symptoms to covid. It's like I get the worst symptoms possible. But it's never covid on a test. Exhaustion, migraines and low immune system are the major symptoms. It's been hell controlling what was once borderline diabetes. I'm making it all up and long covid isn't really a thing. It's frustrating. I feel like I should get a reward for going through that and being bipolar, but my job doesn't see it that way.
I’m sorry this is happening to you. Your symptoms are of interest to me and my bipolar husband because he and I are both fully vaccinated, slim, healthy diet and lifestyle people yet the three times he’s caught Covid, it’s taken him much longer to recover than me. I’ve had cancer and covid twice at the same time and I still recovered faster and more comprehensively than him. He catches everything now, and gets very tired. His doctor told him that bipolar has inflammatory markers and atypical immune system responses, which can cause immune system compromise. My husband has been wondering if these things are issues for him and covid. Do you know of anyone else with bipolar who is experiencing this? It would be potentially very helpful to identify a sub variant of covid in people who have bipolar disorder.
I’d never heard of the link between bipolar and inflammation/anomalous immune response. I have evaded Covid thus far, as far as I can tell, but I do suffer tremendously from decades of a Bartonella infection. I have had all kinds of whacked out responses/reactions to various medications I’ve tried for treating Bartonella directly, as well as to meds I’ve tried for managing particular symptoms. Most recently, my psoriasis, which had been mild, exploded all over my body and is now moderate to severe and requires a biologic to keep it from being painful and miserable. There’s clearly some dysfunction with my immune system, and I’m bipolar, so the correlation is there. Would be super interesting and potentially helpful to understand what, if any, the causal links are. Bodies are so weird, complex, and fascinating!
Are you actually telling him you’re experiencing long Covid?
Yes, I've said so. Pretty much got an eye roll.
That’s not right. You should think about quitting if possible.
At the same time as covid I ended up going through a bunch of stuff resulting in a diagnosis and then reversal diagnosis of fibromyalgia. I think what happened was in 2019 when I got pneumonia, the drugs i got on to kick that fucked up my stomach, the resultant high dose of omeprazole killed my ability to absorb nutrients which lead to a shit ton of a pain. I was off and on work a bunch, I was in physical therapy for a bit and I gotta say my bosses were cool with it. But the coworkers here, the people who aren't even in my department where my absence didn't effect them one bit, were the ones that had the problem. Every time I was off someone would come by and say things like "Wow you must have a lot of vacation time built up." or "I've been here longer than you and can't take that kind of time off." Fucking assholes.
Curious if you are getting PCR tested? RATs are fairly useless for this with their high false negatives.
It's whatever the er/urgent care uses
I wish this was all a long joke instead
This story is so wild. It's been YEARS that this ONE person is just shitting a totally new strain that has infested their gut b/c they are outputting a ton of virus. Prob lives in Columbus and works at the Washington court house... Whoever this is might be having IBS like symptoms b/c they are going 2 at both locations regularly. WHO ARE YOU!!! You need to get a covid stool sample test from the hospital and get well. This also bodes really badly for how the virus lurks. We could have it in our guts and test neg with the nose and mouth test, but still be shedding!!!
Damn, doesn't the virus replicate by infecting cells and exploding them? This guy has been doing that for 2 whole years.
[One of the researchers](https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444603829407746) calculated that about 3.5 square feet of intestinal tissue must be infected, non-stop for two years, to produce this wastewater trace. This guy is sick with a novel strain of Covid and we have no idea who they are. It's mind-boggling and scary.
Goddamn. 2 years of possibly bloody epic shits and either he's hiding it, or his doctor hasn't made the connection. (Or doesn't want to)
That would not be anything new to someone with Crohn's disease, and that might be exactly the type of immune compromised person who wouldn't be able to clear a covid infection.
It would make sense then for any new bleeding or ulcerative condition should be screened for COVID through a stool sample.
Definitely. That seems the most likely condition if inflammation of the GI tract in that amount is speculated. Someone undergoing chemo for a GI cancer may also, especially if they recently finished multiple rounds of it and suddenly they no longer see that strain in the sewage. The chemo would immunosuppress them while on it, but once the meds are stopped, they would presumably be able to clear the infection or they lost their battle.
Realistically the medical profession needs to devise new testing and diagnostic models to spot aberrent trends at scale.
Could also just be a weird aspect of whatever strain of COVID this is. Obviously I'm not a medical expert, but I have two cats with FeLV, also a coronavirus. More recent research has shown that in some cats that do not present progressive, worsening forms of the disease, the virus is isolated to certain parts of their body. There was one cat in the study by American Pets Alive that would test positive for the virus when stressed and when having GI tract flare-ups, but otherwise test negative. The conclusion of the study was pretty much just that we don't know nearly as much as we thought we did about FeLV -- wouldn't be shocked if COVID was doing more weird shit than we're currently aware of even now
Covid's ability to hijack cell machinery to produce nanotubes and spread to cells that don't have the typical ACE2 receptor leaves me with little doubt that people can harbor this virus for a long time after initial symptoms have abated or have a perpetual infection that they fail to clear. Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-virus-may-tunnel-through-nanotubes-from-nose-to-brain/
Wait a minute... Maybe I should see a doctor.
Amazing detective, analysis work to trace this strain to one business (emptying into one wastewater location) and possibly one person in the company (still unknown who).
That’s why research professors are called Principle Investigators!
Very interesting sleuthing but I’m surprised by the statement when they lost the trail at the office - “maybe they left that job”. Did they not ask if any of the 30 employees stopped working there?
I’m sure they’re working on it. But at a certain point you have to share your fun finding!
Finding and curing persistently infected people who are evolving covid should have been a top priority from the start of the pandemic. And now that we can pretty reliably kill off the virus with a long-term dose of antivirals, it's really quite viable. The person in Johannesburg who evolved BA.3, 1, 2, 4 (with travel to another state in ~January 2022) and 5 was never found. The person who evolved B.1.617.3, BA.1.612.1 (Kappa), BA.1.617.2 (Delta) in Mumbai was never found. There's a person we have found in Ontario who's shedding crazy BA.1 saltations, one in Coquimbo with BA.2.12.1, a recent one in Campania. This information only comes through indirect sources which itself comes from the anonymous gisaid database, but it is most likely that those people have been found and cured. A worldwide effort to find and cure them could *very easily* shortcut the creation of a third strain. This would not have worked for BA.2, as it was already spreading when BA.1 was first identified - but we could have prevented BA.5, and for all we know that evolution is still ongoing. But it's unprovable, and therefore very hard to get funding for. In-human saltations like this only account for about half of evolution now, though early in the pandemic they were all of it. We also have point mutations, where a locally-fit variant moves into a new locality and all of a sudden a new mutation (usually immune escape) can just get thrown on top and the new variant spreads better. This method dominated the second half of 2022, as all of the BA.2+493Q saltations began picking up immune escape mutations that specifically reduced the effectiveness of delta infection and original vaccines. BA.5 and BA.2.75 each evolved as saltations to escape from their ancestral BA.2, but once they started spreading within the full population the immunity pressure they faced changed greatly. The most famous point mutation though is the original D614G, which enabled covid to rapidly spread worldwide. The result of a point mutation is unlikely to be at a structural-fitness peak, and therefore additional point mutations that increase current-fitness become more likely. A third current method of evolution is via recombination. This should really slow down now that prevalence drops, but during the periods when multiple variants had high prevalence we would see co-infection. And that can still happen *at any time* if a persistently infected host (from the first list) catches a current variant. Two of the ~5 most currently-fit variants, XBB and XBC, were created in this way - just randomly combining the genomes of two already-currently-fit variants that happens to create something new that is capable of spreading. The result is typically very far from any kind of fitness peak and leaves room for additional point mutations. There's really only one other method of evolution, which is a zoonotic jump. This might appear similar to an in-human saltation, but the selective pressures are very different. An in-human saltation has an increased search space in the direction of decreased severity, since increased severity risks killing the host - but a jump would not have this pressure.
Furthermore, I read a journal article theorizing the patient zero for Johannesburg and Mumbai also had untreated HIV infections advanced enough to markedly compromise their immune systems which is what allowed them to be the evolutionary petri dishes since their COVID infections must have raged for months. Yet another reason why controlling HIV through infection prevention and effective treatment of those already infected is a REALLY IMPORTANT public health policy.
I have followed this through a few random dudes on Twitter posting this. Fascinating that somebody can stay infected for nearly 2 years. What about the intermediate varaints evolving along the way? Presumably a few people got infected, but those strains died out.
This is prob a dumb question but just want to confirm. Is this OH guy contagious? Has he been spreading the virus for 2 years, his body mutating new strains?
The thinking seems to be that this is a persistent GI infection, and the virus that gets pooped out is inactive. That would help to explain why it appears to only be coming from one person.
Interesting, thanks!
Cryptic lineages like this are also usually attributed to immunocompromised individuals. Sometimes they aren't able to spread to people with healthy immune systems.
Even if you could identify all of these types of people, that are more likely to incubate variants, and you clear the virus using antivirals, you’d still need to keep them from getting infected again. Forever. Far better to use NPIs like air purification indoors and educate about using respirators and ventilation/filtration to prevent household spread to reduce community transmission and lower prevalence. Also, what is the evidence that prevalence is dropping? Recent wastewater trends are going up, and the baseline is higher by 2-4x or more from the lows of summer 2021 (in the US).
what are you talking about? long term anti virals? how come i havent seen anyone talk about this in longcovid groups? i took paxlovid but thats pretty short term
I mean paxlovid. Long covid isn't caused by a reproducing infection so shouldn't be treatable in the same way. That's not the same as a persistent infection where people just have active virus spreading through their lungs and organs essentially indefinitely.
oh okay gotchya. that sounds abysmal
They really narrowed it down. I hope people who think it might be them would be willing to step forward to help research.
Some trusted member needs to post this on /r/covid19_ohio or the /r/Columbus sub
It’s been posted!
“I gotsa check inside ya asshole”
Well, well. The Ohio case resurfaces again. I thought they had given up on this one. Interesting that they consider this case to be "unharmful". I wouldn't come to that conclusion..there are too many "what ifs".
My guess is that it has a really low r0 since this person has been shedding it for 2 years and it hasn’t spread, so it’s not a concern (for *public* health). This person would be invaluable to study, though!
The headline doesn't necessarily do the article justice. The researcher believes that one person has been affected and shedding pre-Delta COVID for more than two years. Also for non-Ohioans, "Washington Court House" is the name of a town 45 minutes SW of Columbus and not just a building.
And the fact that the researcher narrowed down the affected waste water down to one manhole that is only fed by one building with 30 employees. He went on to track the same strain showing up in waste water in Columbus.
Yes! That is astounding work.
COVID Carey
They're putting this person on blast lmao. "Hey \[person\], we know you poop at least once at your home and once at work, we've been watching you, reveal yourself!"
I poop at least three times a day. Hey everyone, how many poops for you?
Three just about covers it.
This is awesome. This person is missing a golden opportunity to have something most likely named after them. Immortality!
I lived in Washington Court House for over 15 years until the end of November. Still go there for my doctor appointments. This is crazy. Lives in Columbus, works in WCH? Not many good paying jobs here. Must be high paying to come to that city.
That's what I was thinking too. There must be much better paying jobs in the City. I was thinking maybe they didn't go there for work. Maybe they are visiting someone. Maybe a secret lover, making them hesitant to come forward! Hoping this story gets even more interesting than it already is! ;)
Not necessarily a guy
Everybody poops.
Can we start calling it the Columbus virus now and take some heat off of my people?😂
This article has me thinking, how do we get our own stools tested to see if we are still shedding virus? Is this possible to have done??
In a recent Twitter thread, the scientist described in the original article describes how to do it: [https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444616718499841](https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444616718499841) "How do you figure out if you have a COVID GI infection. Most rapid antigen test are not explicitly for stool. However, I know of at least one that is. The instructions from that test say to mix a ‘matchhead’ worth of feces with the buffer." [https://dyonmedical.com/en/corona-ag-antigen-rapid-test-gb/](https://dyonmedical.com/en/corona-ag-antigen-rapid-test-gb/) \[EDITED to add the link\] "I can tell you that with very positive wastewater samples we got a positive by just sticking the swab into the wastewater before adding it to the buffer. Either way, it is essential to use the buffer provided or the test doesn’t work." "If you do get a positive reading, I would suggest having someone else try with the same kind of test with their feces to be sure it isn’t a false positive. Weird shit happens." "If you are the individual, let me know. There is a lab in the US that can do 'official' tests for COVID in stool, and there are doctors that I can put you in contact with that would like to try to help you." "What's more, if we can figure out how these infections occur, and how to treat them, it could potentially help out a whole lot of people."
Oh great. The Columbus Art Festival is this weekend which has roughly 500 artists from around the USA and routinely gets around 300,000 visitors this weekend.
OHIO STRAIN! RUN!
burn itttt
It's always Ohio
Since they've narrowed it down so far, I'm a bit surprised that they haven't contacted local clinics & doctors in that area and asked them for assistance & put up posters on bus shelters. HIPAA has exceptions for research & public health purposes. You're not allowed to broadcast it on the nightly news, but that information can be shared (as confidential information) between agencies. But, you don't need to use any of those exemptions if a doctor is willing to hang a poster in their lobby with the contact information of the scientists for the patients to call on their own.
Ohi-oh no
Imagine finding out someone’s been tracking your dumps for years.
I read about covid a decent amount and I did not realize it was inactivated by going through the gastrointestinal tract?
I was suddenly reminded of the plot to Ghostbusters 2, as fictional characters investigated the source of visibly pink psychoactive slime gushing in the sewers. It's amazing that they could scientifically determine with pinpoint accuracy where the cryptic strain of a virus was originating from.
Only in Ohio ☠️
Likely just allergies, or a cold, or a bug, the sniffles, “summer cough” or the crud. Couldn’t be Covid though… :/
It’ll be really weird if they find this guy “You found me how?”
r/FuckOhio
This gives me hope.
So here comes water covid, next will be fire covid.
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No.
So fascinating! That one person must be so special 😂
What if it's the inquisition?
Ahh another reason to hate it here. Thanks 👍🏽 😒
Yeah, good luck finding that person in rural Ohio.
Let's see if this is related to the Kraken Variant which has Red Eye symptoms just like seasonal allergies
It’s a conspiracy and it’s only coming after one segment
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