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Attributes and predictors of long Covid

nature.com

31–40 of 77 posts

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#31
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but my priority is to ensure that my friends who rely on emotion-based arguments (fear of the unknown regarding the vaccines, dismissing the risks of covid and taking too few precautions as a result) to be safe and to not contribute to keeping the pandemic going. Going this deep into statistics would just lose them, because I'd come across as trying to intimidate them into taking my viewpoint on how…

>my friends who rely on emotion-based arguments Isn’t every argument based in emotion? Do unpalatable facts have a strong track record of success in arguments?

Depends on the setting. Among educated professionals - it's how science gets done. So even though the process is flawed, it's still more consistently fact-based than emotion-based.

But some people's arguments are based exclusively on emotion.

And they tend to be very bad at estimating risk, because they literally can't tell the difference between one specific tragedy which triggers their emotions because it's reported in great deal, and millions of tragedies which don't trigger their emotions because they're reported as dry statistics.

If we were being less polite, we'd call this a form of cognitive handicap.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/ttu-pra04092...

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't neglect the prior. In most European countries, somewhere around 5% of the population might have been infected with covid. Up to around 10% in the US. Therefore, to have comparable posterior probabilities for long-term side effects, you would need the side effects argument not to merely "apply equally", but to favour the vaccine over the disease by a factor of about 10.

The CDC estimates around 25% of the US population has been infected so far. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

It'll probably settle around 33-35% since that number is just for 2020.

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#33
post #29
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that over a time period longer than a conversation or argument people who committed to learning a topic in depth were able to alter prior beliefs that were based in their lived experiences?

An argument isn’t some specific length of time. A 20 year bet on some outcome is a single argument that takes decades.

>Going this deep into statistics would just lose them

The comment’s text quoted above leads me to believe “argument” in this context refers to a shorter length of time rather than a longer one spent in deliberate study of the argument’s topic. Do you have a different interpretation of the comment to which this particular thread is devoted?

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#34

Something I've noticed: when people in my surroundings bring up worries of long-term effects of the fast-tracked vaccines, they somehow tend to not consider the unknown long-term effects of covid. Even though the argument that we cannot know the long term effects yet should apply equally. When I bring this up they do seem receptive to this argument though, provided I'm not dismissive of their own skepticism. I'm not…

The known effects of LC are horrendous: permanent damage to the brain, heart, lung, kidneys, liver, and pancreas.

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#36

Something I've noticed: when people in my surroundings bring up worries of long-term effects of the fast-tracked vaccines, they somehow tend to not consider the unknown long-term effects of covid. Even though the argument that we cannot know the long term effects yet should apply equally. When I bring this up they do seem receptive to this argument though, provided I'm not dismissive of their own skepticism. I'm not…

You can't neglect the prior. In most European countries, somewhere around 5% of the population might have been infected with covid. Up to around 10% in the US. Therefore, to have comparable posterior probabilities for long-term side effects, you would need the side effects argument not to merely "apply equally", but to favour the vaccine over the disease by a factor of about 10.

Roughly 37% of the US population was infected. A large fraction of Americans never took it seriously. Does that sound familiar? Oh yeah, climate change.

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#37
post #35

One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency, but this study apparently didn't even check Vitamin D levels. That seems like a serious oversight.

My new PCP doctor threw shade on why I was taking 5000 IU of Vitamin D3 per day. I asked him why he wasn't considering Fauci and others take it for COVID outcome prophylaxis.

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#38
post #35

One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency, but this study apparently didn't even check Vitamin D levels. That seems like a serious oversight.

> One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency.

Is it? How exactly is vitamin D deficiency measured and diagnosed? How much variance / tolerance is there between people. Most importantly does COVID impact Vitamin D levels?

This may be a serious oversight. Or it may be that the Vitamin D thing is pseudoscience.

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#39

Something I've noticed: when people in my surroundings bring up worries of long-term effects of the fast-tracked vaccines, they somehow tend to not consider the unknown long-term effects of covid. Even though the argument that we cannot know the long term effects yet should apply equally. When I bring this up they do seem receptive to this argument though, provided I'm not dismissive of their own skepticism. I'm not…

The known effects of LC are horrendous: permanent damage to the brain, heart, lung, kidneys, liver, and pancreas.

> The known effects of LC are horrendous: permanent damage to the brain, heart, lung, kidneys, liver, and pancreas.

None of these are "known effects". If you count "things that have happened to someone after contracting SARS-CoV2" as "long covid", then an entire universe of medical maladies is included in the set that may or may not be causally related.

There are specific examples of patients with severe cases of SARS-CoV2 infection who have had damage to particular organs. However, it is misleading to draw a connection from these to the broader phenomenon of "long covid", which is neither well-characterized, nor necessarily related to these acute situations.

The ambiguity in terminology here is being used to loop in everything from minor headaches to lung damage due to mechanical ventilation.

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#40
post #35

One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency, but this study apparently didn't even check Vitamin D levels. That seems like a serious oversight.

> One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency. Is it? How exactly is vitamin D deficiency measured and diagnosed? How much variance / tolerance is there between people. Most importantly does COVID impact Vitamin D levels? This may be a serious oversight. Or it may be that the Vitamin D thing is pseudoscience.

I recommend you read through all the studies indexed on this page and then get back to us.

https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/

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