"The statement that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne AIDS may be an oversimplification, but it draws attention to emerging evidence showing that the virus induces a distinct form of acquired immunodeficiency (AID)." A new paper in AJPM Focus (Elsevier, 2025)đ§”
Covid Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (CoV-AIDS)
ââWe may be witnessing the emergence of a population-level acquired immune deficiency â not sexually transmitted, but airborne.â
That line isnât from a tweet. Itâs from a peer-reviewed paper in AJPM Focus (2025).
A short thread đ§” on why this framing matters đâ
Both COVID-19 and AIDS cause significant changes in lymphocyte counts.
COVID-19 patients show a more severe reduction in total T cells.
AIDS patients have slightly higher CD8+ cell counts, while COVID-19 patients have a marked reduction in CD8+ cells.
Esophageal candidiasis is an AIDS-defining condition.
Also this.
âSARS-CoV-2 weakens your immune system sort of like AIDS does.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, valley fever is one of the infections that can indicate the progression of HIV to AIDS when it occurs in individuals w/ weakened immune systems.â
âone of the first major events that spurred the government actually giving a fuck and treating the AIDS crisis like a real thing was an outbreak of walking pneumonia, extremely similar to what weâre seeing now.
HIV/AIDS is not mild. COVID/Long COVID is not mild.â
âHow many times have I explained to people that my t-cell count was that of a serious AIDS case. I only found out after pleading with a doctor to test me.
I then experimented with AIDS treatments and that was the only thing that allowed me to return to a semblance of myselfâ
âI've had lymphocytopenia since my March 2020 COVID infection. COVID reduced my T and B cell subsets by 30-50%. My T cells don't respond to antigens. My immune system is damaged to this day. My doctors compare my condition to HIV. #COVID gave me #AIDS.
CoVAIDSâ
âSARS-CoV-2 triggers a new airborne form of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (13, 14, 15) (some are proposing specific terms such as âCoV-AIDSâ).
This is not AIDS as we know it from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, it is a new type of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome with different deleterious effects on immune function (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21), but both resulting in increased vulnerability to infections (22). Immune system deficiency and other COVID properties also suggest a potential link to greater risk of cancersâ
Non HIV/AIDS has been known since the 90s.
SARS/CoV2 turning into CoV/AIDS has turned this into a massive issue for many long Covid patients who present like late stage AIDS patients.
From the NIH archives.