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How can we differentiate COVID and lockdown symptoms?

I know someone who, six months later is still struggling to balance, suffering with cognitive problems as well as chronic recall and speech problems. We can differentiate between Long Covid and "lockdown symptoms" because nobody suffers any of these by staying indoors more often than usual and having a reduced social life.

if you (God forbid) have covid symptoms, you'll differentiate.

That's not a scientific answer. Physical symptoms of stress include:

Low energy

Headaches

Upset stomach, including diarrhea, constipation, and nausea

Aches, pains, and tense muscles

Chest pain and rapid heartbeat

Insomnia

Frequent colds and infections

Loss of sexual desire and/or ability

Nervousness and shaking, ringing in the ear, cold or sweaty hands and feet

Dry mouth and difficulty swallowing

Clenched jaw and grinding teeth

Sounds like all of the physical symptoms of so-called long-COVID.

On top of the stress that would undoubtedly afflict a significant fraction of COVID patients, due to the massively inflated fears surrounding COVID, is the effects of physical isolation.

One of the requirements for all COVID positive cases is two weeks of total physical isolation. Numerous studies have shown that humans being physically isolated has significant negative health effects. No in person contact. No physical touch. For two weeks. All COVID positive cases, even asymptomatic ones.

There are no randomized studies, that control for factors, like the aforementioned psychological distress emanating from fear of COVID, and physical isolation, that suggests COVID causes these long-term symptoms. There are a host of potential confounding factors that could explain these correlations better than damage from the COVID infection.

Notice how extreme rigor is demanded for the ivermectin studies but then really just mere correlations is enough to draw scare mongering conclusions about COVID.

So to comment on one of those symptoms: chest pain. I do experience this when resting, but I get particularly strong pain when doing any kind of exercise. If it were stress related you would expect exercise to improve symptoms not make them worse.

I would also add that while I was certainly a bit depressed by the lockdown, I live in the UK where we are no longer locked down and my mental health has improved greatly. But I am still unable to participate in vigorous exercise, and tire much much more easily than my friends. And this is despite going for regular walks during lockdown.

Finally, I would comment that post viral fatigue is a well established phenomenon for other viral diseases including flu. And has also been noted to be particularly bad in other coronaviruses like the original SARS. So it’s hardly a stretch to think that cocos might have similar effects.

>>I do experience this when resting, but I get particularly strong pain when doing any kind of exercise. If it were stress related you would expect exercise to improve symptoms not make them worse.

One study on pro-athletes found that 0.6% of cases were confirmed, after cardiac MRI, to have inflammatory heart disease post COVID infection:

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/03/few-pro-...

This is only 1/10th as much as the percentage who report chest pain. Some caveats: these are young adults, and athletes, so probably in the lowest risk category. Other demographics could face much higher risks.

So I guess the chest pain could be a real symptom of long-COVID, but I am much more skeptical of the other symptoms (e.g. anxiety, depression, etc).

It's also worth noting that heart inflammation from infections like flu will generally subside over time.

Frankly, it's the issues that seem to stem from disruption of neurons in the prefrontal cortex that are the most worrisome. The loss of taste and smell in covid is not caused by congestion, it's caused by a viral attack in the nasal bulb, and it's generally a harbinger of visual and emotional disturbances. One could easily make the case that the drastic rise in violent incidents in public spaces across the world has not been due to the effects of local and sporadic lockdowns on psychological health, but more likely due to the partial frontal lobotomies being performed by the virus.

Where is the evidence for the disruption of neurons in the prefrontal cortex?

>>One could easily make the case that the drastic rise in violent incidents in public spaces across the world has not been due to the effects of local and sporadic lockdowns on psychological health, but more likely due to the partial frontal lobotomies being performed by the virus.

You don't think it could be a result of massive numbers of careers being destroyed, businesses going bankrupt, and people being physically isolated, as governments restrict people's economic and civil liberties?

And isn't it possible that fearful speculation of the type you're engaging in, is creating political support for the restrictions that are creating all of these adverse social effects?

How do you expect to control for the world-wide psychosocial impact of the pandemic?

It's also pretty widely known that virtually all viruses can have a post-viral syndrome so if it would be MORE surprising if there wasn't a long covid.

I've had long covid for the last 10 months, and finally seem to be coming out of it. At its worst, I would get "episodes" where my entire body would start buzzing, so extreme that it felt like I was plugged into an electric socket. I can't convey to you how extreme this was, and if anyone were to suggest that this was caused by pandemic stress, they would be liable to a stressed response from my fist.

>>How do you expect to control for the world-wide psychosocial impact of the pandemic?

You use antibody tests to find undiagnosed prior cases, where the patient was unaware they had it during their infection. Then you can compare those who had COVID, without the associated psychosocial impact and two week isolation, to those who did not, to try to determine what long-term impact COVID has.

> That's not a scientific answer. Physical symptoms of stress include:

I feel you inadvertently tried to misrepresent the symptoms of long Covid.

Please check wikipedia's article on long Covid for an objective and we'll sourced reference on the subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_COVID

Among the typical symptoms we have "fatigue, headaches, shortness of breath, anosmia (loss of smell), parosmia (distorted smell), muscle weakness, low fever and cognitive dysfunction".

Feeling fatigued alone does not pass off as long Covid, jus like coughing alone does not pass off as Covid.

For the sake of having a non-inflammatory discussion, please do your best to substantiate and source these sort of claim so that we avoid spreading disinformation.

>>Feeling fatigued alone does not pass off as long Covid,

That is not true. Here is a typical study purportedly showing evidence for long COVID:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/28/covid-37-of-pe...

>>One in three people infected with coronavirus will experience at least one symptom of long Covid, a new study suggests.

The most common symptom associated with "long-COVID" is anxiety..

> That is not true. Here is a typical study purportedly showing evidence for long COVID:

You've said "study" but you're quoting an article from The Guardian.

Also, it seems you even failed to read your source. Your article does not refer to the incidence of long COVID-19. Your source only refers to a statistical study of the prevalence of any of the symptoms that are attributed to long COVID-19, whose goal is clearly to gather data to help understand the problem, or even if one really exists.

Also, I feel you are either misquoting or being disingenuous. The article you quoted quite clearly states that "The most common symptoms were breathing problems, abdominal symptoms, fatigue, pain and anxiety or depression."

So, a charitable interpretation of your misunderstanding of what you've quoted is that you picked up a reference to a study whose purpose is to gather initial observations on the actual incidence of long Covid, looked at the raw data and unwittingly misinterpreted correlations for consequences.

>>You've said "study" but you're quoting an article from The Guardian.

An article which describes the results of a study..

>>Also, I feel you are either misquoting or being disingenuous. The article you quoted quite clearly states that "The most common symptoms were breathing problems, abdominal symptoms, fatigue, pain and anxiety or depression."

I'm referring to the graph in that article, which shows that anxiety/depression is the most commonly cited symptom, at 15% of survey respondents:

https://i.ibb.co/27yyhGG/long-covid-symptoms.png

>>Your article does not refer to the incidence of long COVID-19.

Yes it does. Long-COVID typically refers to any expression of any of the symptoms listed, following a COVID infection.

> An article which describes the results of a study..

Presenting your own editorialized conclusions is not the same as providing a primary source.

The proof is that you've tried to pass off a study on the quantification of the real world correlation of symptoms tentatively linked to long covid as, somehow, proof of a causal relationship, even though nothing of the sort was suggested.

You're inadvertently demonstrated the need to check primary sources, and the role that tabloids play in disseminating misinformation

>>Presenting your own editorialized conclusions is not the same as providing a primary source.

This is a discussion forum. You seem to have an axe to grind with me that's motivated by more than just what I wrote. Are you this non-charitable and critical of those who are sounding the alarm about COVID? This double standard, motivated by political preconceptions, is how dissenting viewpoints are suppressed, and only one viewpoint - that of COVID hysteria - is allowed to express itself.

>>The proof is that you've tried to pass off a study on the quantification of the real world correlation of symptoms tentatively linked to long covid as, somehow, proof of a causal relationship, even though nothing of the sort was suggested.

To clarify, my criticism is of the many who are in fact taking these preliminary results, and drawing the conclusion that long-COVID is afflicting one third of all COVID patients.

I've had all those symptoms during lockdown and I know I haven't had covid. My friends who have had it describe a much, much worse experience. I suppose stress alone can cause visual hallucinations on the order of the road twisting in front of your car, but I know these people and trust their judgment that they have experienced the after effects of a brain-damaging infection.

You cannot rely on anecdotes. I know people who claim that many of their relatives suffered severe adverse effects after taking the vaccine. We do not draw scientific conclusions from anecdotes.

you cannot rely on anecdotes.

But: pretty much every single anecdote I've heard (online, or meatspace) tells a very consistent story. Maybe it should be studied. But I guess if some professor at a "prestigious university" says it's all psychosomatic, then I guess not.

By all means, study it. But please don't peddle unproven theories as fact, and demand policy that restricts other people's civil and economic liberties, be instituted on the basis of these speculative unproven theories.

All of those statements about stress are complete unscientific garbage, until someone comes up with a test, which can show some kind of chemical or biological marker that indicates what stress actually is, rather than some vague squishy thing that some people have and others don't.

Also: what if the stress symptoms they're feeling, are due to the body fighting long-covid?

What's "complete unscientific garbage" is taking a correlation between a dozen self-reported symptoms, and a COVID infection months before, and deducing that it proves the latter caused the former. There are numerous potential confounding factors, and no real science would dismiss these, and claim a controlled and randomized experiment is not necessary before drawing conclusions.

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