People complaining of fatigue or having difficulty concentrating or having brain fog are in some studies already counted as suffering from long covid. No causual relationship required.
A friend of mine is a doctor and we were chatting about long covid 2 days ago, his description of it seemed pretty cut and dried to me - e.g. a swimmer here in Glasgow with hopes of getting to the 2024 olympics is currently unable to train due to breathing issues post-covid. They’re supposed to be fully immersed in training right now but can’t since covid in December 2020.
It's just not consistent with the "It's all in their minds theory," or "it's the same as stress from isolation" theory.
There's clearly something neurological going on, and we don't understand it yet.
Was a nightmare getting those under control but my symptoms eased up. Then I got covid and it all started up again. Took months to get back to a baseline, but symptoms were identical, aside from loss of smell.
Ofcourse long covid is real. I am just a bit skeptical about the diagnosis criteria.
I really don't understand what point you tried to make.
The whole point of scientific papers is to gather and document findings in a way to be subjected to critical analysis and serve as food for thought.
From your own example, which unfortunately is completely unsubstantiated, documenting symptoms reported by patients is a good starting point to form hypothesis to be verified or rejected.