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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

The most plausible reason is that many of those reported symptoms were psychosomatic.

Based on what are you making this determination? I have known people with fybromyalgia and chronic fatigue and it's outright cruel that a lot of people (including doctors) are telling them that it's only in their head.

Based on our knowledge of how vaccines work there is no reason to think they would actually help after the active viral infection has cleared. But psychosomatic symptoms are extremely common.

See this Twitter thread by an immunologist for a different viewpoint: https://twitter.com/virusesimmunity/status/13660678494800486...

there are plausible explanations in the article

Psychosomatic doesn't mean "only in their head". It's the opposite really, it accepting that the symptoms are real, but are being triggered or aggravated by something mental (stress, for example).

That's what doctors said about Epstein Barr patients in the 50's.

Why? If someone is harboring a low grade infection because their immune system didn't rev up enough to clear the virus, getting a jab with something engineered to provoke your immune system could very well fix the issue.

Also, "placebo effect" is real. "Reversion to the mean" is also real.

None of those explanations are "psychosomatic".

There is no clinical evidence that those patients are harboring a low grade infection. If the virus was active and replicating then it would be detectible even at very low levels.

The statement “No clinical evidence” is directly counteracted by studies mentioned by Akiko Kiwasaki, PhD immunobiology, Professor at Yale Medical – https://mobile.twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/1366067860...

Prof. Kiwasaki has posted an interesting but highly speculative hypothesis. A hypothesis is not evidence.

Huh? I thought the placebo effect was pretty much the textbook definition of psychosomatic.

The way to prove a psychosomatic component would be to tell a group they had COVID, then give them a harmless drug that induces some mild but harmless symptoms.

Take the group off the drug and survey them in 30-90 days for long-COVID symptoms.

You could also play around with control groups, for example perhaps one control group is asked not to watch or read any news programming related to COVID. I think the results would be revealing.

Surely you jest. Such an experiment would be highly unethical and would never be allowed by any institutional review board.

A better way would be to give a population with long-COVID a mix of active vaccines and placebos, and see what effective rate is in either population.

Maybe, but you can't actually say that. "Psychosomatic" reduces to "Big Pharma is telling you your very real disease is in your head" from an optics standpoint.

Public interest in the putatively psychosomatic Morgellons disease spiked after Joni Mitchell said she had it. There was an outpouring of support for Mitchell, and criticism of Big Pharma, the government, and the media for not treating Morgellons with more gravity.

My dad "had" Morgellons. The disease itself isn't real, but the symptoms were very much a part of other issues he had. The problem with labeling things as psychosomatic is that it can cover up very real suffering brought about by other, related issues.

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