4 ms·

It's surprising how long it takes to draw solid conclusions, considering the amount of "live" cases to draw from.

• jacquesm 6y ago
  Why is that surprising? The whole descriptor 'long Covid' suggests that there is an element of time involved that is rather longer than the initial round of the disease itself. Many diseases take years to run their course, I would expect the real damage toll from long Covid to not be visible for years to come rather than that we would somehow be able to predict the course of the disease before we have real world data showing what it can be like. The number of cases has no effect on that at all.
  • jamesrcole 6y ago
    I think they probably mean that, if there’s lots of cases, then there’s (in principle) lots of available information to study, regarding whatever mechanisms are behind the long covid effects we’ve seen so far.
• smhg 6y ago
  Indeed, also taking into consideration that the pandemic is the most pressing issue in many countries. It can't be a budgetary issue. Could someone shed some light on why these questions are so hard?
• entropicdrifter 6y ago
  Ironically, an excessively large amount of raw data can make study harder, at least at first, since it can be difficult to scientifically discern what is a real case of long covid and what is the result of other external factors. Raw data abundance may seem like a good thing for study, but when people have time to build their own lore and superstitions, it can make scientific inquiry that much more difficult.