*Ahem*, powerhouse of the cell
Jokes aside, this is a terrifying stat: "Although the majority of people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus recover within weeks...around one in eight will get long-COVID. Symptoms in patients with long-COVID...include severe cognitive problems (brain fog), fatigue, exercise intolerance, autonomic dysregulation..."
Some covid infections, just like the cold or the flu, cause symptoms longer than the 5-7 days, maybe for 2-3 weeks. That’s long covid. Also remember that long covid symptoms include symptoms like depression and it ends up not being very rigorously defined.
Then there is the version that creates long term chronic fatigue symptoms. That is a much smaller percentage of the population, more like 1% or less. The chances of getting that are extremely small and there’s nothing to be terrified about. You can also get CFS from the flu, and other benign diseases.
Just from looking at the general population it’s easy to see that 1/8 people are not suffering from long covid. Just like how I know someone who got the vaccine and she ended up being crippled by arthritis from the vaccine, but that is not a common side effect at all otherwise we would have seen that more often in the people around us.
Compared to new-onset arthritis from the vaccine - the biggest lit review I can find found 45 confirmed cases across 31 studies. [1] For comparison there are over 730,000 (self reported, admittedly) cases of long covid lasting more than 104 weeks in the UK alone. [2]
[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10055862/
[2]: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
That's arguably also terrifying if even common viruses are known to cause long term conditions. Also consider the evidence pointing to a link between viral infection and dementia:
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-study-of-500000-medical-recor...
wat.
(French) https://www.sante.fr/covid-long-2-millions-de-personnes-pres...
1.2% of the French population has long COVID with large/very large impact on daily activities. 4% has long COVID more generally. So I expect more than 1% of chances of getting debilitating symptoms. Though it could be that people with "light" long COVID recover while people with debilitating long COVID don't and make for an unexpectedly high share of the population as they accumulate. (not saying I think that this is the case, just saying this is a possible alternative explanation to "chances of debilitating long COVID are chances of long COVID / 4")
Might be worth looking at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7232a3.htm which is more aligned to what this study researched.
Base rates and coincidences explain many things better than "vaccine caused my <blah>"
E: changed "we are" to "we might be"
Later diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. Sjogrens. Best I can figure, I had Sjogrens before, but it was so mild. I didn’t really notice or care. After the exposure, all the symptoms were amped up 50 fold. Also had Factor V Leiden. Which went from not an issue to multiple clots every single week.
After about four years, the symptoms dad calmed down to certain degree. Getting Covid was a full relapse for about six months.
Of course my wife got the vaccine and her arm swelled up and years later still hasn’t gone back down.
My wife, a formerly energetic, outgoing, type A person, has been suffering from ME/CFS for 20 years. Long COVID symptoms are highly similar to ME/CFS problems, and the hope has been that the long-underfunded ME/CFS research would benefit from the research money that has come with COVID. Thus, I felt let down when I read the linked blurb.
Found the link: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sars-co...
AFAIK they even attributed the organ failures to the failures in mitocondrial energy production.
If you get ME/CFS you are, quite literally, left to die here. Unless someone in your network looks after you.
So yes.
It never really affected me, as I apparently cared a lot less about smells than many other people, but it is a little frightening to lose something because of a disease. I’m happy it was the only side effect I got, I’d obviously rather have had none, but I’d frankly be comforted by scientists knowing more about it.
I've never heard of such a thing but if so I'm glad there's something to at least try.
I don't personally know anyone who still hasn't regained their sense of smell, but for some it was a year or more before it returned fully.
I do know 2 people with 'long covid' who are just super low energy (not a severe case).
Im just excited it's all being looked into now as opposed to being blown off or labeled misinformation.
[1] https://www.uab.edu/reporter/patient-care/advances/item/1000...
Adenoviruses: Causing Weight Gain and Obesity
https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/weight-loss-genetics-obesit...
It hasn’t been confirmed but it seems clear that the initial Covid infection has great impact to the immune system and triggers all sort of collateral effects.
there is also the small matter of... viral persistence
Where is the clarity and consice exacting standards that we are supposed to be in awe of in the scientific community
Why is there no mention of whether or not the test subjects had been vaccinated.
How do we know that the vaccine did not cause the same symptoms?
Surely, only then, could we, I mean I, put this thinking to bed and move on.
For balance and clarity I would like to see the same research done on those who have had the vaccine.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38865876 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44432-3
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.09.23298266v...
It isn't these researchers job to distinguish every phenotype of long covid as there are other groups trying to figure that out. When those definitions are clearer, I'm sure more upcoming literature will distinguish that. But for now, the current definition are symptom/observational based as we have no biomarker or means to distinguish post-vaccination / infection based long covid yet.
Because they started after COVID and not vaccination?
Edit: will add https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccination-drama...
Vaccination actually reduces the risk.
Do MORE to stop the spread. COVID is still spreading, disabling, killing. We're almost into year 5 of the pandemic.
It's not good for yourself, your family, or your community.
Please stop saying it is psychosomatic. Please stop saying only unfit people get it. People stop saying it is caused only by the vaccine.
All of these things do nothing helpful. The science will continue to push through these opinions regardless.
Why can't the discussion be focused on the actual finding here which is that we have a much clearer model of what is causing PEM / exercise intolerance in symptomatic long covid patients versus asymptomatic controls via amyloid deposits, mitochondria dysfunction, and muscle structure changes.
Such symptoms occuring are unsurprising given the psychological effect of the pandemic at its height, its societal and economical effects.
Adding to this getting infected and all the fanfare, along with fear mongering we've been subject to via the media and mandates, long covid could alone so easily be caused by the side effects on mental health.
I won't dare claiming most disease have psychological root causes, not a medical professional.
Because he's an obvious hack who's completely full of shit? I always wondered what kind of person would ever have bought those early 1900s "Dr. Amazing's Medicinal Tonic" claims about curing syphillis, headaches, snake bites, cancer, broken bones, and bad breath. I guess I found one?
Fair enough?
(Not arguing for the parent idea, just why this illness may be special, from the fear perspective.)
Your hypothesis doesn't seem super likely, though I'd entertain the theory if there were a study showing a linkage here. But as for your literal question, I don't think anyone supposes you specifically must do anything. After all, what's 1 person out of billions?
