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Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19
- bserge 5y agoJust like many other viral and bacterial infections, then. No surprise here.
- pjc50 5y agoThat's rather a surprise to me, given the lack of recognition of post-viral fatigue!
- trhway 5y agothere are studies connecting chronic fatigue syndrome to increased B-cells numbers (like it happens after viral infections like flu for example, and i'd guess after covid too) https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/are-b-cells-to-blame-for-chronic-fatigue-syndrome https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/are-b-cells-to-blame...
- VortexDream 5y agoI'm not aware of similarities with other infections. Care to cite sources?
- orwin 5y ago(Not OP) Viral infection can have this effect. The flu for sure, but also the varicella virus (i think this is the translation?) do too. West Nile virus also? Its definitly not the majority of viruses, and i'm not sure bacterial (benefit of the doubt here). Don't tell me you never exagerate a little :P
- _moof 5y ago> varicella virus (i think this is the translation?) chickenpox. :)
- neilwilson 5y agoInfluenza can trigger numerous issues. My mother ended up on anti-seizure tablets after the last flu outbreak having spent five days in intensive care. The flu brought on a fit and hypo-natremia. It took months before she could walk properly again. Our success against infectious diseases has left a generation or two with insufficient fear of them. I’ve seen people catch a bad cold on Wednesday and be dead from pneumonia on Sunday. The impact from Covid isn’t new. It’s just a rediscovery of why we spent the twentieth century on an all out war against infectious diseases and septicaemia.
- VortexDream 5y agoMaybe. However, the rates at which I'm seeing long Covid seem entirely novel. Something like 30% of all cases in a recent study show signs of it, including mild cases. I admit there are overlaps in fatigue syndrome (and should've phrased my original comment differently), but AFAIK we've usually only seen that in severe infections with other diseases while we're seeing abnormally high rates of (to varying degrees) cognitive impairment even in mild or asymptomatic Covid infections.
- ekianjo 5y agoMany infections (viral or bacterial) can cause long term inflammation, and inflammation can have such effects. Now what would really need to be measured if the degree of change is really different with COVID vs other infections.
- guruz 5y agoPost Viral Fatigue Syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome#Viral_and_other_infections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome#Viral...
- orwin 5y agoYou mean some, it is not the majority. And often viral, not bacterial. The flu have this effect for sure. The issue is that those cognitive disfunctions hit young people who were not hospitalized, or hospitalized only for safety (monitoring them with oxy at the ready). I know of one professionnal classical dancer, 26, who cannot coordinate following Covid, and was luckily already near the end of her career. But still, for some trade, this might be an issue, especially if Covid become as endemic as the flu
- strangemonad 5y agoIn what scenario does it bot become endemic?
- unlikelymordant 5y agoIf everyone develops immunity, either by vaccine or infection, and it dies out on its own i assume would be the only way
- rsynnott 5y agoFull vaccination. A few countries (developed countries with high levels of vaccine acceptance) will be able to vaccinate virtually everyone over 16 within the next month or so, maybe everyone over 12 (though there is likely to be way more hesitancy there almost everywhere). At that point, it's likely to be suppressed in those countries, and that may reduce hesitancy elsewhere, and so on. A number of diseases that were once globally endemic are now regionally endemic (eg polio, two countries), or eradicated (smallpox). Generally due to vaccination.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago> The flu have this effect for sure. Any references or background to this? It's weird because there are major media campaigns to encourage people to have a flu jab (UK) and "flu causes [irreversible] cognitive dysfunction" would be a major 'seller'. I can also see that governments could have been reluctant to spread such information - if it's true - as it would change attitudes to schooling; schools being known to be a major vector for spreading flu.
- iloveyouocean 5y agoMy first, selfish question: When will the article that examines cognitive function in recovered people who were fully vaccinated before contracting COVID arrive?
- ypcx 5y agoThat may depend (or be influenced by) on whether the results are negative or positive versus unvaccinated and who advertises in said journal.
- paulsutter 5y agoReading the results, the less severe the case the less severe the impact. Effects were severe for hospitalized patients, and mild for mild cases. Hospitalization is rare among vaccinated people.
- Arnt 5y agoThat'll take a long time. Since the vaccines are excellent at preventing serious outcomes, a fairly large share of the infected won't even go to a physician, and therefore getting a representative sample of infected people will be all of difficult, expensive and time-consuming. Maybe there exists a set of people who ⓐ resembles the general population and ⓑ will be tested routinely and often for years to come, such that an accurate statistical picture can be found. But I can't think of any now.
- Aachen 5y agoOT - how do you make those circled symbols? A tool or do you have a nice keyboard combo for it? It makes this in-line summing up of points much clearer, I like it at least at first sight.
- Arnt 5y agoI really like those ;) They're not as practically useful as —, ⅓, → and a few others, but I really like them. I type compose (a) to get ⓐ. See https://rant.gulbrandsen.priv.no/xcompose https://rant.gulbrandsen.priv.no/xcompose for how I did it, it's mostly a matter of using someone else's .xcompose file from github.
- roenxi 5y agoThe question I'm interested in: What are the general cognitive deficits in the population caused by disease? The evidence I've been reading the last decade+ suggests that disease is much more damaging than is generally acknowledged. But, as shown by the coronavirus, the costs of stopping (or, more realistically, delaying) them are huge. I'm wondering if, in my lifetime, we're going to see a plan for dealing with Herpes.
- murgindrag 5y ago> But, as shown by the coronavirus, the costs of stopping (or, more realistically, delaying) them are huge If we all wore $2 N95-equivalent masks, spread out 6 feet whenever convenient, did outside whatever can be done outside, and received a vaccine at (roughly) the same time, COVID19 would be gone. The costs are huge because we made them huge. We ignore COVID19 when case counts are low, giving it a chance to mutate and spread. We take extreme measures when hospitals start filling up, shutting down schools and businesses. See Korea, China, Taiwan, etc. for examples of reasonable-cost ways to control COVID19.
- roenxi 5y agoWell, yeah. Pretty much all problems humans face are caused by humans. And death, which is still forced on us by the laws of entropy. You'll find that the systems that can force the unwilling to buy $2 masks, spread out 6 feet and get vaccinated are worse than the disease. If you recognise that the government can compel people to be healthy it opens up some terrifying cans of worms.
- murgindrag 5y agoI think it depends on how it's done. I'd like to see this implemented with roughly the same systems which make me wear a bicycle helmet, a seatbelt, or have turn signals, which I don't find so scary. In these systems, you have a law. You have law enforcement. Law enforcement doesn't catch everyone, and doesn't have particularly aggressive police powers. I'm fearful it will be implemented with the same systems which make us register guns and have background checks, track bank transfers over $10,000, check IDs when buying cold medicine, or track us as we travel. In these systems, you have law enforcement. Enforcement is given tools to track and monitor what people do just in case someone might be a criminal.
- etherio 5y agoAnother selfish question: do we know if this cognitive deficit is also found in teenagers who contracted the virus?
- murgindrag 5y agoPreliminary evidence: Yes. https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/asset/A%20Detailed%20Study%20of%20Patients%20with%20Long-Haul%20COVID--An%20Analysis%20of%20Private%20Healthcare%20Claims--A%20FAIR%20Health%20White%20Paper.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/as...
- slickrick216 5y agoRegrettably cynical view but I’ve seen first hand 3 people use long covid symptoms to extend pandemic related benefits which are paying at a rate approximate to their past/current jobs. At both the micro and macro level there are perverse incentives beginning to form that will make this thing roll on longer than it has too
- OliverM 5y agoIncidental bad actors don't invalidate the entire approach of safeguarding people's livelihoods. The 3 people you describe would likely try to exploit any system unfairly. The perfect is the enemy of the good here as in most other places.
- slickrick216 5y agoYeah agreed they would and do. I’m not saying it invalidates anything but what this may indicate is inflated numbers which in the current situation causes overreaction.
- resoluteteeth 5y agoNone of the pandemic benefits in the US required people to claim to have long covid symptoms.
- slickrick216 5y agoNot everyone using HN lives in the US.
- breakfastduck 5y agoWhere did anyone mention the US? Or is this just the classic assumption that all people on the internet are American? Funny how no other nation does that.
- isaacremuant 5y agoThere's growing concern from the pro lockdown lancet that people will try and move past them. There's never concern about consequences from lockdowns, virtually mandatory vaccines on trial until 2023 (through coercion and segregation), delays in any other health ailment, etc. In many places around Europe we no longer have freedom nor the constitutions matter. We're looking at this type of hygiene theater for years to come and people keep bringing up the likes of the Lancet and Sage to keep the fear mongering and pretend a zero covid at any cost is possible while increasing dystopian measures. Compare the hailed Australia/Israel/New Zealand dystopian futures with many states in the US (like Florida/Texas) that didn't succumb to the dystopia through fearmongering. 2 weeks passed many times. It's now time to stop the damage that's being done in the name of "protecting people". It's not that different from the security theater after 9/11. Just because you DO something doesn't mean it's a good thing. Edit: I know this will get downvoted as it's par for the course of anything in HN that doesn't toe the line of more LDs and hygiene theater (and US based partisanship) but this is for those who are disenfranchised and are not interested in petty left/right divisions and more to stand up against increasing authoritarianism and apartheid. Specially in some European countries.
- jhgb 5y ago> There's never concern about consequences from lockdowns, virtually mandatory vaccines on trial until 2023 (through coercion and segregation), delays in any other health ailment, etc. Is this some kind of a "who can build the biggest straw man" competition?
- isaacremuant 5y agoNo. It's a "enough is enough" comment. I know that hackernews types who have largely not been affected that much, specially US based, will be fine downvoting and promoting more propaganda, segregation and fearmongering but those that do are morally corrupt to the core and I'm tired at pretending otherwise.
- 100011 5y agoHN is populated by the very liberal types. This study had access to racial data (see Q5) yet it chose to not control for it. The result might have shown that contracting the disease acts as an IQ test itself. But Lancet was behind other trash releases too earlier.
- bijant 5y agoThis Study suffers from at least one significant methodological flaw. They did not evaluate the same individuals pre- and post Covid infection but instead evaluated people as a group who were either previously infected or not. While they did try to correct for some socio-economic factors such as age their data did not allow them to factor in the socio-economic discrepancies in the distribution of early Covid cases which overwhelmingly hit service industry workers with direct customer exposure. People with Graduate Degrees were much more frequently able to self isolate and work from home than people without a high school equivalent degree. What I find to be quite sad, is the fact that these researchers were actually in a position to retest a subset of the original test takers as more than 10% completed a follow up survey in December 2020 which surfaced 275 individuals who had contracted Covid after their first participation in the study. Retesting those, as well as the >8000 individuals who had no change in Covid status to control for increase in age, increase in points due to getting better at the test with repeated exposure etc, would have been a sufficiently large dataset to actually confirm or rule out at least large effect sizes.
- irthomasthomas 5y agoAlso those symptoms look very similar to stress, anxiety and depression. Which I think are to be expected after contracting a pandemic level virus and being forced to isolate. I would like to see results after treating or controlling for those conditions.
- adflux 5y agoI agree. I suspect many "long covid" cases are probably not caused by covid, but by the lockdown and psychological impact of this phenomenon. People complaining of fatigue or having difficulty concentrating or having brain fog are in some studies already counted as suffering from long covid. No causual relationship required.
- CraigJPerry 5y agoThat suspicion goes against what the people who are dealing with this every day are saying. What makes you suspect this? A friend of mine is a doctor and we were chatting about long covid 2 days ago, his description of it seemed pretty cut and dried to me - e.g. a swimmer here in Glasgow with hopes of getting to the 2024 olympics is currently unable to train due to breathing issues post-covid. They’re supposed to be fully immersed in training right now but can’t since covid in December 2020.
- victor106 5y ago> Cognitive problems in those who have required a lengthy hospital stay or intubation are expected [[19]]. What is less clear is whether milder cases who have not been hospitalized also can suffer objectively measurable cognitive deficits. Measuring such associations is challenging. I think most of these deficits are for the hospitalized. It will be interesting to see the why. Is it the virus itself? Is it the treatment? Combination? Or is it the extreme long term anxiety.
- mrcartmenez 5y agoMost likely the lack of oxygen to the brain
- ekianjo 5y agoNot sure what is the current state of the research but I seem to recall that some researchers mentioned that COVID19 could break through the brain blood barrier and therefore could also affect the brain in unknown ways: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-020-00771-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-020-00771-8
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y agoLengthy hospital stays, particularly intubation, is associated with cognitive decline. https://pulmccm.org/critical-care-review/cognitive-impairment-critical-illness-often-bad-alzheimers-nejm/ https://pulmccm.org/critical-care-review/cognitive-impairmen...
- codesections 5y agoResults: The study shows ~1 IQ point decline for non-hospitalized Covid patients. Full table: Covid, no respiratory difficulty: 0.4 IQ point loss Covid, respiratory difficulty, no home assistance: 1 IQ point loss Covid, respiratory difficulty, with home assistance: 2 IQ point loss Covid, hospitalized, without ventilation: 4 IQ point loss Covid, hospitalized, with ventilation: 7 IQ point loss
- inglor_cz 5y agoI wonder if you can even reliably measure a 0.4 IQ point loss. Factors such as aging, changes in environment, perhaps even work from home will act as confounding influences. On the other hand, 7 IQ point loss on ventilation does not surprise me as much. Being in a half-suffocated state for weeks must have some adverse effect on oxygen-hungry brain.
- murgindrag 5y agoMy follow-up question is how damage accumulates. We're on-track for COVID19 becoming a thing, where we'll catch mutations over and over and over.
- 5y ago
- glangdale 5y agoI think it's reasonable to be way more cautious about COVID than the "just a flu" and "it'll become endemic" (for some value of 'endemic') crowd seem to think. The UK brain imaging study is a (small, not-yet-peer-reviewed) data point in that direction also: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v... There seems to be somewhat of suggestion that COVID may have serious long-term neurological effects. Given the massive numbers that it has affected already (and how many it would affect if it becomes endemic), even relatively small risk factors (i.e. single digit percentages) for things like Lewy body dementia and Parkinsons could have huge effect on public health. It's worth reminding ourselves that we don't have any data on the mid-to-long term effects of COVID beyond about a 2 year window.
- jmnicolas 5y ago> I think it's reasonable to be way more cautious about COVID than the "just a flu" and "it'll become endemic" (for some value of 'endemic') crowd seem to think. But unless you want to live like a recluse in a bunker, what are your options? The way I see it, you're bound to catch it no matter how many precautions you take. Case in point: I know a guy with paranoid level of precautions that still got it and while he was confined with his family none of them caught it (this was before we had any vaccines in my country).
- BoxOfRain 5y agoExactly, at some point the cure will become worse than the disease. The fact this makes people uncomfortable is no reason to push it under the rug!
- 100011 5y agoThey did not have the bravery to control for race. You might as well throw it in the trash, it is already politically colored junk.
- viraptor 5y agoAre you implying that covid infections depend on the race? If not then controlling for socio-economic attributes should fulfill the role that you'd often see approximated via race. And if yes - could you link a relevant paper?
- murgindrag 5y agoThey did control for race. And no, controlling for socio-economic attributes does not fulfill the role "approximated via race." Statistically, racial differences tend to include: - Cultural differences, including preferences for field-of-work, family structure, socialization patterns, etc., all of which affects R0 - Economic differences (e.g. Does one need to take a Tylenol and show up to work even when sick?) - In some cases, medical differences (e.g. vitamin D, which appears to play a major role in COVID19) - Geographic differences (communities tend to segregate by race, and outbreaks are geographic in nature) - Trust of institutions (which impacts vaccination, testing, and treatment rates) ... and so on. This is about group-level statistics, and isn't helpful with individuals. But if you're doing a population study, yes, this is an important control.
- tpxl 5y ago> In some cases, medical differences Sickle cell disease is an example of this, as it mostly appears in black people ("Sub-saharan descent"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_disease
- murgindrag 5y agoI like vitamin D since we have a clear mechanism-of-action specifically for COVID19: - We adapt skin color based on latitude to maintain vitamin D levels and prevent sunburns at different levels of sun exposure. - At this point, we have incredible strong correlations between vitamin D and COVID19 outcomes.
- calsy 5y agoAre there ever any hopeful reports published about Covid-19. It's just one constant miserable study after another in the news. Yeah we get it we need to be hiding under our beds in fear of the invisible entity that could strike. It is relentless, obviously people just cant get enough of it cause it has been front page news for 1 1/2 years now.
- gccs 5y agoHahahaa. The media sells you fear because they know it will keep you tuned in. It doesn't matter what thr current 'issue' is. They will always sell whatever will most likely keep you coming back. News is pure entertainment. Its like a horror movie.
- jmnicolas 5y agoIt's more than the media. The politicians (at least in my country, France) are using it to take much more power than a democracy should ever allow.
- bsaul 5y agothe most alarming thing in france is that almost everyone in the middle/upper social groups is completely convinced the government is right and that it's worth it (aka : it'll get us rid of covid). The only people worried about constitution at the moment are weirdos, extremists, and a very small number of people genuinly concerned about human rights in their own country. I'm more and more seing this covid period as a perfect example on how this country could turn into a totalitarian regime as long as it's for the good cause(tm). It also another example on how china is definitely becoming a major cultural influence over the world.
- calsy 5y agoI believe it is much larger number of people who have reasoned concerns about the governments approach. The narrative being pushed to us is anyone who might have a different opinion to that of the authorities is a 'weirdo' or 'conspiracy theorist'. At any protest, the media will always show that 'anti-vax, bill gates conspiracy' guy holding up his sign and lumping everyone into that group. The majority of those protesting are rational people worried about their jobs, their businesses closing, their children's education and what the economic fallout will do to basic services like health, education, infrastructure.
- nanis 5y agoLooking at Figure one in the PDF[1], I don't think I do well on this test at all. I mean "lion is to feline as close is to distant, true/false"? Or, "Emotional Discrimination"? What is the "correct" answer there? I can deduce that "Patronymic" is "a name derived from the name of a father or ancestor", but I do not believe many native speakers I cross paths with can. In any case, studies like this mention the total number of people who took the test (81,337 participants), but then, by definition, the effects come from small subgroups. E.g., > People who had been hospitalised showed substantial scaled global performance deficits dependent on whether they were (-0.47 standard deviations (SDs) N = 44) vs. were not (-0.26 SDs N = 148) put onto a ventilator. Those who remained at home (i.e., without inpatient support) showed small statistically significant global performance deficits (assisted at home for respiratory difficulty -0.13 SD N = 173; no medical assistance but respiratory difficulty -0.07 SDs N = 3,386; ill without respiratory difficulty -0.04 SDs N = 8,938). The 44 people who were put on ventilators are different on other dimensions. It is hard to separate the effects of the news ("you have a horrible disease"), the medical treatment, and the psychological torment associated with being in a hospital during this time from the actual effects of the actual virus. [1]: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-5370%2821%2900324-2 https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-5370%2821...
- herendin2 5y agoIt's very hard to believe that you're able to make such a complex and erudite argument as this, and yet you're utterly unable to parse something as simple as "lion is to feline as close is to distant, true/false". Both tasks require the same basic skills.
- rob_c 5y agoFYI: the lancet has unfortunately become a rather alarmist journal of late. There are several articles citing "bbc.co.uk" as fact which is similar to a Russian source citing "rt.com". Those articles in turn getting cited by the beeb in the uk to publish daily mail style FUD headlines which are quickly buried on the site. Ignoring this, I think most other comments cover the fact that this study has the normal problem with this type of study. Poor stats which aren't statistically corrected for the subset the population who end up in hospital due to covid. (or again the subset with symptoms strong enough to be tested and diagnosed) The "its just a flu" crowd have unfortunate points that many conditions sound like immunological effects brought on by a severe reaction to a virus in some way. Yes this is a different flu, but again we know this is not smallpocks or ebola and we should be taking advantage of this to determine the poorly understood impacts of covid virii on long term health of those who end up sick.
- viraptor 5y ago> which aren't statistically corrected for the subset the population who end up in hospital due to covid What subset do you mean?
- rob_c 5y agoNot everyone in the pre-vaccine world would have ended up on a ventilator due to covid. If the was a subset of the population who are at risk due to covid. (other than the over 80s the sake of argument). Its difficult to know how much an impact on this subset the virus will be having. Its easiest to assess this by looking at those of the population on who did end up in hospital and trying to determine common effects by looking at those who contacted them and comparing the probabilities. Ultimately the end goal is to infer how much of a risk impact this would/could have on the total population. Failing to correct for the statistical population differences before making an inference is akin to saying A&E centers in the US or the EU are great for preventing tiger attacks. They don't treat it due to there not being so many tigers. Again reporting on the worst case scenario for the virus impact on over 80s as being something that would/could impact 8yo people is obviously incorrect and potentially dishonest.
- mushufasa 5y agoI didn't see a regression table in the paper. Did I miss something? It just looked like a series of graphs and summary statistic tables.
- mrfusion 5y agoWould this have been published if they found no cognitive deficit?
- NoblePublius 5y agoThey did not have a control group for “being locked inside for a year” which I bet also has a pretty bog effect on cognition.
- viraptor 5y agoWhat would be the goal? If the bog effect exists , the possible extremes are "being locked inside makes infections more common" which should not impact the result (adding people to both pools), or "being locked inside prevents all infections" which would make the deficit larger than reported. (but as noted, it's a call for further study rather than a precise result)
- caddemon 5y agoGiven that most people were locked inside for a year, and those who didn't get COVID are even more likely to have followed lockdown rules, any control group measured right now would be reflecting the "locked inside" condition.
- stjo 5y agoThe paper has a paragraph or two dedicated to the software used: > All Cognitron tests were programmed in HTML5 with JavaScript by AH and WT. They were hosted on a custom server system (Cognitron) on the Amazon EC2 that can support diverse studies via custom websites. The server system was specifically developed to handle spikey acquisition profiles that are characteristic of main-stream media collaborative studies, fitting the number of server instances in an automated manner to rapid changes in demand. Here, maximum concurrent participants landing on the website information page was ~36,000, with this occurring at the point of the documentary airing on BBC2 in May. Why wouldn't they also publish the source code? I took a couple of minutes to play with the test and I think I found some bugs. I would love to check myself. Isn't it quite important to audit the source code, given that it is the thing that collected the data?
- chriswalz 5y agoIf they don’t share it we can safely assume it’s shitty
- rob_c 5y agoIt almost certainly is. And that's not entirely awful its a tool used by scientists to do work. (it is inexcusable in 2021 in my personal opinion, but in many ways science is still in the dark ages wrt some of the tools being used, just as the ML community is learning a lot about things like reproducability and falsafiability from scientists with experience here) I just with the community would share code more to prevent common mistakes and repeated effort and so we can all learn. Imagine a world with publically well documented code that helps people learn science rather than scientists having to teach coders what they want and codes having to teach scientists intracasies of languages and hardware choices.
- xyst 5y agoWhen a person(s) says they programmed it in HTLM5, you know they fucked up.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoSince COVID will become endemic like HIV, I wonder if the average IQ around the works will experience a measurable downwards blip. It’s interesting that this will likely contribute to further inequality as the rich had access to vaccines first and the uneducated are more likely to be skeptical of vaccines (note: everyone is skeptical, but the domain of skepticism is different for people depending on political leanings).
- guerrilla 5y agoCould also do the opposite as anti-medicine people are killed off. We'll see.
- ryandrake 5y agoYou're getting downvoted for snark, and it's a morbid thought, but it might be true. In places where the vaccine is readily available and statistically only the unvaccinated are dying, you'd expect the population's average intelligence to increase as people die of the disease.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mythrwy 5y agoAssuming they are wrong about their reasons for refusing the vax. Otherwise the reverse. But really so few people of reproductive age die of the disease anyway it's unlikely to produce much effect.
- irrational 5y agoHas anyone heard of weight related COVID issues? I know of 2 people who’s weight ballooned immediately post COVID despite not changing eating or exercise habits and despite a year passing they haven’t been able to lose any weight and doctors haven’t been able to figure out why.
- guerrilla 5y agoDid the control for being an anti-vaxxer and anti-lockdown?
- zwaps 5y agoDoes anyone know why these medicinal studies do not seem to use more modern statistical methods of observational causal inference? I mean yes you can not RCT and yes a linear model should be the baseline, but then why not go ahead and do some synth control or double ML, or heck, take the survey twice and do some matched diff and diff? Surely more can be done or not?
- BurningFrog 5y agoIs the obvious "smarter people are better at avoiding covid" theory disproven?
- zug_zug 5y agoI want to believe this, however, as far as I can tell, the design finds a correlation between severity of covid and IQ. One other possible explanation is that healthy immune system correlates both with lesser covid symptoms and higher IQ (less inflammation/whatever). As another comment has mentioned, the best way to try to measure for this would be to have a pre-post, which could only be done on those who hadn't had it yet at the time of the first test but then later got at. Since vaccines are now a factor, and may correlate to intelligence, the study may not be possible in an ethical manner.
- blindmute 5y agoWhat's strange is that they didn't control for obesity or occupation. It's known that being more obese leads to worse symptoms. It's known that chance of infection is higher among retail workers and such, who have lower IQs than people working from home. The IQ correlation in this study is: Covid, no respiratory difficulty: 0.4 IQ point loss Covid, respiratory difficulty, no home assistance: 1 IQ point loss Covid, respiratory difficulty, with home assistance: 2 IQ point loss Covid, hospitalized, without ventilation: 4 IQ point loss Covid, hospitalized, with ventilation: 7 IQ point loss Let's ignore the respirator segment because lack of oxygen like that can surely cause problems and I don't think anyone is really arguing against it. Without a before test, the only thing this study can reasonably show (if you call 1IQ point showing anything) is that fat people or cashiers are ever so slightly less intelligent. Honesty people, I was expecting on the order of 5-10 IQ points from the popularity and activity of this article. An average of 1IQ in a study with no control group and no pre-post test? Come on.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tomp 5y agoI wonder what the discussion would be if the same study was posted but "in people who were vaccinated against Covid-19".
- notjes 5y agoThe Cognitive deficits in people can be clearly see in most health scientists.