4 ms·
Death count is relatively objective. There is some fudge factor for whether somebody died “from” COVID vs “with” COVID but other than that it’s cut and dry. Th
by rspeele 5y ago
Death count is relatively objective. There is some fudge factor for whether somebody died “from” COVID vs “with” COVID but other than that it’s cut and dry.
That is a big advantage over comparing case numbers, which depend heavily on testing, or long COVID which there’s not even a hard definition of.
- LorenPechtel 5y agoThe lack of a definition for long Covid doesn't mean it's not happening. It just means we don't have good studies of it.
- rspeele 5y agoI don't mean to imply that long COVID isn't happening. Just offering a reason why death counts get most of the attention when we try to assess whether a vaccine/treatment/policy measure is effective.
- bequanna 5y agoA study to prove/disprove long term COVID issues seems awfully difficult or impossible, especially for minor, objective things (fatigue, taste, “brain fog”, etc). Are we relying on patients to self-report whether they had COVID, what they long term effects they noticed? If so, it seems like we’re testing mass hysteria as much as actual effects. I was likely infected and noticed the taste/smell issue. Since I’ve recovered, so has my taste/smell but it was not an immediate recovery and I have no idea if I “lost” some amount of scent sensitivity. It is probably the same as pre-COVID, but if I heard others were reporting this issue it would be very easy to convince myself that I did lose sensitivity and report that.