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Comment by actuallyalys | Hacker News Reader

The headline is a bit misleading, as the 1 million figure refers to children who had ever had Long Covid, and 293,000 were experiencing it at the time of the survey. That doesn't mean it isn't a serious issue, but I believe accuracy is important here.

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It’s also entirely self reported by parents not medical professionals.

These headlines are accurate to the study and their noted limitations, not necessarily the actual prevalence which is already known to be much higher than this.

i.e. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/153/3/e20230... or https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-funded-stu...

Unfortunately, I can't access the full text of the study directly, but I would argue it would be more accurate to say it impacted (past tense) 1 million children, assuming this paragraph from the news story is correct:

> Results of the analysis, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, showed approximately 1.01 million children, or 1.4%, are believed to have ever experienced long COVID as of 2023 and about 293,000, or 0.4%, were experiencing the condition when the survey was being conducted.

There are certainly reasons to think it might be under-reported, so perhaps that should go in the headline (or subheadline) as well. But I don't think the headline should suggest this particular study estimated 1 million children were experiencing it at the time.

That’s a fair point. Science reporting often skips the discussion section, which adds important context. A strong report would compare this with other studies to show the bigger picture, especially given concerns about undercounting.

This report has led to a lot of minimization and misinterpretation especially from certain bad faith actors. Some claim the number is “stable” year over year, suggesting long COVID isn’t a big deal, overlooking that this study uses a completely new sample each year, not the same children.

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