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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

#121

Post by heurisko »

q1w2 wrote: post #117
heurisko wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coronavirus's risk to children is low. It's not true that there are no mitigations for Covid: children in the UK are being vaccinated against Covid, as often happens against winter flu. Measures to protect adults against coronavirus have not come for free for children. Mental health referrals amongst children have doubled since before the pandemic [1]. In more unintended consequences, smoking amongst young people has…

No masks in schools - no distancing. They are not even doing the basics.

The basics are vaccinations. We have a vaccination now: this is the end game. There is nothing more we can do, unless we want to enforce children to wear masks and distance every winter flu season, which comes at a mental and developmental cost for children.

Children should not have to wear masks for 6 hours a day, and should be allowed to interact with each other normally.

Whilst being the group least at risk of coronavirus, the most has been asked from children and young people, and now is the time when we need to return to normal in society, accepting we balance freedom with risk, and that they will always accompany each other.

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

#122

Post by jrs235 »

shoto_io wrote: post #89
noduerme wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a guy who played very loud music for many years, I can relate. Until you said this I was sitting here in silence out in the country listening to frogs and now all I hear is that high whine. I think like a lot of other shit I just learn to tune it out.

This is so crazy. Now that I have read your comment I can clearly hear a high pitch sound which won't stop.

Ditto. Damn.

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

#123

Post by nuerow »

celticninja wrote: post #116
nuerow wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like the BMJ dont trust this chap and are questioning his financial interests. The article you mentioned only refers to stock portfolio and potential conflicts of interest regarding policy decisions on performing antibody tests. The statement that was quoted in this discussion is about an entirely unrelated subject: the prevalence of long Covid. The initial claim is that the statement is supported by data fr…

I question his impartiality on making statements such as this. I wonder about what he gains from making statements like this? If he was open about questions put to him in the past then I would be less suspect, but given he has hidden his financial interests related to his work then I suspect he has some hidden motivation here too.

> I question his impartiality on making statements such as this.

There is a very good way to verify the claims: check the data.

Dragging in questions regarding antibody test policies, stock portfolios, and potential conflicts of interest just sound like cheap character assassination attempts that have absolutely no relation with the prevalence of long Covid.

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

#124

Post by tremon »

noduerme wrote: post #28
gambiting wrote: post #9

Not had covid, but about 2 years ago had a Parvovirus-B19 infection which triggered a reactive arthritis, which means 2 years later I'm still having steroid injections and my joints are more or less in pain. The medical summary is basically "sucks to be you I guess" but it's a semi-common side effect of a virus infection. So yeah, all I want to say is that virus infections are not a joke, even if you got through one…

And some viruses are worse than others. Some will hide out in your spinal cord forever and make an appearance when you're under stress. If you've ever had to watch someone go through an outbreak of shingles... holy crap that looks miserable. I had Mono when I was 15 and still get what I take to be occasional, minor resurgences of that level of total body-wide exhaustion, every five years or so for a couple days. A fr…

There have been research developments that show that viruses can create/attach to biofilms just like bacteria, which allows the virus to survive treatment and can explain the intermittent resurgence.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100205115946.h...

https://www.immunology.org/public-information/bitesized-immu...

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

#125

Post by Aeolun »

phillc73 wrote: post #6
Aeolun wrote: post #3

If only half of the people that think they have it (5%) actually have it. Doesn’t that still mean that 2.5% of all COVID cases suffers from persistent issues? That’s still a fairly high incidence rate. At least to the extend that we can’t really ignore it.

The article states, "The ONS survey, published last week, found that 5 per cent of people who had tested positive for Covid reported at least one symptom 12 to 16 weeks after their infection." Only 5% of all COVID cases report persistent symptoms. And 3.4% of the general population report the same symptoms. Edit: Comment this is in reply to originally had 50%, now changed to 5%.

Yeah, apologies. I’m fairly certain I read much higher numbers somewhere else before, but then found this article (through archive.is) had it’s own numbers, so I modified the comment since it frankly works either way.

Whether 25 or 2.5%, it’s still millions of people.

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

#126

Post by Aeolun »

zeptonix wrote: post #32
Aeolun wrote: post #3

If only half of the people that think they have it (5%) actually have it. Doesn’t that still mean that 2.5% of all COVID cases suffers from persistent issues? That’s still a fairly high incidence rate. At least to the extend that we can’t really ignore it.

This might be helpful for some context: "Affecting approximately 2 to 5 percent of the population, hypochondria has no specific cause, but is often found in people who have had previous experience with a serious illness, especially in childhood" (source: https://www.everydayhealth.com/anxiety/understanding-hypocho... ) Not disputing/arguing whether Long Covid exists or how bad it could be since I'm not qualified to.…

Hypochondria generally has you believing there’s something seriously wrong with you, not that you cannot smell or taste things any more (at least in my experience with it).

Like, if you were suffering from brain fog, you’d attribute it to a brain tumor or aomething.

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

#127

Post by disneygibson »

sofixa wrote: post #118
disneygibson wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that some of these symptoms are consequences of locking down society and preventing real human interaction for 18 months? I haven’t had COVID and I have had more depression and exhaustion in the last year than in my entire life.

Was there any place on the planet that had 18 months of uninterrupted lockdowns, preventing real human interaction? The pandemic has hit in waves, and lockdowns were usually only applied when needed.

I think the uncertainty made it worse. Uncertainty is a common trigger for depression and malaise.

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

#128

Post by 5e92cb50239222b »

noduerme wrote: post #100
shoto_io wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so crazy. Now that I have read your comment I can clearly hear a high pitch sound which won't stop.

sorry. Yeah, the parent poster did it to me. I didn't mean to pass it on. Don't worry. Put on Fugazi and smoke a joint... you won't remember this in a couple hours.

Oh-oh, I clearly have done my share of bad things for the day. Did not mean to, apologies. Nothing really triggers this thing for me anymore, as it is always there.

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

#129

Post by celticninja »

nuerow wrote: post #123
celticninja wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question his impartiality on making statements such as this. I wonder about what he gains from making statements like this? If he was open about questions put to him in the past then I would be less suspect, but given he has hidden his financial interests related to his work then I suspect he has some hidden motivation here too.

> I question his impartiality on making statements such as this. There is a very good way to verify the claims: check the data. Dragging in questions regarding antibody test policies, stock portfolios, and potential conflicts of interest just sound like cheap character assassination attempts that have absolutely no relation with the prevalence of long Covid.

He doesn't present the data, he asks us to take his word for it, or the article does at least. Therefore to decide whether I can accept his word I need to know about him and his character. From initial research into him there are some queries about his behaviour, raised by an organisation that I do trust, therefore I do not accept his claim without question.

Don't accept things blindly because you agree with them (or the converse), "be a good judge of who is a good judge".

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