I personally, closely know at least 20 people who have had COVID so far and not one of them has had what is being called "long COVID". They range in age from 19

I personally, closely know at least 20 people who have had COVID so far and not one of them has had what is being called "long COVID". They range in age from 19 to 92 and all had varying degrees of confirmed illness at one time or another during the last year and a fraction (one of them twice) and all recovered fully within a few days to maybe a month or so at the most. This of course is just anecdote, but it underscores a few points I think are important: 1. If long COVID is rare, well, how rare? That's a key question because its range makes a huge difference. Nearly every illness can have its extreme worse case examples, but they should by no means always be taken as causes for hysterical hypochondria if we're talking about an average 1 in 10,000 chance vs. a 1 in 5 chance. 2.Perhaps other factors, still poorly known in specific cases, played a large part in creating most cases of people with long COVID for extended periods. Speculative examples: coincidental separate illnesses that happened soon after, underlying problems that were somehow triggered by a normal period of COVID, other infections that came along because the virus created a temporary weakness, etc. 3. People are often notoriously unreliable at perceiving and narrating their health experience to doctors or each other, or even to themselves for that matter. In a pandemic atmosphere of frequent hysteria further exacerbated by digital media feedback, it's easy to imagine at least some people, especially those of a more suggestive or nervous persuasion, convincing themselves of extended COVID symptoms when much of what they feel is either unrelated and incidental or even completely in their heads, for months after their initial infection. then there are those who just enjoy painting themselves as dramatic victims and will latch onto anything they can exaggerate for effect. This last overall point isn't just a flippant dismissal, all of these characteristics are documented psychological tendencies in a certain subset of people.