5 ms·

"In addition, the COVID-19 group did not include those with severe breathing problems during the acute phase of the infection." This seems to contradict the sa

"In addition, the COVID-19 group did not include those with severe breathing problems during the acute phase of the infection." This seems to contradict the sampling statement the announcement makes, as it indicates a source of bias. I would add preliminary in the article title if I was the writer, but I guess that is not something that sells. What I got from the article is that it seems so far to have the same impact as other acute respiratory infections, but we had to exclude some people with serious issues during sampling -- which makes sense -- and we have still work to do and gather more samples that are non local etc. Titles are traps.

shapefrog 5y ago
So ... Lung function was unaffected by those that had unaffected Lung function. No word yet on if those with affected lung function had lung function affected.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  It punches a pretty big hole in that ‘half of the people that get infected get Long Covid’ scare though. And the new argument will probably be that, as Long Covid is not really defined anyway, the goal posts have now moved from lung damage to heart damage or something.
  - shapefrog 5y ago
    To say 0% of people suffer some undefined consequence is about as honest as saying 50% of people suffer some undefined consequence. 2 morons dont add up to make an intelligent person.
    - tinus_hn 5y ago
      That’s fine, as long as you agree that ‘Long Covid’ is an undefined condition so it has no place in any scientific discussion, and at least part of the symptoms it is popularly claimed to include, specifically some debilitating form of lung damage, does not occur in the large majority of cases. It doesn’t occur in the short term and subsequently it doesn’t occur in the long term.
      - shapefrog 5y ago
        I disagree 100%. >as long as you agree that ‘Long Covid’ is an undefined condition so it has no place in any scientific discussion. 'Long covid' being the effects on a human subsequent to having covid. You are saying that there is no place in scientific discussion for 'the effects, be they some or none of X'. So PTSD - no place in a scientific discussion? Secondary cancer - no place in a scientific discussion? Effects of release of radiaion at Chernobyl - no place in scientific discussion? Effects of hobbling around after stubbing my toe on a bedpost - no place in a scientifci discussion? > specifically some debilitating form of lung damage, does not occur in the large majority of cases. So you mean, the results from the scientific discussion, which you believe is illegitamte, because 'it has no place in any scientific discussion' support this statement? Which one is it, its science or it cant possibly be science? If I am not allowed to explore a hypotheseis, then I can not say it does or does not occur.
        Closi 5y ago
        Although you are of course correct that it is defined as post-covid exposure, I guess their more general point is that we don't talk about things like 'Long Flu', 'Long Cancer' or 'Long Diarrhoea' as a particular 'illness'. Instead we generally talk about specific symptoms after recovery from these things (e.g. We would say there are long-term effects of cancer and that specific person has Post Cancer Fatigue, rather than just saying someone has 'long cancer'), or specific effects that the illness has (e.g. impact of severe childhood diohreah on growth) which seems more useful than bundling it all together into one 'thing' which covers completely different impacts (e.g. long term taste loss, tinnitus and fatigue). Just calling it long covid seems to make it seem like something special/different, while in reality plenty of illnesses have long term health impacts and ongoing symptoms. It doesn't mean that there isn't cause for concern - but I don't necessarily see why we should make the language of Covid different to other illnesses (other than for PR purposes).
        shapefrog 5y ago
        So your problem is branding related. You dont like the logo or theme music? We dont call it 'Long Cancer' meme is a really fascinating one. You are right, we don't call it exactly that. The long term effects of cancer, which really would span such an enormous range of things collectively are known, to use the technical term, as 'The long term effects of cancer'. When you get diagnosed with cancer, you 'have Cancer'. When you are 100% free from cancer you are still a cancer patient but its said to be 'in remission', and would likely not be considered 'Cured' of your cancer for many years. But why do we use that language, when I have the sniffles and they go away I am 'cured'. It is almost like the english language has room for more than one adjective, What other language is in use - conditions can be called 'Chronic illnesses'. It turns out sometimes it is useful to bundle things together into 'Syndromes', a bit like that Gulf War Syndrome. Now personally I believe that how 'scary' or 'special' a sequence of words are, which is your main argument against the word 'Long', is subjective. Personally 'long' doesnt instill me with fear in particular, but lets try on some alternative brandings that are more in line with other illnesses are you helpfully suggest size shall we. Chronic Covid, In remission Covid, Covid Syndrome, Post Covid Lung Failure. Covid Syndrome seems the obvious choice really. It is the most consistent with medical language used to date, as such could not possibly be described as being thrown around for PR purpopses or just out right fear mongering.
angelzen 5y ago
O Bayes, where art thou? Life is tragic. A tiny fraction of kids die of covid. A tiny fraction of kids die of flu. A tiny fraction of kids die of RSV. A tiny fraction of kids die of bacterial pneumonia. While the effects of covid can be severe, we need to recover our perspective: how prevalent is the worst cause scenario, death or significant long term lung impairment? There are 2 studies the article comments about. * One study from Sweden was based on a pre-existing long-term study and found no measurable lung impairment. Possibly simply because nobody in their sample developed severe respiratory symptoms. Given that 27% did have covid IG, seems that the risk for measurable long covid in kids is on the tiny side of things. Note that their sample, while small (661), was deemed statistically significant for the purposes of the long-term study, which started long before covid. * One study from Germany where they focused on kids with covid. They excluded those with 'severe acute respiratory covid infection', true, but their method says nothing about how prevalent 'severe acute respiratory covid infection' is in kids. That could be as small as 1:100k or lower, we wouldn't know without additional data (see e.g. first study). Edit: After reading the full text, I have to say this study is too technical / too small of a sample size and not sure what the layman takeaways are. Their qualitative assessment: 'our study is the first to compare pulmonary function in symptomatic and asymptomatic children and adolescents with and without evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection; no difference between these two groups was observed. Even most patients with persistent respiratory symptoms did not show impaired lung capacity. Severity of infection proved to be the only predictor for mild pulmonary function changes. To conclude, our findings suggest that children and adolescents after SARS-CoV-2 infection do not suffer from persistent deterioration of respiratory function, including body plethysmography, multiple-breath washout and diffusion capacity testing.' In short: Study #1, statistically significant sample of young population, no long term lung impairment. Study #2, perhaps too technical for a layman conversation. Edit. The full study #2, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.22.21259273v1.full-text https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.22.21259273v....

shapefrog 5y ago

So ... Lung function was unaffected by those that had unaffected Lung function. No word yet on if those with affected lung function had lung function affected.

tinus_hn 5y ago
It punches a pretty big hole in that ‘half of the people that get infected get Long Covid’ scare though. And the new argument will probably be that, as Long Covid is not really defined anyway, the goal posts have now moved from lung damage to heart damage or something.
- shapefrog 5y ago
  To say 0% of people suffer some undefined consequence is about as honest as saying 50% of people suffer some undefined consequence. 2 morons dont add up to make an intelligent person.
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    That’s fine, as long as you agree that ‘Long Covid’ is an undefined condition so it has no place in any scientific discussion, and at least part of the symptoms it is popularly claimed to include, specifically some debilitating form of lung damage, does not occur in the large majority of cases. It doesn’t occur in the short term and subsequently it doesn’t occur in the long term.
    - shapefrog 5y ago
      I disagree 100%. >as long as you agree that ‘Long Covid’ is an undefined condition so it has no place in any scientific discussion. 'Long covid' being the effects on a human subsequent to having covid. You are saying that there is no place in scientific discussion for 'the effects, be they some or none of X'. So PTSD - no place in a scientific discussion? Secondary cancer - no place in a scientific discussion? Effects of release of radiaion at Chernobyl - no place in scientific discussion? Effects of hobbling around after stubbing my toe on a bedpost - no place in a scientifci discussion? > specifically some debilitating form of lung damage, does not occur in the large majority of cases. So you mean, the results from the scientific discussion, which you believe is illegitamte, because 'it has no place in any scientific discussion' support this statement? Which one is it, its science or it cant possibly be science? If I am not allowed to explore a hypotheseis, then I can not say it does or does not occur.
      - Closi 5y ago
        Although you are of course correct that it is defined as post-covid exposure, I guess their more general point is that we don't talk about things like 'Long Flu', 'Long Cancer' or 'Long Diarrhoea' as a particular 'illness'. Instead we generally talk about specific symptoms after recovery from these things (e.g. We would say there are long-term effects of cancer and that specific person has Post Cancer Fatigue, rather than just saying someone has 'long cancer'), or specific effects that the illness has (e.g. impact of severe childhood diohreah on growth) which seems more useful than bundling it all together into one 'thing' which covers completely different impacts (e.g. long term taste loss, tinnitus and fatigue). Just calling it long covid seems to make it seem like something special/different, while in reality plenty of illnesses have long term health impacts and ongoing symptoms. It doesn't mean that there isn't cause for concern - but I don't necessarily see why we should make the language of Covid different to other illnesses (other than for PR purposes).
        shapefrog 5y ago
        So your problem is branding related. You dont like the logo or theme music? We dont call it 'Long Cancer' meme is a really fascinating one. You are right, we don't call it exactly that. The long term effects of cancer, which really would span such an enormous range of things collectively are known, to use the technical term, as 'The long term effects of cancer'. When you get diagnosed with cancer, you 'have Cancer'. When you are 100% free from cancer you are still a cancer patient but its said to be 'in remission', and would likely not be considered 'Cured' of your cancer for many years. But why do we use that language, when I have the sniffles and they go away I am 'cured'. It is almost like the english language has room for more than one adjective, What other language is in use - conditions can be called 'Chronic illnesses'. It turns out sometimes it is useful to bundle things together into 'Syndromes', a bit like that Gulf War Syndrome. Now personally I believe that how 'scary' or 'special' a sequence of words are, which is your main argument against the word 'Long', is subjective. Personally 'long' doesnt instill me with fear in particular, but lets try on some alternative brandings that are more in line with other illnesses are you helpfully suggest size shall we. Chronic Covid, In remission Covid, Covid Syndrome, Post Covid Lung Failure. Covid Syndrome seems the obvious choice really. It is the most consistent with medical language used to date, as such could not possibly be described as being thrown around for PR purpopses or just out right fear mongering.

angelzen 5y ago

O Bayes, where art thou? Life is tragic. A tiny fraction of kids die of covid. A tiny fraction of kids die of flu. A tiny fraction of kids die of RSV. A tiny fraction of kids die of bacterial pneumonia. While the effects of covid can be severe, we need to recover our perspective: how prevalent is the worst cause scenario, death or significant long term lung impairment? There are 2 studies the article comments about. * One study from Sweden was based on a pre-existing long-term study and found no measurable lung impairment. Possibly simply because nobody in their sample developed severe respiratory symptoms. Given that 27% did have covid IG, seems that the risk for measurable long covid in kids is on the tiny side of things. Note that their sample, while small (661), was deemed statistically significant for the purposes of the long-term study, which started long before covid. * One study from Germany where they focused on kids with covid. They excluded those with 'severe acute respiratory covid infection', true, but their method says nothing about how prevalent 'severe acute respiratory covid infection' is in kids. That could be as small as 1:100k or lower, we wouldn't know without additional data (see e.g. first study). Edit: After reading the full text, I have to say this study is too technical / too small of a sample size and not sure what the layman takeaways are. Their qualitative assessment: 'our study is the first to compare pulmonary function in symptomatic and asymptomatic children and adolescents with and without evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection; no difference between these two groups was observed. Even most patients with persistent respiratory symptoms did not show impaired lung capacity. Severity of infection proved to be the only predictor for mild pulmonary function changes. To conclude, our findings suggest that children and adolescents after SARS-CoV-2 infection do not suffer from persistent deterioration of respiratory function, including body plethysmography, multiple-breath washout and diffusion capacity testing.' In short: Study #1, statistically significant sample of young population, no long term lung impairment. Study #2, perhaps too technical for a layman conversation. Edit. The full study #2, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.22.21259273v1.full-text https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.22.21259273v....