Unfortunately, I think researchers were somewhat looking at the wrong thing in this study. If you're scared of sharks and want to study shark attacks to unders

Unfortunately, I think researchers were somewhat looking at the wrong thing in this study. If you're scared of sharks and want to study shark attacks to understand your risk, you shouldn't just count shark attacks and publish that raw information as the final word. What you should do is compare shark attacks to other causes of death and injury to put shark attacks into proper context. Having a basis for comparison illuminates far more than anything else. Did you know that buckets end up injuring and killing more people than sharks? This doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't consider the risk of shark attacks when swimming, but probably tells you that if you don't genuinely fear your odds of being harmed from buckets, you probably shouldn't totally freak out about sharks either. What does this mean in the context of Long-Covid? What basis for comparison can we look at? Well, post viral syndrome is a real and well-known phenomenon. Some people have had the flu pre-2019 and been a complete mess for many months, even after recovering from their illness. This is well-known and not in dispute. I have no doubt that at least some claims about having Long-Covid and it being genuinely terrible are peoples' genuine experiences. I'm sure it's the case that some people have health conditions after Covid. But for people to assess risk, you need a basis for comparison, not just raw numbers. What I'd be interested in seeing is a comparison of the differences between post viral syndrome in Covid-19 versus post viral syndrome in influenza and other common viruses. If Long-covid isn't substantially different in frequency or effects than "long-flu", then it would strongly indicate to me that peoples' risk assessments about Long-Covid are way overblown. This is the kind of comparison I've been begging people who are stressed out about long-Covid to research and provide to help us all understand it in a context that we can all understand.