Some journalists are without a doubt hyping this up, but to blanket long covid as some sort of media hoax can do a lot of harm. People aught to know that their symptoms may linger and even worsen far after two weeks. Censoring this just because you don’t like it or it scares you is harmful.
How many people complained of chronic fatigue 2 years ago? Maybe COVID has been spreading for decades making people tired and depressed! /s
Any severe case of pneumonia that damages your lungs is going to cause long term breathing issues, but that’s obvious and outside the scope of this conversation.
Public health officials needs to adapt to the latest understanding and work with data and statistics accordingly. It’s extremely boring and un-sexy (i.e., it’s not like scientists in the movies making a sudden breakthrough), which is I suppose why so many jump to conspiracies. We crave clear and spectacular reasons for the things we fear and have no control over.
> But he warned that until we figure out what is causing long Covid "it is difficult to figure out treatments."
If scientists don't know what is causing "Long Covid", then they don't know what is causing "Covid". Yet, many treatments have been developed for Covid.
If we accept our ability to treat without full knowledge of origin, then "Long Covid" can be treated, as has been done for Covid.
If "Long Covid" deserves a different status due to unknown origin, then the same standard can be applied to the unknown origin of Covid.
disclamer: IANA scientist or doctor, but it looks like long covid might be very similar to allergy (and similarly treated)