4 ms·

> "More than a year after contracting the coronavirus, 18% of Long COVID patients had still not returned to work." > Between 1 January 2020 and 31 March 2022,

> "More than a year after contracting the coronavirus, 18% of Long COVID patients had still not returned to work." > Between 1 January 2020 and 31 March 2022, the New York State Insurers Fund analysed more than 3,000 workers' compensation claims for COVID-19. Hard to take this at face value; I could easily see the vast majority of these claims being grift.

khazhoux 4y ago
Agree. I remain skeptical of, e.g., the depression claims. Now, someone will jump in and explain that the virus can affect neural pathways, and (hand-waving) that can cause depression. Without hard evidence, which I have not seen, this is a tenous connection.
RC_ITR 4y ago
Whether it's grift or not, it's still keeping people out of the workforce.
ok_dad 4y ago
Zero evidence. Are you writing off a bunch of people's medical issues due to your medical degree, or knowledge of their specific cases? If not, your opinion is worth nothing.
- khazhoux 4y ago
  The onus is on proving that all these disparate symptoms were caused by covid. The evidence remains (as far as I’ve seen) circumstantial.
  - kevingadd 4y ago
    It's fascinating to me that we have widespread incidence of long-term health complications in people who caught a relatively new, not-deeply-understood virus, and the evidence being (as far as you've seen) circumstantial means that it must be made up, by default. Why exactly is it necessary to prove that these symptoms are COVID-related when that's the most natural conclusion? What is your alternative hypothesis that explains everything and is supported by better evidence? People with long COVID - even if you believe it's all psychosomatic, or caused by fibromyalgia, or whatever - have had a lot of trouble accessing treatment this whole time. Even if 90% of them were somehow making it up, I think it's awful that the remaining 10% of "real" cases had to deal with so many barriers to access care. All as a part of our societal effort to pretend the virus is over.
    - khazhoux 4y ago
      I‘m not part of any societal effort to pretend it’s over :-) Someone says they still have problems breathing 6 months after a moderate covid case? I’ll believe them by default. Someone says they feel demotivated at work 6 months after a mild case? I’ll be skeptical.
      - ok_dad 4y ago
        That's a fair assessment, IMO. I believe that only a small, small minority of humans are going to be out to scam or do fraud (personal belief, obviously) and so from that lens, I hate it when people try and paint a group of people with a broad brush simply because they might believe something that is not factually correct, but in reality it's the best solution for now. What I am arguing here, is that the 3000 people who have "long covid" aren't responsible for categorizing their disease, they are sick and just want to feel better. It's the medical community's responsibility to determine if that's because "long covid" is an actual disease, or if it's a set of disparate symptoms that many people have that were kicked off by covid, or something else entirely. Just because their "government services applications paperwork" (or whatever we call that stuff) says "long covid" that does not mean that later we should say they were defrauding the goverment if we find out they were actually suffering from a major lung cancer and it just so happened to coincide with some symptoms many other people were having due to everyone getting covid around the same time and as such their doctor(s) put "long covid" down as a probable cause. It's a logical fallacy that the OP made, and I pointed out that it is unlikely all 3000 are scammers. I am sure some percentage of those people are scammers, statistically.
  - howinteresting 4y ago
    > The onus is on proving that all these disparate symptoms were caused by covid. Says who? My prior is that all, or at least most, of the symptoms of long covid are caused by covid. Why is your prior better than mine?
    - mr_toad 4y ago
      Because you can’t prove a negative. May as well claim that the symptoms are Gods Will and demand proof to the contrary.
    - seneca 4y ago
      > Says who? My prior is that all, or at least most, of the symptoms of long covid are caused by covid. Why is your prior better than mine? It's called the burden of proof. The person(s) making a claim is the one obligated to provide proof of it.
      - drewrv 4y ago
        How can I prove to you that I have a headache? At a certain point you just have to listen to patients and trust them. It’s really weird to get super skeptical of people’s claims only for a specific disease or a specific type of person.
        khazhoux 4y ago
        My skepticism is not whether they really have foot pain or are unmotivated at work. The question is whether it was caused by a mild COVID case half a year ago.
      - howinteresting 4y ago
        If you're interested in winning a debate, a naive "burden of proof" analysis works. But if you're interested in aligning your beliefs with the truth, you should be using Bayesian reasoning. (Not to sound too much like Eliezer Y here.)
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  Here’s evidence： Harvard study linking preexisting mental illness to Long Covid claims: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/09/depression-anxiety-may-escalate-chances-of-long-covid-says-study/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/09/depression-an... Journal article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dubious-origins-of-long-covid-11616452583?st=ceevgyo76ear3zb&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dubious-origins-of-long-cov... Overlap with fibromyalgia, which is also untestable and mainly in depressed middle age white women: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34426540/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34426540/ It’s hokum.
  - ok_dad 4y ago
    Not evidence that proves 3000 people are scamming. If anything, that evidence might show that we're not totally sure long covid is a thing, or it's underlying issues being surfaced. I specifically am arguing against jumping to the "scammer" conclusion immediately and without any question. I totally forgot HN is full of medical doctors who know everything about covid and it's effects.
  - Madmallard 4y ago
    These types of cringeworthy responses are really common and it's really a detriment to society. Whether it be astroturfing or other means originally founded by pharmaceutical companies knowing they originally did not test drugs for mitochondrial toxicity prior to Phase 1 trials, the source remains to be seen. The fact is that people are by and large developing metabolic dysfunction earlier on, and things like antibiotics drastically accelerate the problem. Bactericidal antibiotics are widely known in research now to be seriously toxic to mitochondria and the damage they cause leads to chronic processes because mitochondria do not have effective repair mechanisms outside of copies. When they start reproducing mutated copies, the person does not get off scot-free anymore. Processed foods and air pollution and chemical exposures from foods and other things all additionally cause more dysregulation. This is all becoming way more widely known. Some percentage of people will just not bounce back after these insults. Respiratory viruses and bacterial infections induce a large amount of oxidative stress in the human body, largely caused by your own immune system. Normally, your body has redox mechanisms to balance this out so you are fine in the end (otherwise running would cause a lot of problems really quickly!). But combining our toxic environment, toxic antibiotics that most people take (and many women take bactericidal antibiotics for UTIs!), high processed food diets leading to excessive baseline OS, you potentiate the risk for the individuals own mitochondrial machinery to be severely damaged from a high OS insult. After that, you don't bounce back. You develop chronic fatigue and severe exercise intolerance, and have much more precarious relationships with other illnesses. This is what's happening. Depression other mental disorders are already strongly associated with metabolic dysregulation in research. Don't blame the victims. It's likely you'll become one yourself before you're very old. Everyone is getting sicker.
HarryHirsch 4y ago
Hard to take this at face value; I could easily see the vast majority of these claims being grift Given that it's exceptionally hard to get on the disability rolls in the US, it's likely that those 3000 claims actually have merit.
petodo 4y ago
> > "More than a year after contracting the coronavirus, 18% of Long COVID patients had still not returned to work." I wonder how fast would their long COVID disappear if their sick pay was cut immediately, miraclous cure! The reason why you don't see self employed people with "long COVID".
- acdha 4y ago
  Are you a doctor? Have you worked with any of these patients? If not, what is your basis for such confidential dismissal of a problem actual medical professionals are taking seriously?

khazhoux 4y ago

Agree. I remain skeptical of, e.g., the depression claims. Now, someone will jump in and explain that the virus can affect neural pathways, and (hand-waving) that can cause depression. Without hard evidence, which I have not seen, this is a tenous connection.

RC_ITR 4y ago

Whether it's grift or not, it's still keeping people out of the workforce.

ok_dad 4y ago

Zero evidence. Are you writing off a bunch of people's medical issues due to your medical degree, or knowledge of their specific cases? If not, your opinion is worth nothing.

khazhoux 4y ago
The onus is on proving that all these disparate symptoms were caused by covid. The evidence remains (as far as I’ve seen) circumstantial.
- kevingadd 4y ago
  It's fascinating to me that we have widespread incidence of long-term health complications in people who caught a relatively new, not-deeply-understood virus, and the evidence being (as far as you've seen) circumstantial means that it must be made up, by default. Why exactly is it necessary to prove that these symptoms are COVID-related when that's the most natural conclusion? What is your alternative hypothesis that explains everything and is supported by better evidence? People with long COVID - even if you believe it's all psychosomatic, or caused by fibromyalgia, or whatever - have had a lot of trouble accessing treatment this whole time. Even if 90% of them were somehow making it up, I think it's awful that the remaining 10% of "real" cases had to deal with so many barriers to access care. All as a part of our societal effort to pretend the virus is over.
  - khazhoux 4y ago
    I‘m not part of any societal effort to pretend it’s over :-) Someone says they still have problems breathing 6 months after a moderate covid case? I’ll believe them by default. Someone says they feel demotivated at work 6 months after a mild case? I’ll be skeptical.
    - ok_dad 4y ago
      That's a fair assessment, IMO. I believe that only a small, small minority of humans are going to be out to scam or do fraud (personal belief, obviously) and so from that lens, I hate it when people try and paint a group of people with a broad brush simply because they might believe something that is not factually correct, but in reality it's the best solution for now. What I am arguing here, is that the 3000 people who have "long covid" aren't responsible for categorizing their disease, they are sick and just want to feel better. It's the medical community's responsibility to determine if that's because "long covid" is an actual disease, or if it's a set of disparate symptoms that many people have that were kicked off by covid, or something else entirely. Just because their "government services applications paperwork" (or whatever we call that stuff) says "long covid" that does not mean that later we should say they were defrauding the goverment if we find out they were actually suffering from a major lung cancer and it just so happened to coincide with some symptoms many other people were having due to everyone getting covid around the same time and as such their doctor(s) put "long covid" down as a probable cause. It's a logical fallacy that the OP made, and I pointed out that it is unlikely all 3000 are scammers. I am sure some percentage of those people are scammers, statistically.
- howinteresting 4y ago
  > The onus is on proving that all these disparate symptoms were caused by covid. Says who? My prior is that all, or at least most, of the symptoms of long covid are caused by covid. Why is your prior better than mine?
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    Because you can’t prove a negative. May as well claim that the symptoms are Gods Will and demand proof to the contrary.
  - seneca 4y ago
    > Says who? My prior is that all, or at least most, of the symptoms of long covid are caused by covid. Why is your prior better than mine? It's called the burden of proof. The person(s) making a claim is the one obligated to provide proof of it.
    - drewrv 4y ago
      How can I prove to you that I have a headache? At a certain point you just have to listen to patients and trust them. It’s really weird to get super skeptical of people’s claims only for a specific disease or a specific type of person.
      - khazhoux 4y ago
        My skepticism is not whether they really have foot pain or are unmotivated at work. The question is whether it was caused by a mild COVID case half a year ago.
    - howinteresting 4y ago
      If you're interested in winning a debate, a naive "burden of proof" analysis works. But if you're interested in aligning your beliefs with the truth, you should be using Bayesian reasoning. (Not to sound too much like Eliezer Y here.)
throwayyy479087 4y ago
Here’s evidence： Harvard study linking preexisting mental illness to Long Covid claims: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/09/depression-anxiety-may-escalate-chances-of-long-covid-says-study/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/09/depression-an... Journal article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dubious-origins-of-long-covid-11616452583?st=ceevgyo76ear3zb&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dubious-origins-of-long-cov... Overlap with fibromyalgia, which is also untestable and mainly in depressed middle age white women: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34426540/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34426540/ It’s hokum.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  Not evidence that proves 3000 people are scamming. If anything, that evidence might show that we're not totally sure long covid is a thing, or it's underlying issues being surfaced. I specifically am arguing against jumping to the "scammer" conclusion immediately and without any question. I totally forgot HN is full of medical doctors who know everything about covid and it's effects.
- Madmallard 4y ago
  These types of cringeworthy responses are really common and it's really a detriment to society. Whether it be astroturfing or other means originally founded by pharmaceutical companies knowing they originally did not test drugs for mitochondrial toxicity prior to Phase 1 trials, the source remains to be seen. The fact is that people are by and large developing metabolic dysfunction earlier on, and things like antibiotics drastically accelerate the problem. Bactericidal antibiotics are widely known in research now to be seriously toxic to mitochondria and the damage they cause leads to chronic processes because mitochondria do not have effective repair mechanisms outside of copies. When they start reproducing mutated copies, the person does not get off scot-free anymore. Processed foods and air pollution and chemical exposures from foods and other things all additionally cause more dysregulation. This is all becoming way more widely known. Some percentage of people will just not bounce back after these insults. Respiratory viruses and bacterial infections induce a large amount of oxidative stress in the human body, largely caused by your own immune system. Normally, your body has redox mechanisms to balance this out so you are fine in the end (otherwise running would cause a lot of problems really quickly!). But combining our toxic environment, toxic antibiotics that most people take (and many women take bactericidal antibiotics for UTIs!), high processed food diets leading to excessive baseline OS, you potentiate the risk for the individuals own mitochondrial machinery to be severely damaged from a high OS insult. After that, you don't bounce back. You develop chronic fatigue and severe exercise intolerance, and have much more precarious relationships with other illnesses. This is what's happening. Depression other mental disorders are already strongly associated with metabolic dysregulation in research. Don't blame the victims. It's likely you'll become one yourself before you're very old. Everyone is getting sicker.

HarryHirsch 4y ago

Hard to take this at face value; I could easily see the vast majority of these claims being grift Given that it's exceptionally hard to get on the disability rolls in the US, it's likely that those 3000 claims actually have merit.

petodo 4y ago

> > "More than a year after contracting the coronavirus, 18% of Long COVID patients had still not returned to work." I wonder how fast would their long COVID disappear if their sick pay was cut immediately, miraclous cure! The reason why you don't see self employed people with "long COVID".

acdha 4y ago
Are you a doctor? Have you worked with any of these patients? If not, what is your basis for such confidential dismissal of a problem actual medical professionals are taking seriously?