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Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#71

Post by nicoburns »

noduerme wrote: post #58
stuaxo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"only 5%" is one in twenty. Right now the UK is getting something like 30,000 new cases a day. This adds up to a lot, last time I checked the UK was only behind India on total cases. For whatever reason the people running the UKs actions are doing the opposite of protecting people.

You know, I wondered for a long time about why "mad cow disease" didn't slowly manifest in a much larger percentage of the British population. But I think it did... they're just calling it Alzheimer's.

Mad cow disease is a prion disease, and as such it’s relatively easy to control it’s spread. You would mainly catch it from someone by eating them, which isn’t something we tend to do.

Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#72

Post by antiSingularity »

noduerme wrote: post #65
antiSingularity wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just goes to show the validity of anecdotes thrown around anonymously online, right?

No, you're just throwing around disinformation. Anecdotes aside, I think your cousin made the right decision to get the vaccine. The virus would have likely done the same and worse. Unless they could have avoided it forever, the choices would be the vax or a full assault by a live replicating virus. 700,000 people have died in the US now from it. Better to live.

And who gets to define my anecdote as "disinformation"? Surely you can't be saying that any story that runs counter to a particular given narrative must be false? (FWIW, it is completely true).

How do you know the disease would be worse? This particular relative is in mental anguish, as the kind of statements that you just made are the only available opinions on whether you should get the vaccine. After 6 months of feeling like death, they are questioning the decision.

ps. Are we ever going to re-set the Covid death count at the end of a year? At approx. 300k deaths per year in the US, Covid is the 3rd-biggest killer.

Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#73

Post by antiSingularity »

noduerme wrote: post #69
antiSingularity wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens, when the kids bring back a particularly nasty disease from nursery. We recently had RSV, and that lasted a month for me.

Sounds like your immune system didn't handle that well, but again, imagine how much worse it would handle covid.

My immune system would definitely be better if I hadn't been confined to my house for months, and banned from seeing anyone for months after that.

Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#74

Post by CryptoPunk »

nicoburns wrote: post #61
CryptoPunk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a scientific answer. Physical symptoms of stress include: Low energy Headaches Upset stomach, including diarrhea, constipation, and nausea Aches, pains, and tense muscles Chest pain and rapid heartbeat Insomnia Frequent colds and infections Loss of sexual desire and/or ability Nervousness and shaking, ringing in the ear, cold or sweaty hands and feet Dry mouth and difficulty swallowing Clenched jaw and gri…

So to comment on one of those symptoms: chest pain. I do experience this when resting, but I get particularly strong pain when doing any kind of exercise. If it were stress related you would expect exercise to improve symptoms not make them worse. I would also add that while I was certainly a bit depressed by the lockdown, I live in the UK where we are no longer locked down and my mental health has improved greatly.…

>>I do experience this when resting, but I get particularly strong pain when doing any kind of exercise. If it were stress related you would expect exercise to improve symptoms not make them worse.

One study on pro-athletes found that 0.6% of cases were confirmed, after cardiac MRI, to have inflammatory heart disease post COVID infection:

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/03/few-pro-...

This is only 1/10th as much as the percentage who report chest pain. Some caveats: these are young adults, and athletes, so probably in the lowest risk category. Other demographics could face much higher risks.

So I guess the chest pain could be a real symptom of long-COVID, but I am much more skeptical of the other symptoms (e.g. anxiety, depression, etc).

It's also worth noting that heart inflammation from infections like flu will generally subside over time.

Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#75

Post by bsaul »

stuaxo wrote: post #22
rob_c wrote: post #19

Nothing new here. 90%+ of people don't understand that either they're suffering depression from isolating from other humans, or in cases of healthcare, symptoms don't suddenly appear months after a disease or vaccine for hundreds of people like some episode of House. The 1% of legit cases are being let down because were being dragged down by the same mass hysteria that linked vaccines and autism. Chances are this isn…

Covid itself creates an auto immune response. It's estimated one in seven kids will suffer long Covid. The symptoms aren't the symptoms of depression.

15% of kids seems like an absurdly high number compared to what i've seen reported in the last 18 month (including delta).

Aka : in the immense majority people 15% of which kids ? the ones that end up in ICU ?

Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#76

Post by antiSingularity »

nicoburns wrote: post #70
antiSingularity wrote: post #48

As a parent of two small kids, I would struggle to notice if I had "Long Covid". Most of the symptoms sound like my every day experience! ps. In my subjective opinion, Long Covid is completely overblown. I know even fewer people that have suffered from it (0) than people who have had symptomatic Covid (2).

Having a lot of these kind of symptoms when in a highly stressful environment is normal. It’s having them even when resting or doing only moderate activity that isn’t. Imagine if you didn’t have kids, got plenty of rest, etc and still felt like you do now. Then imagine what the prospect of looking after your kids would feel like if you already felt this tired when rested.

How can I imagine such a thing? Being a parent makes you do superhuman things. It's just not an option to "not feel like getting out of bed" - for all I know, the extra motivation of needing to care for my young family made me get on with life even when I did feel as bad as your hypothetical well-rested person.

Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#77

Post by nuerow »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #60
nuerow wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not a scientific answer. Physical symptoms of stress include: I feel you inadvertently tried to misrepresent the symptoms of long Covid. Please check wikipedia's article on long Covid for an objective and we'll sourced reference on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_COVID Among the typical symptoms we have "fatigue, headaches, shortness of breath, anosmia (loss of smell), parosmia (distorted sme…

>>Feeling fatigued alone does not pass off as long Covid, That is not true. Here is a typical study purportedly showing evidence for long COVID: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/28/covid-37-of-pe... >>One in three people infected with coronavirus will experience at least one symptom of long Covid, a new study suggests. The most common symptom associated with "long-COVID" is anxiety..

> That is not true. Here is a typical study purportedly showing evidence for long COVID:

You've said "study" but you're quoting an article from The Guardian.

Also, it seems you even failed to read your source. Your article does not refer to the incidence of long COVID-19. Your source only refers to a statistical study of the prevalence of any of the symptoms that are attributed to long COVID-19, whose goal is clearly to gather data to help understand the problem, or even if one really exists.

Also, I feel you are either misquoting or being disingenuous. The article you quoted quite clearly states that "The most common symptoms were breathing problems, abdominal symptoms, fatigue, pain and anxiety or depression."

So, a charitable interpretation of your misunderstanding of what you've quoted is that you picked up a reference to a study whose purpose is to gather initial observations on the actual incidence of long Covid, looked at the raw data and unwittingly misinterpreted correlations for consequences.

Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#78

Post by kergonath »

nuerow wrote: post #36
noduerme wrote: post #24

Some guy says it's overblown and this is ranking on HN? Personally, I know several people who are not normally complainers or full of shit who have had some wild effects for 9-12 months after a bout of covid, including visual disturbances, extreme exhaustion, and loss of focus or mental acuity. I really don't doubt my friends who've suffered this. They're not the kind of folks who think they have made-up diseases or…

> Some guy says it's overblown and this is ranking on HN? The guy quoted for said statement is a professor of medicine of a reputable university, so he does have the authority thing sorted out. Also, I feel the quote means something different than the original interpretation. After reading the article, it seems that John Bell simply states that a) long Covid is "more complicated than people assume", and b) it's incid…

> The guy quoted for said statement is a professor of medicine of a reputable university, so he does have the authority thing sorted out.

That’s fallacious. There are loads of professors spewing bullshit, including about their field, including at Oxford. It says nothing about the validity of the point they are making. Particularly after the point has been filtered through journalists with a questionable understanding of science.

Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#79

Post by simonh »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #44
danjac wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why the Times/Telegraph (and their low-IQ equivalents such as the Mail and Express) are so keen to downplay Covid. My hunch is that their owners are losing money on property investments and are desperate to get employees back in the office, who knows.

It fits their general pattern of "anything mildly complicated that involves a government doing stuff to help the average person is a conspiracy to hurt you". Regulations for easier trade of bananas? Regulations to encourage recycling? Human Rights? Health and Safety? Climate change plans? New school cirriculum? You should hate and fear all these things according to them. Because if people saw government as a way to i…

Anything that involves international co-operation and co-ordination is anathema to those with a nationalist or isolationist leaning, because it means you have to work with foreigners to address it. Either it doesn't exist, or it's a foreigner conspiracy anyway, or somehow both at the same time.

Re: Long Covid is overblown and often something else, says Oxford professor

#80

Post by nicoburns »

Kliment wrote: post #33

This is something that's hard to talk about because it's both painful for patients to hear, and legitimately controversial due to shortage of data. There doesn't seem to be a syndrome here. There's a handful of different symptoms, and they mostly don't occur together. There's certainly long-term symptoms, and mostly correlated with disease severity. You have long-term effects of hypoxia, and long term effects of lung…

I think a lot of the insistence on the “long covid “ terminology is just wanting acceptance that covid-19 can cause these post-viral symptoms, which a lot people still don’t accept, as demonstrated in this thread with people saying it’s just the stress of lockdown.

The medical community seems to take the problem(s) seriously, but has very little idea how to treat it. Hopefully the high profile of the problem will lead to increased research in this area over the next few years.

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