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Comment by latchkey | Hacker News Reader

If you're interested in or even doubting the long term effects, follow one of the larger (91k+ and growing) survivor groups [0]. It is anecdotal, but the stories are very real and quite intense. Even odd things that you don't hear about in the news, like excessive burping [1] and of course, the heart breaking children tag [2].

You don't want this thing if you can help it.

[0] https://www.facebook.com/groups/COVID19survivorcorps/

[1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/COVID19survivorcorps/search/...

[2] https://www.facebook.com/groups/669615740453955/post_tags/?p...

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Groups like that are always populated by people with the worst of the worst outcomes. There's no indication of how likely these problems actually are.

On the other hand, those with conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome were relegated to groups like that and it's only been as of late that they've been taken more seriously. We're unfortunately seeing the same thing happen to a lot of legitimate pain patients, as they're easier to dismiss than those with obvious presentations of symptoms.

Yeah.

I'm hoping at some point (even if 30 years from now) there is testing for pretty much every flu/cold/etc. I wouldn't be surprised if having an ordinary flu causes future medical problems (or an increase chance of future medical problems) in a way that may be small enough now it is not detectable.

This is specifically why I mentioned that it is anecdotal.

It's possible someone got excessive burping a month let's say after they recovered from covid. How do we know those events are related? In a month all kinds of medical problems could happen in a sample size of 90,000 or w/e the amount was, that could be completely unrelated.

Keyword: anecdotal

> It is anecdotal, but the stories are very real and quite intense.

They are all real, in the sense that they are stories being told, but I think deriving any kind of conclusion from that kind of forum is not a great idea.

Self-diagnosis (of the particular “long term effect”), general misinformation and paranoia, and self-selection into an online forum of like-minded folks seems to produce consistently misleading results.

If you pointed to an anti-vaccination forum, you’d also see a lot of certain people with real stories.

Selection bias is also a huge issue.

I most likely had it in March. It seems to have reduced my symptoms from some other long-standing issue.

I hesitate to mention that at all because I already get so very much unwarranted hatred. My only point is that press coverage is already biased and survivor groups explicitly are aimed at collecting up people having a hard time.

I don't know how we make real progress. I do know most "support groups" are horrible shit shows where you can't do any real good for fear of being accused of "victim blaming."

Social garbage is a huge barrier to doing anything good for any health issue.

Correct about drawing conclusions, which is why I mentioned that it is anecdotal.

That said, before I mentioned it, had you heard about the burping issue? I sure hadn't.

This is all grain of salt, but given how novel this thing is... pretty much the only information we have to go on at this point is from forums like this. Therefore, I think it is a valuable resource that should not just be discarded or ignored.

Over time, this will of course get distilled down into real medical research and studies, but it is still interesting to listen to today.

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