>How many people get objective 'long covid', by which I mean objectivly measurable decreased lung capacity or blood oxygenation levels One of the scariest aspe

>How many people get objective 'long covid', by which I mean objectivly measurable decreased lung capacity or blood oxygenation levels One of the scariest aspects of long covid is the neurological effects. It's hard to "objectively" measure things like "food tastes weird now" and "I'm exhausted all the time" or even "I can't focus like I used to" in a clinical setting without having done baseline tests pre-infection - yet these things will be obvious to the sufferer. Sometimes, in the absence of better data, you have to take people's word for it. You are right that we need more data on long covid - it's inherently hard to study, and early data is frightening. Until we know more, caution is advisable.