The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that 20% of Covid infections can result in long Covid. But a U.K. study found that only 3% of Covid patients had residual symptoms lasting 12 weeks. What explains the disparity? It’s often normal to experience mild fatigue or weakness for weeks after being sick and inactive and not eating well. Calling these cases long Covid is the medicalization of ordinary life.
Two studies published this month put long Covid in perspective. The first, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at a spectrum of wellness indicators in 1,000 people who recovered from symptomatic Covid or another respiratory infection. It found that 40% of patients who had tested positive for Covid “reported persistently poor physical, mental, or social well-being at 3-month follow-up.” For Covid-negative patients who had other upper-respiratory infections, the figure was 54%. Covid patients did better than non-Covid patients.
The National Institutes for Health has been intensely focused on studying long Covid, spending nearly $1.2 billion on the condition. To date, the return on investment has been zero for the people suffering with it. But it’s been terrific for MRI centers, lab testing companies and hospitals that set up long Covid clinics. I’ve talked to the staff at some of these clinics and it’s unclear what they are actually offering to people beyond a myriad of tests.
An Annals of Internal Medicine study ran an exhaustive battery of tests on 48 people with long Covid and 50 people without. The researchers found no biochemical or physiologic abnormalities in people with long Covid. “Levels of plasma inflammatory markers, levels of biomarkers for cardiac and central nervous system injury, and presence of select autoantibodies were similar between groups,” they concluded. The only medical factor that predicted long Covid was pre-existing anxiety, associated with a 2.8 times increased risk of developing long Covid.
I'm far from the only one, but I knew it was scam as soon as they started pushing the long Covid fear mongering way back in April 2020.
They hadn't even had time to properly study the issue lol. It was clear to me that they recognized the Covid mortality rate wasn't scary enough, so they had to quickly push long Covid to keep fear levels high.
And it definitely worked because I sadly know multiple people who are still scared of Covid specifically because of long Covid. They know they'll survive if they get it, but they're convinced they have a good chance of being permanently messed up in some way.
It found that 40% of patients who had tested positive for Covid “reported persistently poor physical, mental, or social well-being at 3-month follow-up.” For Covid-negative patients who had other upper-respiratory infections, the figure was 54%
They didn't look at vaccination status, so it's also possible that the vaccine made covid less bad than a normal flu. As bad as they are, the vaccines actually do reduce severity at least for a while.
I'm far from the only one, but I knew it was scam as soon as they started pushing the long Covid fear mongering way back in April 2020.
They hadn't even had time to properly study the issue lol. It was clear to me that they recognized the Covid mortality rate wasn't scary enough, so they had to quickly push long Covid to keep fear levels high.
And it definitely worked because I sadly know multiple people who are still scared of Covid specifically because of long Covid. They know they'll survive if they get it, but they're convinced they have a good chance of being permanently messed up in some way.
They didn't look at vaccination status, so it's also possible that the vaccine made covid less bad than a normal flu. As bad as they are, the vaccines actually do reduce severity at least for a while.