> Simply saying 'linked' instead of 'causes' isn't enough to dispel the hallucination, and people are typically aware of this when they write such titles. I su

> Simply saying 'linked' instead of 'causes' isn't enough to dispel the hallucination, and people are typically aware of this when they write such titles. I suppose it's possible that I have a blind spot here due to basic statistical literacy, which definitely isn't true of the general audience for these articles. (Note that I'm not implying this is true of you; your complaint about how the general public interprets the article is independent of your own interpretation of it). ---- Tangentially, if we take for granted your claim that the article implies that the belief caused the reporting of long covid symptoms: why do you think the article is more consistent with the other direction of causality? Symptoms like cognitive problems, soreness, and fatigue can be devilishly hard to pin down as pathological, which is why CFS has been so tricky a field for so long. I speak from experience: I've recently started working with an immunologist/CFS specialist after decades of these symptoms, and I'm constantly double-checking my reporting of symptoms against plausible alternative explanations, including psychosomatic and non-pathological causes.