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There is a lack of hard scientific evidence definitively proving this. However you may know in your bones that this is real, from lived experience or from peopl

There is a lack of hard scientific evidence definitively proving this. However you may know in your bones that this is real, from lived experience or from people you know. Please keep that in mind when you dismiss other things that lack definitive scientific evidence. We as humans seem to pick and choose which currently unverified things to believe and which to dismiss.

artimaeis 3y ago
I think you mean there's a lack of broad consensus among scientists as to the root cause. There's scientific evidence aplenty. What constitutes as evidence of illness, if not ill people?
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  Sure, but I think for the bulk of reported long covid symptoms, there is a dispute over whether the cause is more related to post-virus sequelae or perceived infection by covid. Long covid is likely a combination of both types, but there is evidence that a significant proportion is of the latter form.
OO000oo 3y ago
Additionally, mathematics and scientific evidence are no match for the influence of power. The tendency of capital accumulation under capitalism is exceedingly straightforward, but the life of one trying to find peace with that reality is too painful to bear.
retrac 3y ago
I cannot comprehend a position of total long COVID denial, though I have encountered it online. Every virus you can think of that causes acute illness, can cause long term or even permanent damage. Sometimes rarely, sometimes often. Even the mildest common cold viruses, can, in very rare cases, be severe enough to cause pneumonia which causes scarring which leads to permanent loss of lung function. Hepatitis A is usually cleared without issue but sometimes significant liver scarring happens. The poxes can be cleared by the immune system but often immense scarring of the affected tissues happens. Viral meningitis... For COVID to cause severe illness in a few % -- enough to kill in rare cases -- but to not cause permanent lung or heart or kidney damage etc. in some significant percent who got very sick is implausible, even incoherent with all other theories about how viral diseases cause disease.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  It makes sense to me unfortunately. If some small but significant portion of people will be disabled by this then what are we doing going to work, eating in restaurants? What does it mean about me if I stay home working but still get food delivered? Do gas station employees get sick days? If repeated exposure as children risks disability in adulthood then what are we doing sending our kids to school? In a world where being unable to work long-term means deprivation, misery and likely a preventable death? No, it can't be true. Much more comfortable to believe we wouldn't do this than to confront what it says about us that we have, or what we would have to change to prevent it.
  - 1over137 3y ago
    >If some small but significant portion of people will be disabled by this then what are we doing going to work, eating in restaurants? We are living life. Driving your car is doing much more damage to your fellow man than someone eating at a restaurant.
    - giraffe_lady 3y ago
      Ya that's why I don't do that either.
  - henearkr 3y ago
    You get food delivered but the delivery staff keep their mask on, you put your mask before seeing them, and all is perfectly fine. Mask is underrated. Everybody wanted to get rid of it. But why.
- Nanana909 3y ago
  > For COVID to cause severe illness in a few % -- enough to kill in rare cases -- but to not cause permanent lung or heart or kidney damage etc. in some significant percent who got very sick is implausible, even incoherent with all other theories about how viral diseases cause disease. So then why do we never talk about long flu? Long meningitis? I don’t think people are in disbelief COVID can cause long term damage to specific people. Obviously that’s a possibility. I think they don’t believe there is a specific disease called “long COVID”. Call it what it is - be that a damaged lung or heart or kidney. Hell even “post COVID symptomatic disease”. But “long COVID” strongly implies that you have a long, currently present case of COVID. That somehow just doesn’t show up on any tests. After 2 years.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
>We as humans seem to pick and choose which currently unverified things to believe and which to dismiss As it was in the beginning and forever will be It's physically impossible for humans to agree on an "objective truth" because human sense perception (at least with respect to differentiation of truth claims) is not uniform and the variety of human experience - despite variance being relatively small when measured (eg. normally distributed) - is dis-joint enough that insignificant variance in conceptions have historically led to wide scale clan focused war. For example the theological difference between protestants and catholics is minute when plotted against all other theistic conceptions. Yet that difference is large enough (within those two groups) to drive violent, inter-generational, centuries long conflict. It's actually pretty interesting when you start paying attention to how groups and subgroups work together or fight respectively in different contexts. I have three kids who will torture each other at home, but they clan up and protect their own or alternatively cooperate, when in social situations with other clans present. This is an intractable and non-differentiable feature of human society and we want to assume that it's vestigial when in fact it's the core conceptual drive that creates society - for better or worse.
iainctduncan 3y ago
come again? Long Covid has been documented in numerous top scientific journals. My understanding from my scientist friends is quite the opposite. It is well established.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  The cause is not well established at all, similarly to CFS/ME. Also similar to CFS, the research has become very politicized and subject to media scrutiny and researchers do not feel comfortable exploring certain research questions around the CFS-likeness of many long covid cases.
OneLeggedCat 3y ago
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
strken 3y ago
I think it's less "this is bullshit" and more "this is receiving far more attention than long influenza or long any other infection". We've fixated on long COVID to a degree that might not be productive and which - if it has a psychosomatic component in some cases - might be causing more long COVID.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  > We've fixated on long COVID to a degree that might not be productive and which - if it has a psychosomatic component in some cases - might be causing more long COVID. Very charitable phrasing.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  > "this is receiving far more attention than long influenza or long any other infection" Yeah, because a loooot of people have caught COVID in the past three years, lol. There was a whole pandemic about it.
  - strken 3y ago
    There are about a billion influenza cases every year. This is exactly the attention I'm referring to, where you know a lot about the 750 million COVID cases since 2020 but nothing about the more numerous influenza ones.
downWidOutaFite 3y ago
False. There is tons of hard evidence about long covid including in this article. If I were you I would try to examine why false beliefs are being accepted into my model of the world.
j45 3y ago
Just because science hasn’t proven something or understood it doesn’t mean it’s not real or doesn’t exist. If we lived solely by this definition there could be a lot of obvious things in the brain that could be canceled. I understand your point but science is usually playing catch up with covid because it’s been so fast and far out of the gate. Just because we don’t have the scientific understanding doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. In case you’re curious, lots comes out about long covid regularly. “Gene linked to long COVID found in analysis of thousands of patients The first genome-wide search for long-COVID risk factors could pave the way for larger studies.” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02269-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02269-2 “‘Brain fog’ of long Covid comparable to ageing 10 years, study finds Symptoms of infection can last two years” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/21/long-covid-brain-fog-ageing-10-years-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/21/long-covid-bra...
robnado 3y ago
Following my first infection with COVID, I developed mononucleosis as the infection reactivated the Epstein-Barr virus in my body, which gave me many of these symptoms. I have since found many scientific articles that discuss a link between the Epstein-Barr virus and long COVID. I'm always surprised that the Epstein-Barr virus is rarely talked about in popular news media when long covid is brought up.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  It's the CFS-ization of the long covid research, which is not a good thing.
thenerdhead 3y ago
There is hard empirical evidence. Plenty of scientific evidence now coming out as well given its been a few years to research initial cohorts. But to wait to verify scientific evidence is just foolish when this is affecting a grand scale of human beings.
- eggy 3y ago
  Not denying a phenomenon here, so the "Long Covid" moniker doesn't irk me, but I think you hear more "Long Covid" than "Long Flu" because of the lockdowns, masking, school shutdowns, and ongoing culture wars. I also believe the societal measures taken in reaction to Covid has caused a lot of mental anguish and illness that could be part of the "Long Covid" syndrome or phenomenon. Unless a very acute or severe infection was experienced with possible organ or lung damage, I am guessing a lot is the zeitgeist and general malaise of post-Covid modern society.
  - thenerdhead 3y ago
    Here's more context as to why "long covid" became a term. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539940/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539940/
    - eggy 3y ago
      Thanks for that link. Very interesting. The role of social media in making patients an "epistemic authority" and reversing the normal arrow or flow from doctors and scientists. I like that "long haulers" came from a patient truck driver's cap!

artimaeis 3y ago

I think you mean there's a lack of broad consensus among scientists as to the root cause. There's scientific evidence aplenty. What constitutes as evidence of illness, if not ill people?

whimsicalism 3y ago
Sure, but I think for the bulk of reported long covid symptoms, there is a dispute over whether the cause is more related to post-virus sequelae or perceived infection by covid. Long covid is likely a combination of both types, but there is evidence that a significant proportion is of the latter form.

OO000oo 3y ago

Additionally, mathematics and scientific evidence are no match for the influence of power. The tendency of capital accumulation under capitalism is exceedingly straightforward, but the life of one trying to find peace with that reality is too painful to bear.

retrac 3y ago

I cannot comprehend a position of total long COVID denial, though I have encountered it online. Every virus you can think of that causes acute illness, can cause long term or even permanent damage. Sometimes rarely, sometimes often. Even the mildest common cold viruses, can, in very rare cases, be severe enough to cause pneumonia which causes scarring which leads to permanent loss of lung function. Hepatitis A is usually cleared without issue but sometimes significant liver scarring happens. The poxes can be cleared by the immune system but often immense scarring of the affected tissues happens. Viral meningitis... For COVID to cause severe illness in a few % -- enough to kill in rare cases -- but to not cause permanent lung or heart or kidney damage etc. in some significant percent who got very sick is implausible, even incoherent with all other theories about how viral diseases cause disease.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
It makes sense to me unfortunately. If some small but significant portion of people will be disabled by this then what are we doing going to work, eating in restaurants? What does it mean about me if I stay home working but still get food delivered? Do gas station employees get sick days? If repeated exposure as children risks disability in adulthood then what are we doing sending our kids to school? In a world where being unable to work long-term means deprivation, misery and likely a preventable death? No, it can't be true. Much more comfortable to believe we wouldn't do this than to confront what it says about us that we have, or what we would have to change to prevent it.
- 1over137 3y ago
  >If some small but significant portion of people will be disabled by this then what are we doing going to work, eating in restaurants? We are living life. Driving your car is doing much more damage to your fellow man than someone eating at a restaurant.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    Ya that's why I don't do that either.
- henearkr 3y ago
  You get food delivered but the delivery staff keep their mask on, you put your mask before seeing them, and all is perfectly fine. Mask is underrated. Everybody wanted to get rid of it. But why.
Nanana909 3y ago
> For COVID to cause severe illness in a few % -- enough to kill in rare cases -- but to not cause permanent lung or heart or kidney damage etc. in some significant percent who got very sick is implausible, even incoherent with all other theories about how viral diseases cause disease. So then why do we never talk about long flu? Long meningitis? I don’t think people are in disbelief COVID can cause long term damage to specific people. Obviously that’s a possibility. I think they don’t believe there is a specific disease called “long COVID”. Call it what it is - be that a damaged lung or heart or kidney. Hell even “post COVID symptomatic disease”. But “long COVID” strongly implies that you have a long, currently present case of COVID. That somehow just doesn’t show up on any tests. After 2 years.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

>We as humans seem to pick and choose which currently unverified things to believe and which to dismiss As it was in the beginning and forever will be It's physically impossible for humans to agree on an "objective truth" because human sense perception (at least with respect to differentiation of truth claims) is not uniform and the variety of human experience - despite variance being relatively small when measured (eg. normally distributed) - is dis-joint enough that insignificant variance in conceptions have historically led to wide scale clan focused war. For example the theological difference between protestants and catholics is minute when plotted against all other theistic conceptions. Yet that difference is large enough (within those two groups) to drive violent, inter-generational, centuries long conflict. It's actually pretty interesting when you start paying attention to how groups and subgroups work together or fight respectively in different contexts. I have three kids who will torture each other at home, but they clan up and protect their own or alternatively cooperate, when in social situations with other clans present. This is an intractable and non-differentiable feature of human society and we want to assume that it's vestigial when in fact it's the core conceptual drive that creates society - for better or worse.

iainctduncan 3y ago

come again? Long Covid has been documented in numerous top scientific journals. My understanding from my scientist friends is quite the opposite. It is well established.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
whimsicalism 3y ago
The cause is not well established at all, similarly to CFS/ME. Also similar to CFS, the research has become very politicized and subject to media scrutiny and researchers do not feel comfortable exploring certain research questions around the CFS-likeness of many long covid cases.

OneLeggedCat 3y ago

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

strken 3y ago

I think it's less "this is bullshit" and more "this is receiving far more attention than long influenza or long any other infection". We've fixated on long COVID to a degree that might not be productive and which - if it has a psychosomatic component in some cases - might be causing more long COVID.

whimsicalism 3y ago
> We've fixated on long COVID to a degree that might not be productive and which - if it has a psychosomatic component in some cases - might be causing more long COVID. Very charitable phrasing.
spondylosaurus 3y ago
> "this is receiving far more attention than long influenza or long any other infection" Yeah, because a loooot of people have caught COVID in the past three years, lol. There was a whole pandemic about it.
- strken 3y ago
  There are about a billion influenza cases every year. This is exactly the attention I'm referring to, where you know a lot about the 750 million COVID cases since 2020 but nothing about the more numerous influenza ones.

downWidOutaFite 3y ago

False. There is tons of hard evidence about long covid including in this article. If I were you I would try to examine why false beliefs are being accepted into my model of the world.

j45 3y ago

Just because science hasn’t proven something or understood it doesn’t mean it’s not real or doesn’t exist. If we lived solely by this definition there could be a lot of obvious things in the brain that could be canceled. I understand your point but science is usually playing catch up with covid because it’s been so fast and far out of the gate. Just because we don’t have the scientific understanding doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. In case you’re curious, lots comes out about long covid regularly. “Gene linked to long COVID found in analysis of thousands of patients The first genome-wide search for long-COVID risk factors could pave the way for larger studies.” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02269-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02269-2 “‘Brain fog’ of long Covid comparable to ageing 10 years, study finds Symptoms of infection can last two years” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/21/long-covid-brain-fog-ageing-10-years-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/21/long-covid-bra...

robnado 3y ago

Following my first infection with COVID, I developed mononucleosis as the infection reactivated the Epstein-Barr virus in my body, which gave me many of these symptoms. I have since found many scientific articles that discuss a link between the Epstein-Barr virus and long COVID. I'm always surprised that the Epstein-Barr virus is rarely talked about in popular news media when long covid is brought up.

whimsicalism 3y ago
It's the CFS-ization of the long covid research, which is not a good thing.

thenerdhead 3y ago

There is hard empirical evidence. Plenty of scientific evidence now coming out as well given its been a few years to research initial cohorts. But to wait to verify scientific evidence is just foolish when this is affecting a grand scale of human beings.

eggy 3y ago
Not denying a phenomenon here, so the "Long Covid" moniker doesn't irk me, but I think you hear more "Long Covid" than "Long Flu" because of the lockdowns, masking, school shutdowns, and ongoing culture wars. I also believe the societal measures taken in reaction to Covid has caused a lot of mental anguish and illness that could be part of the "Long Covid" syndrome or phenomenon. Unless a very acute or severe infection was experienced with possible organ or lung damage, I am guessing a lot is the zeitgeist and general malaise of post-Covid modern society.
- thenerdhead 3y ago
  Here's more context as to why "long covid" became a term. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539940/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539940/
  - eggy 3y ago
    Thanks for that link. Very interesting. The role of social media in making patients an "epistemic authority" and reversing the normal arrow or flow from doctors and scientists. I like that "long haulers" came from a patient truck driver's cap!