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.