Comment by ridaj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ridaj | Hacker News Reader

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A study of ~25,000 persons found stronger statistical correlations between the belief in having been infected and long COVID symptoms, than between serology tests of prior infections and long COVID symptoms. Except for the persistent loss-of-taste symptom, which does not correlate with belief in prior infection and only correlates with serology test results. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34747982/

The layman interpretation of this is that long COVID is possibly a mental health issue associated with the belief in having had a prior infection, except for the loss-of-taste symptom which is very specific to COVID (vs, say, persistent fatigue). Not to say "it's not real", but maybe "it's not always viral in origin".

Yep. This would line up exactly with what I've said: a post-viral sequelae (with unique post-viral effects for covid) superimposed on a CFS-like disease population that is more driven by psychological factors, both being referred to by the label "long covid."

It’s really easy to discard that study. Someone who thinks they had COVID-19 and didn’t even bother getting tested is likely to have had a more severe case. Maybe it wasn’t even a case of COVID-19 but a severe viral infection nonetheless. Meanwhile serology positives would show up even after mild infection.

It's really easy to discard if you don't know what a serology test is, that's for sure.

A serology test is just proof of prior infection. It says nothing about the severity and would even count asymptomatic cases. So the study is comparing apples and oranges.

1. Antibody positives are more likely the more severe the case of covid

2. Your point was that people with more severe covid would

> thinks they had COVID-19 and didn’t even bother getting tested

The problem with that theory is that the serology testing in this study was conducted on everybody so whether or not people chose to get tested when they had covid was irrelevant. The fact that perceived infection correlates higher with these symptoms means that these symptoms are more related to someone's self perception of infection than any physical change.

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