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Comment by BigCryo | Hacker News Reader

6 points·BigCryo··7 comments

If this is the case, why don't we see long covid symptoms in certain professions? I spent an internship working in a clean room wearing full PPE including an N95 mask for my entire 9-5. Didn't ever experience long covid symptoms.

Also, Long COVID is still a problem in people who refused to wear a mask and got COVID.

Good question, but how sure are you that we don't see it? Lots of people got covid and don't experience long covid symptoms, so your argument is just as good at proving that covid isn't the cause as proving that marks aren't the cause.

Whatever proportion of people actually complain of the long covid symptoms that could be caused by masks, maybe a similar proportion of people have effects like that in those professions, but before covid, it didn't have a name. It's hard to identify anything that doesn't have a name.

As this is all speculative, it's hard to say. But I would imagine that, were this study to be accurate, it would be something along similar lines of how long COVID appears to be unpredictable and inconsistent.

I can imagine that could be because you adapt to it over time. People visiting high altitude cities will often get nausea and even sick from the lack of oxygen while locals are perfectly fine.

Masks interfered with O2-uptake and CO2-release and compromised respiratory compensation. Though evaluated wearing durations are shorter than daily/prolonged use, outcomes independently validate mask-induced exhaustion-syndrome (MIES) and down-stream physio-metabolic disfunctions. MIES can have long-term clinical consequences, especially for vulnerable groups. So far, several mask related symptoms may have been misinterpreted as long COVID-19 symptoms.

Controversial opinion: Long Covid is mostly hypochondria, another affliction which disproportionately affects compulsive mask wearers.

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