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The conclusions of this study are inconsistent with objective reality. Approximately 94% of Americans had been infected with COVID as of November 2022, most of

The conclusions of this study are inconsistent with objective reality. Approximately 94% of Americans had been infected with COVID as of November 2022, most of which were due to the Omicron wave [0]. If 10% of people who ever had COVID suffered from severe long-term symptoms, the supposed ~9.4% of Americans with long COVID would be blatantly obvious on a societal level. They are not; severe long COVID symptoms are almost entirely absent from both disability claims and health records [1]. That is not to say that long COVID is nonexistent, but it is much rarer than the 10% of infections claimed here. Objective measures aside, this claim is inconsistent with anyone's lived experience. Can you say that 9.4% of your coworkers can no longer work effectively? 9.4% of your gym buddies can’t workout anymore? 9.4% of your friends are absent from your life? If 9.4% of everyone's acquaintances had long-term COVID-induced disabilities, it would be as obvious as if 9.4% of everyone suddenly lost an arm, and many people would still be taking precautions. But life is completely back to normal even in parts of the country that took COVID precautions extremely seriously, when it was actually a threat to most people. But nobody perceives COVID as a threat anymore and sees no reason to continue to take precautions, since only a vanishingly small fraction of their acquaintances actually experiences severe consequences after catching COVID. Why the discrepancy between this study's conclusions and objective reality? The participants in this study are not representative of the general population who had COVID, since they were self-selected to volunteer for it, and thus likely disproportionately represent the set of people suffering from long-term symptoms. [0] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.19.22282525v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.19.22282525v... [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/06/long-covid-chronic-illness-disability/661285/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/06/long-covi...

vidarh 3y ago
You appear to be using a definition of long COVID that implies something far more debilitating than what it sounds like the research in question uses. With respect to self-selection, they raised the same issue, but also noted the 10% after 6 months number holds for enrolled participants who had not yet had COVID when first enrolled in the study.
- MontyCarloHall 3y ago
  >You appear to be using a definition of long COVID that implies something far more debilitating than what it sounds like the research in question uses. All symptoms are self-reported, so who knows how severe they actually are (another massive weakness of the study). Regardless, when most people hear "long COVID," they generally think of debilitating illness. For example, the Wikipedia page for long COVID opens with: "Long COVID is the diagnosis given to a series of conditions characterized by long-term, multi-system, often severe health problems persisting or appearing after the typical recovery period of COVID-19." [0] >the 10% after 6 months number holds for enrolled participants who had not yet had COVID when first enrolled in the study That appears to be completely made up in the El País article. If you read the actual study [1], it explicitly says that "uninfected participants with a reported on-study infection and participants who had no symptom survey data were excluded." Furthermore, the El País article claims that "about 2,230 patients had their first coronavirus infection after the study started," but the JAMA article only reports 1118 uninfected controls. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_COVID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_COVID [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2805540 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2805540
  - vidarh 3y ago
    What "most people" think it refers to is irrelevant to the question of whether your view of what "objective reality" is can be compared to the numbers reported by the article or not. Especially when the article states as an objective to develop a more objective definition, and the numbers they report is relative to the scoring they developed as a consequence of analysing the data. > That appears to be completely made up in the El País article. If you read the actual study [1], it explicitly says that "uninfected participants with a reported on-study infection and participants who had no symptom survey data were excluded." From the paper: > Among 2231 participants first infected on or after December 1, 2021, and enrolled within 30 days of infection, 224 (10% [95% CI, 8.8%-11%]) were PASC positive at 6 months. It seems likely these are the ones El Pais referred to, so it seems they were not all enrolled before infection, you're right. It does seem rather poor not to be clearer about the timing there.

vidarh 3y ago

You appear to be using a definition of long COVID that implies something far more debilitating than what it sounds like the research in question uses. With respect to self-selection, they raised the same issue, but also noted the 10% after 6 months number holds for enrolled participants who had not yet had COVID when first enrolled in the study.

MontyCarloHall 3y ago
>You appear to be using a definition of long COVID that implies something far more debilitating than what it sounds like the research in question uses. All symptoms are self-reported, so who knows how severe they actually are (another massive weakness of the study). Regardless, when most people hear "long COVID," they generally think of debilitating illness. For example, the Wikipedia page for long COVID opens with: "Long COVID is the diagnosis given to a series of conditions characterized by long-term, multi-system, often severe health problems persisting or appearing after the typical recovery period of COVID-19." [0] >the 10% after 6 months number holds for enrolled participants who had not yet had COVID when first enrolled in the study That appears to be completely made up in the El País article. If you read the actual study [1], it explicitly says that "uninfected participants with a reported on-study infection and participants who had no symptom survey data were excluded." Furthermore, the El País article claims that "about 2,230 patients had their first coronavirus infection after the study started," but the JAMA article only reports 1118 uninfected controls. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_COVID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_COVID [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2805540 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2805540
- vidarh 3y ago
  What "most people" think it refers to is irrelevant to the question of whether your view of what "objective reality" is can be compared to the numbers reported by the article or not. Especially when the article states as an objective to develop a more objective definition, and the numbers they report is relative to the scoring they developed as a consequence of analysing the data. > That appears to be completely made up in the El País article. If you read the actual study [1], it explicitly says that "uninfected participants with a reported on-study infection and participants who had no symptom survey data were excluded." From the paper: > Among 2231 participants first infected on or after December 1, 2021, and enrolled within 30 days of infection, 224 (10% [95% CI, 8.8%-11%]) were PASC positive at 6 months. It seems likely these are the ones El Pais referred to, so it seems they were not all enrolled before infection, you're right. It does seem rather poor not to be clearer about the timing there.