I'm not saying there's not a real effect here. Hell, if there wasn't, that would be unexpected: just about any sickness is correlated with measuring lower cogn

I'm not saying there's not a real effect here. Hell, if there wasn't, that would be unexpected: just about any sickness is correlated with measuring lower cognitively for a time afterwards, and being hospitalized and being on a vent are more so, independent of COVID-19. I'm just saying that: * The claim that there's a 7 IQ point drop from being a COVID-19 survivor is completely bogus, unless you're only a survivor after being on an ventilator. * The effect size and causative relationship are dubious, because the controls and matching on this study are imperfect. There's plenty of opportunity for significant confound. E.g. if dumb people were more likely to not take precautions against getting COVID, it would look like getting COVID was associated with lower cognitive performance in this study.