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Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

nytimes.com

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Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#61

Post by runemadsen »

Zanneth wrote: post #18

A lot of the symptoms of “Long COVID” are exactly the same as depression and anxiety symptoms. Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. Of course there are a small number of people who had severe illness from COVID and had to be hospitalized, and the road to recovery for them is quite long, but most people claiming that they suffer from Long COVID are not the on…

This is just so, so wrong in many ways. Read about post-viral diseases such as Me/CFS that closely mirrors what Long Covid sufferers are going through. Watch "Unrest" on Netflix. Stop telling people who have serious physical symptoms that it's all mental. Just stop.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#62

Post by tootie »

Zanneth wrote: post #18

A lot of the symptoms of “Long COVID” are exactly the same as depression and anxiety symptoms. Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. Of course there are a small number of people who had severe illness from COVID and had to be hospitalized, and the road to recovery for them is quite long, but most people claiming that they suffer from Long COVID are not the on…

I think that's a very wrong way of thinking about it. Mental illness is illness and ultimately will always have a physical cause. My more optimistic take is that this will lead to us better understanding how things like pathogens and environmental factors can cause syndromes that manifest as mental illness. Which is to say this could be both depression and long covid and the two could be intertwined. And it may lead us to looking at how influenza or air pollution or cell phone radiation or whatever else is causing depression symptoms.

I say this as someone who was in the same boat for a while. I was suffering persistent fatigue, malaise, anxiety, sleep disruptions. The kind of thing frequently diagnosed as depression. Only I eventually graduated to a specific enough symptom to get a diagnosis of specific physiological cause. A disease that was only positively attributed to specific neurological malfunction 20 years ago and one that is very difficult to test for directly. In reality, I _was_ depressed by the "quacks like a duck" theory of disease. That doesn't mean I didn't have a treatable illness no different than heartburn or cancer. It's only a matter of time (maybe a lot of time) before we really can "cure" most forms of depression.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#63

Post by Kim_Bruning »

qclibre22 wrote: post #31
yboris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like if our society had UBI (Universal Basic Income) we wouldn't have to worry so much over cases like this - people would be able to get by, it wouldn't be a crisis for so many individuals.

Everybody wants a government handout. Nobody wants to pay the taxes to fund it.

That's a fairly North American Continent point of view I think.

Not everyone classifies government spending as a handout. Many countries have some sort of "Labour party" that tends to want to have high taxes, and over time such parties get plenty of votes.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#64

Post by olyjohn »

snozolli wrote: post #28
Zanneth wrote: post #18

A lot of the symptoms of “Long COVID” are exactly the same as depression and anxiety symptoms. Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. Of course there are a small number of people who had severe illness from COVID and had to be hospitalized, and the road to recovery for them is quite long, but most people claiming that they suffer from Long COVID are not the on…

Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. I've had depression and I've had depressed friends. None of us ever had those symptoms.

I have had depression for years. And some of the people I know who also have depression have these symptoms. Turns out not everybody reacts the same way to everything!

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#66

Post by anonuser123456 »

throw_away_pri wrote: post #20

Personal anecdote: I'm going through some mental issues as a result of my divorce and I have trouble staying motivated at work. It's incredibly tempting to claim that I'm suffering from long COVID as an excuse instead of a mental health issue. I wonder how many people are just using it as a convenient excuse?

>convenient excuse

I think it’s not so overt or intentional. It’s more of a confabulation effect.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#67

Post by eldritch_4ier »

runemadsen wrote: post #61
Zanneth wrote: post #18

A lot of the symptoms of “Long COVID” are exactly the same as depression and anxiety symptoms. Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. Of course there are a small number of people who had severe illness from COVID and had to be hospitalized, and the road to recovery for them is quite long, but most people claiming that they suffer from Long COVID are not the on…

This is just so, so wrong in many ways. Read about post-viral diseases such as Me/CFS that closely mirrors what Long Covid sufferers are going through. Watch "Unrest" on Netflix. Stop telling people who have serious physical symptoms that it's all mental. Just stop.

Are there any physiological or biological signatures for Long Covid? Is there any objective way to diagnose?

The symptoms of Long Covid are so vague and our recent work so wacky, you could use the same criteria used to diagnose Long Covid to diagnose "Long Lockdowns Syndrome" with all the same vague symptoms.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#68

Post by switch007 »

throw_away_pri wrote: post #20

Personal anecdote: I'm going through some mental issues as a result of my divorce and I have trouble staying motivated at work. It's incredibly tempting to claim that I'm suffering from long COVID as an excuse instead of a mental health issue. I wonder how many people are just using it as a convenient excuse?

I'd never claim mental health issues at work, personally.

Sorry to hear about your divorce! Stay strong

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#69

Post by tootie »

clint wrote: post #45
snozolli wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. I've had depression and I've had depressed friends. None of us ever had those symptoms.

I too have had depression and I have also had depressed friends. All of us have had those symptoms.

That's why depression is classified as a disorder and not a disease. We really don't know the full range of causes and it seems likely there's several different ones.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#70

Post by digdugdirk »

nostromo wrote: post #35
yboris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like if our society had UBI (Universal Basic Income) we wouldn't have to worry so much over cases like this - people would be able to get by, it wouldn't be a crisis for so many individuals.

Our Covid response really hurt the case for UBI. It turns out, when people are paid to stay at home and not work, even for a short period of time, we get high inflation and product shortages.

Very little of the product shortages (and subsequent inflation) came from people staying home. The vast majority came from global supply chain disruptions.

(Which I guess is still technically people staying home, but its a bit different if you're being forcibly locked in your apartment in China vs what the "lockdown" was in the US)

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