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Comment by leksak | Hacker News Reader

I think the severity of long Covid might be more debilitating as it is my understanding that the long-term consequences of pneumonia is not as long lasting. I've not known of people that have had to change their whole way of life, and possibly their career, because of pneumonia or flu but have met a few that have had to do so as a consequence of long Covid.

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Apart from having taste or smell affected, I don't know anyone with "long COVID".

I know a few people who are impacted by it. But they all, if I recall correctly, have confounding factors. For example, I know two people with MS where Covid has completely wrecked havoc -- and a year or so later are still largely devastated.

There's also the fact that for a lot of people, COVID isolation meant a precipitous decline in physical and social activity that lasted for years.

We know this stuff can fuck you up pretty bad both mentally and physically. Depressive symptoms and a steep decline in physical fitness is very much the expected outcome from that.

My brother has it. Persistently elevated heart rate and breathing issues, to the point that walking up a flight of stairs would leave him winded when he was suffering the worst. I believe he's gotten a bit better since, but not fully recovered.

His resting heart rate is up 20bpm, and it can take 10-15 minutes after exerting himself for it to return to that new normal. He's almost certainly at risk for a stroke due to whatever caused the change, and it left him more susceptible to being sick- he's gotten COVID 3 times despite the vaccines, while the rest of his family has only had it once or twice, on top of the usual flu and colds going around that his kids bring home from school.

Edit: noting the sibling comment, he also had no confounding factors, aside from being slightly overweight. Even our elderly parents have gotten COVID with no lingering symptoms.

I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm saying it's a lot, lot rarer than the COVID alarmists seem to think.

People also get post viral fatigue from other virii.

To be clear, you’re saying it’s a lot, lot rarer than Covid alarmists think… because you don’t personally know anyone with it?

Yes. That's how anecdata works. If enough people observe they don't know anyone either with or post long covid, it starts to move significance. I've known two people with ME over 50 years and it doesn't alter my sense of their personal anguish or its economic and wider health consequences.

I have no doubt long covid exists and will need significant funding in research and targeted health care. It won't need as much as, or return as much as the spend on paediatrics or obstetrics, per capita.

I’ve never known anyone to justify an argument explicitly using anecdata unironically. Amazing, no notes.

You don't seem to care that the COVID alarmists are only using anecdata as well. I think if is clear where your sympathies lie.

It's not the scientific method but if something is very common, and I have several hundred friends, relatives and work colleagues of various backgrounds and states of health then I should have heard of someone experiencing it, no?

I've seen no evidence on this thread that proves it's super-common so apart from funding my own research project, what do you suggest?

Well, of the ten people I know who have gotten COVID, one has long COVID. That makes my anecdatum a 10% rate of people developing long COVID.

Given the number of people who have been infected, that's a very large number of people with potentially permanent side effects.

I'm not saying it doesn't exist but I have no doubt we're going to see fewer people seeking a fibromyalgia diagnosis over the next decade.

There are certainly post viral complications like ards but we already have names for those things.

I think it's very possible there ARE occasional life-long consequences of the flu and other such infections that are so normalized we don't even notice.

Psychosomatic illnesses are in fact quite serious, but they require psychological treatment, not lockdowns of society.

The incidence of heart attack and stroke increases significantly after COVID infection, so please spare us your appeal to “psychosomatic illnesses”:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8321431/

(I should get bonus points for this being a Swedish study as well, since every COVID denier loves to wave around their flag.)

"Results: Patients with post-COVID syndrome scored lower for emotional stability, equanimity, positive mood, and self-control. Extraversion, emotional stability, and openness correlated negatively with anxiety and depression levels. Conscientiousness correlated negatively with anxiety."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8870488/#:~:tex....

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