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Comment by snissn | Hacker News Reader

I’m in your situation but I got the Pfizer vaccine anyway. I think it made me feel good (look up long haul vaccine improvement) even though I didn’t feel like I still had symptoms. Cheers

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I took a placebo and feel great!

Nothing wrong with taking a placebo. It works even when you know you’re taking one.

It would be interesting to study whether placebos stop working if you forget to take them.

Schroedinger’s placebo

They do. People who take their placebos do better than those who don't .

Side effects can be a problem.

It’s a really small survey so far but roughly 2/3 of covid long haulers saw improvement after vaccination. 1/3 didn’t. I’m curious what actual, rigorous, studies will show later of course.

That study raised some... questions... because many of the self-proclaimed "long haulers" had never tested positive for COVID.

Which is of course possible, but it also raises the specter that "long-haul COVID" is really a mask for (understandable) psychological stress and depression which not-coincidentally coincided with pandemic and lockdowns.

You won't see much clash on this comment because the evidence for long covid is poor. Incidence rates mirror hypochondria rates and symptoms are explainable by things like vitamin D deficiency and depression.

This study shows long-COVID-19 is real.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

What evidence do you have these are caused by vitamin-D deficiency? What are the incidence rates and how is it the cause?

The most commonly reported symptom was fatigue.

Chronic fatigue syndrome is treated primarily with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

It's absolutely compatible with mental illness, especially considering that our governments just locked up everyone for more than a year.

At any rate the CDC mentions they have multiple multi-year studies underway so we won’t have to guess. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects....

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