Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway1777 | Hacker News Reader

Long covid seems to be based on unfalsifiable symptoms like brain fog and fatigue. There aren’t really any scientific tests to determine how much fogginess or fatigue a person is feeling are there? So how does such a disease get researched and studied?

View on HN

Ok, there aren't tests. That doesn't mean there aren't ways to assess this, though: Fatigue plagues many diseases, especially chronic diseases and especially auto-immune disorders. Memory issues are similar, especially brain fog. We do have some measure of what is "normal" for most folks, and questions we can ask to assess this sort of thing.

You ask things about getting through the work day, how far one can walk without taking a break or nap, if they can get housework done, if a shower means that a nap is soon to come. You ask about cooking, whether or not they are forgetting everyday stuff that the rest of us don't have much issue with, and other such things.

It isn't like folks are complaining about being a little tired, but rather more like the sort of fatigue that means you have to take a break while chopping onions and you might have to recover after taking a shower. You might not get your housework done even if that's all you have to do.

Patients account, medical history and differential diagnosis. The same way you diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome.

As someone with personal experience, *chronic* fatigue is difficult to measure, especially if it’s getting gradually worse, but routine tests like blood tests and ECG; especially under physical stress can measure degradation or improvements.

I personally cannot do my work commute without being absolutely knackered for hours, and sweating like hell - since I had covid.

Yeah, it's the same problem that Chronic Fatigue sufferers have had for years. Many people clearly do have a problem, but it's hard to quantify, and nobody really knows what causes it.

And, from TFA, coughing.

I might be on this boat. (I rather hope not. I'm only a few weeks in, so we'll see.) I still have a persistent cough. It sounds different than a normal cough, much raspier, and I'm still coughing up phlem.

And the vast majority of "long COVID" sufferers are white females with pre-existing anxiety issues. Psychological issues are a very large contributing factor to "long COVID" https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/09/depression-an...

Your source has no mention of white/caucasian women, do you have something to back this claim up or are you making racist and sexist generalizations?

Your link does not support the claim that the vast majority of long covid sufferers are white females. Nor that the vast majority had anxiety.

Do you have a better source?

The cohort used for the study was overwhelmingly white and female (95%+ for both), so I think your first point is fair, its not possible to generalize to the population from this one study. That said, in these groups, that study did definitely find that long covid was strongly correlated with preexisting psychological conditions:

>All types of distress were significantly associated with increased risk of post–COVID-19 conditions in a dose-dependent manner after adjustment for demographic factors (probable depression, RR, 1.39 [95% CI, 1.19-1.63]; probable anxiety, RR, 1.47 [95% CI, 1.27-1.70]; very worried about COVID-19, RR, 1.43 [95% CI, 1.22-1.68]; highest quartile of perceived stress, RR, 1.50 [95% CI, 1.21-1.86]; lonely some of the time or often, RR, 1.35 [95% CI, 1.11-1.65]; all P < .01 for trend)

This is consistent with other studies, e.g.

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4905

>Increased risk for PASC was noted in women and those with a history of anxiety disorder.

As an aside, the inception of the "condition" is always worth considering in any discussion of long covid:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dubious-origins-of-long-cov...

That is a very different claim from “the vast majority of long covid sufferers had anxiety”.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com