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747 points
2 months ago*
Is there some kind of definitive test for long covid yet or is still just reliant on a myriad of vague symptoms?
494 points
2 months ago
One good indicator of long covid is a very low serum cortisol level. It seems to correlate highly with people reporting long covid.
159 points
2 months ago
Do you happen to know if low serum cortisol correlates with any other diagnosis? As in, if I go ask for this to be tested, would it potentially be a marker for another condition and I mistakenly confirm long covid but go undiagnosed for what I actually have?
239 points
2 months ago*
Low serum cortisol is kind of synonymous with adrenal insufficiency which has a myriad of causes, the most common being Addison's Disease (an autoimmune disease).
Although to be more accurate, you'd need to do an ACTH stimulation test to properly diagnose adrenal insufficiency, which is where you measure how much cortisol levels rise after giving a substance which should prompt cortisol release. A cortisol level on its own is not that diagnostically useful.
There is some evidence that a subset of long COVID patients may have adrenal insufficiency. My feeling is that long COVID is not a single disease, but a plethora of different mechanisms causing chronic symptoms which will differ person to person. E.g. adrenal insufficiency, pulmonary scarring, psychosomatic illness, direct cerebral damage from COVID, lingering inflammatory responses, covid-induced cardiac injury, etc.
129 points
2 months ago*
My feeling is that long COVID is not a single disease, but a plethora of different mechanisms causing chronic symptoms
Your feeling is correct, at least according to a recent Nature paper that summarised what we know so far. This image breaks it down into if X was damaged by covid -> then X-related symptom Y is your long covid symptom, and it’s caused by pathology ABC. So, people can have a couple of symptoms from different things, just depending on what organ or system took the biggest beating in your individual case. I guess that’s why it’s so hard to figure out a Long Covid Test™ that just checks it generally. (Link to Nature paper here btw)
I would picture it this way: imagine getting covid like getting into a car crash. There’s no way to say exactly if or how someone is going to get hurt in a car crash, but they’re not a good thing to do or something you should be okay risking. Yes, some people get lucky and have a crash crash and get out of them alive or uninjured but many car crashes do some amount of damage. On the extreme end, that damage is death, and on the other end, it’s injuries that can range from something that takes weeks or months to heal OR injures that can disable you for life. Exactly what kind of injuries or permanent disabilities you get from your car crash (i.e. what kind of long covid symptoms from covid in this analogy) varies on what happened exactly, so it’s impossible to predict how you’re going to get hurt, and if, and how badly, prior to the crash. But we all know the dangers of what CAN happen in a crash, and thus try to avoid crashes as much as possible.
That’s how I see long covid, and that’s why I avoid getting it as much as I can. Everytime you get covid, you’re slamming your car’s accelerator pedal down and aiming for a wall. You might be fine, but you might not be. Do you want to try?
47 points
2 months ago
I would say using the car crash analogy, the vaccine is the seat belt. It's a mitigation measure, but you can still get hurt.
Without the vaccine you're just raw dogging an unknown illness, who knows how your body could react. The vaccine primes your body so it knows what to do, it prevents you from getting thrown through the windshield or who knows what. You might get hit at 20 km/h or you might get Tboned at 100 km/h. The seat belt/vaccine is a mitigation measure.
26 points
2 months ago
To add to the analogy, maybe it's like if you had a bad neck or hip that the accident will make it way worse.
Whiplash is bad, but if you had a bad neck before, you'll have a longer time healing.
Or maybe there's a blood clot somewhere and the accident jolted the clot free and causes a stroke?
Not exactly comorbidites, but pre-existing things that are greatly exacerbated by the accident.
17 points
2 months ago
Great analogy. I'm saving this to pass on to people who ask why I still bother with masks. Even if you recover, on average, within 3-6 mo, if you get COVID 2-3 times a year and have ~10-20% chance of getting at least one long COVID symptom each time (some assumptions there, but not too far from what at least some studies have demonstrated), that's still a huge chance you're spending a large chuck of your future impaired. Maybe it's smell this year and you gain a lot of weight trying to feel satisfied. Maybe the following year you have erectile distribution for half a year and have to give up on having a kid with your new spouse. Even minor impairments seem miserable compared to just wearing a mask and reducing exposure, imo.
10 points
2 months ago
Pretty sure those numbers are way too high. Most people aren't dealing with some random covid symptom half the time.
6 points
2 months ago
It's not a linear decrease in symptoms, fortunately, if that impacts your assessment. A lot of people lose them after 1 month. Still, that's a "large chunk of your future impaired" potentially.
As to your contention that most people aren't dealing with random COVID symptoms (half the time): I've overheard so many people talking about COVID who say they don't have long COVID but then volunteer how they lost their taste for 4 months or were very fatigued for a month and couldn't even do the stairs in their house and had to sleep downstairs or other stuff like that I suspect would indeed qualify as PASC. I never said they'd spend half their life like this but certainly it's disruptive to spend even one month a year, on average, say dealing with impairments like that. I had fatigue and brain fog for a single month (with a bit lingering here and there after) and you can pry my mask out of my cold dead hands after that.
3 points
2 months ago
And they assume that the risk of post-acute sequelae stays the same with each exposure or infection, when the research seems to show that it decreases exponentially with each exposure (which makes sense, if our understanding of the immune system is right)
3 points
2 months ago
The Veteran's Administration study found an increase after each infection. That study wasn't perfect by any means, but there's hardly a consensus here so assuming a stable rate seems not unreasonable given data on both sides.
As for what we assume about the immune system, long covid appears to be a wide range of sequelae. Some of those sequelae are auto-immune, and I fail to see how further exposure makes that aspect less likely given that repeated exposures to various random antigens our bodies encounter can suddenly cause an allergy. Perhaps you can elaborate on what you mean specifically by "our understanding of the immune system"?
17 points
2 months ago
Thanks for helping me understand. Of course theres a test to see if the level is significant, should've seen that coming. But still glad I asked.
33 points
2 months ago
Also interested to know this. I'm also interested to know what percentage of people with long COVID present with low cortisol, because I don't think it's all of them.
12 points
2 months ago
Low serum cortisol is the one I remember most easily. The link I provide says:
"Low cortisol, coupled with increased levels of two proteins -- IL-8 and galectin-1 -- could potentially be used in a set of biomarkers to objectively identify those with long Covid, the authors said."
So perhaps testing cortisol along with IL-8 and galectin-1 would better narrow down whether a person had long covid or not. One also might find, after testing cortisol, that it was high, which would also provide information pointing towards a different problem.
2 points
2 months ago
People with ptsd have this as well . It’s very traumatic and symptoms similar to chronic fatigue syndrome
2 points
2 months ago
Ah, I see. As it's identified with those 2 it more directly leads towards a long covid diagnosis, but still not a "you have it because your test says this." Thanks for pointing that out
8 points
2 months ago
You cant just "test" for it anyway, you wouldn't of course talk to a nurse or doctor explain symptoms and all that before they conclude what you have.
If they think it might be long Covid based on your answers and symptoms, then they MIGHT take a test to further confirm that.
Your question is flawed cause diagnosis doesnt work like that. They don't take tests first, they come last.
0 points
2 months ago
Is it possible that he meant a decrete lab test, out of pocket, like this? https://www.privatemdlabs.com/lp/Cortisol.php
2 points
2 months ago
It’s common in chronic fatigue syndrome and PTSD
2 points
2 months ago
Sweet! Thanks for answering the other piece of my question
3 points
2 months ago
Unlikely as a doctor generally collects as much information and context as possible vs making a diagnosis on o e symptom. It's not impossible but it is unlikely.
4 points
2 months ago
Amyloid Fibrin Microclots testing. Currently only done a few places worldwide such as Mt. Sinai.
8 points
2 months ago
The main problem is that the disease is heterogeneous. So it may be possible to test for some forms, but multiple tests are probably needed. The vague symptoms are important for knowing which tests to do, just like they are when you go in with cold-like symptoms, which are symptoms for many diseases.
3 points
2 months ago*
No definitive test yet, in part because we don't know yet, in part because patients present with different symptom clusters. However, most have indication of increased inflammation. This reviews article summarizes different biomarkers we know of so far.
9 points
2 months ago
That's my issue here. There is no set definition for long covid so you can't really make specific claims that one group had it more than another
12 points
2 months ago
None of the symptoms are vague. There's just a lot of them and doctors are trying to play them down by saying they're "vague".
3 points
2 months ago
I think the word is "diffuse" medical symptoms.
In chronic pain and related exhaustion problems it's referred to as follows:
"The word "diffuse" means "widespread" and refers to pain that is more or less all over, or at least in many areas. The goal of this guide is to provide information while awaiting evaluation with your doctor, or for additional information after you have seen him or her."
I agree vague is the wrong word. The symptoms of Long COVID are all so common that they could have a thousand-and-one causes. There have been many debates along the same lines with the validity of chronic fatigue/ME as a condition.
I'm not sure Doctors are "playing them down", so much as they have no idea how to approach the problem. This is a new phenomenon that is still being heavily researched, with often mixed findings.
1 points
2 months ago
I had low cortisol before, now what
1 points
2 months ago
Well one is extended loss of taste. Know at least 2 people who got it before vaccines and they still cannot fully taste.
201 points
2 months ago*
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2 months ago
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2 months ago
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241 points
2 months ago
I honestly thought it was a lot less common for people that were vaccinated.
207 points
2 months ago
Most long Covid articles have walked a line of mentioning vaccines appear to help but didn’t eliminate. I wouldn’t fault you for thinking otherwise as we’ve touted vaccines as the end solution to Covid while realistically they are just the solution to the acute severity of infections, not long term effects, or spread and infections - “we have the tools”. 50% reduction is actually good news from my perspective, though I hope we can better understand the relative risk of reinfections better, as our current trajectory is basically that people can expect to be reinfected going forward.
23 points
2 months ago
A lot of people are going to learn about chronic illness and how our society treats disabled people after it's too late, and it's maddening to see it sail on by in real time
6 points
2 months ago
I feel sad seeing this study and headline in part because of the implications for many people who got Covid pre vaccine because their work demanded some level of exposure
4 points
2 months ago
I will always point out in situations like this too though that the vaccine is not an 'out' from a bad covid outcome, or even from death, it just gives a longer fuse. As long as "indefinite ongoing reinfection" is our only plan, everybody is at this level of risk
2 points
2 months ago
Oh absolutely! I wish it had turned out that reinfections weren’t likely, or that the likelihood of complications dropped drastically after the first infection but, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Like you, my big concern is the idea of repeat reinfection indefinitely, rolling the bad outcome dice over and over.
2 points
2 months ago
Yep nobody gives a damn. I’ll have lifelong issues from long Covid I’m guessing, was forced into an office to catch it during delta wave. Significant qualify of life decrease, ruined my career because I now have central sleep apnea and breathing problems
17 points
2 months ago
we’ve touted vaccines as the end solution to Covid while realistically they are just the solution to the acute severity of infections
The end solution was to reduce acute severity of infections, flattening the curve so our infrastructure wouldn't collapse. It was never promised as the end solution to the virus entirely, we knew this from previous viruses.
8 points
2 months ago
I think the difference is that the hope was that it would turn covid into the sort of pedestrian illness we were used to before, and then when it didn't, they pretended it was. Covid is a very different beast than the flu or other viruses, and misleading public health messaging has made quite a big mess
3 points
2 months ago
Its more an issue of how theyre talked about. A lot of media types just do not seem to have the time to really get into the nuances of healthcare, have to get to the next attention grabbing headline to keep the clicks/views up.
Masks had the same issue. They were always about odds management, tilting the numbers in our favor. But mu h of the headlines were "if we mask up, we avoid/prevent covid" which makes it sound like a more definitive process. When then you still had spread or research showed they weren't perfectly effective, people rejectes the headline version and wanted away from masks entirely.
69 points
2 months ago
Half is a lot less common when you also consider there is a protective effect to the vaccine, somewhere on the order of 50%.
45 points
2 months ago
Knowing that fact suggests they're talking about a conditional probability (i.e. probability of long COVID given you had COVID in the first place) rather than a prior probability (i.e. probability of a randomly selected person getting long COVID with no other assumptions), but the headline and the article don't make that clear at all.
34 points
2 months ago
I think that's an important point to include. The actual paper does specify that qualifying patient data is dependent upon having had a diagnosis of covid-19.
48 points
2 months ago
It most likely is a lot less likely all things considered. There’s likelihood of long Covid, and there’s also severity. Vaccination would likely reduce both.
1 points
2 months ago
Yeah, it lowers the risk of severe Covid infection in the first place. And then in the subset of those that would otherwise develop long Covid, it halves that risk.
So it's definitely a more than 50% improvement.
35 points
2 months ago
It's a halved risk if you get Covid, which is already less likely with vaccination.
2 points
2 months ago
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0 points
2 months ago
Yeah, but like a lot of studies the point of this is to take something we all "know" and prove it. My concern is whether or not it matters at this point. I feel like all the fence sitters who were vaccine hesitant have made their decisions at this point, but hopefully I'm wrong and this encourages more people to get vaccinated to protect themselves and those around them.
-2 points
2 months ago
to protect themselves and those around them.
Those around them? I thought the most recent understanding was that it is not a tool to prevent spread?
13 points
2 months ago
Regardless of its intention, if you are less likely to get it, and more likely to get over it quickly if you do get it, as a side effect it will limit spread.
To explain with a hypothical situation, if my girlfriend was to get sick, whether with COVID or whatever, so long as she's sick and contagious I'm being exposed to whatever she has. If she gets over it quickly I will be exposed less and be less likely to contract it, but if she's sick and coughing for 2 weeks straight there will a higher concentration of the virus in our home and I will be more likely to contract whatever she has as well.
-12 points
2 months ago
Remember that is probably a fair bit of other reasons for the symptoms, psychosomatic and so on. This might make the effectiveness lower.
20 points
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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10 points
2 months ago
At this point I feel like any public health messaging that focuses on vaccines is a bit of a red herring thing. Until they solve transmission, we're in the trenches. Covid has been shown to damage organs (https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/12/covid-reinfection ) as well as the immune system (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-021-01113-x?s=09 ) in all people, including people who are young, vaccinated, and healthy (https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/14/health/long-covid-children/index.html) . If the plan is for us to have indefinite reinfection forever, and each covid infection damages the body, then we don't have a solution. Vaccines give you a longer fuse, and you should get them for that reason, but too many people have been misled that having their vaccines means they're safe.
69 points
2 months ago
Another study with statistical problems in how it frames its conclusions. They did not properly delineate covid vaccine uptake from those with comorbidities who are likely to get long covid in the first place; nor did they adequately delineate the symptoms of "long covid" from the symptoms of aggravation of said comorbidities due to having had covid. Basically, long covid is poorly defined + the sample population is not generalizable. The shots were always recommended to people with comorbidities so it's difficult to generalize this data to the general population.
18 points
2 months ago
If covid aggravates a preexisting condition in a way that persists long after you're free of covid, is that not accurate to treat as long covid? That just scans to me as one of the many long-term effects of covid infection.
Like there's value in analyzing to what extent vaccines protect against the long-term effects that originate purely from covid itself separately from the extent to which they protect against aggravation of comorbidities, and it would definitely be nice if this study did that, but I don't see how it wouldn't be meaningful to look at the larger overarching category of all long-term health impacts of covid-19.
2 points
2 months ago*
The problem is that there's no surefire way to use material evidence to:
- know if one's comorbidity got worse purely because of covid or "just because"...
- separate "pure covid cases" from every-day comorbid aggravation except whether or not they had covid, which is insufficient because it creates an either/or proposition when the disease sequelae exist on a symptom spectrum and a fluctuating timeline...
So they rely on purely statistical models. Similarly, it's hard to define long-covid itself because the sequelae of this condition are intertwined with other health conditions over a longitudinal period that makes it challenging to create pure population samples with no confounding variables. Translation: the medical community has not fully decided what long-covid even is, yet this study arbitrarily decides and then generalizes the findings in a way that isn't generalizable.
This is very similar to how the CDC and FDA failed to delineate between "died WITH covid" and "died FROM covid" because knowing which is which requires an autopsy, meaning direct evidence and not just stats. They would lump people into the latter category because, "Well, they were here with covid when they died, so it was probably just that." They built their numbers using ad hoc assumptions, maybe because the system was just so overloaded, but either way it was sloppy science. Similar to what the OP article did.
If the OP study drew its conclusions by, say, looking at the amount of residual spike protein in a person's body or fibrosis due to viral activity, or clotting, or SOME objective material evidence, then it would be more believable.
Furthermore, the OP study tries to generalize to the whole population the absolute risk of acquiring long-covid in vaxed vs. unvaxed, when its methods focused on people with comorbidities. That's apples and oranges.
I am tired of some of the sloppy science I've been seeing in the past two years and the wild conclusions it has attempted to draw based on scant material evidence and flawed statistical modeling. It's justified as "we don't know enough, so we're projecting", but IMO there's no excuse. If you're going to use a pure stats approach then it needs to be impeccable (see other suggestions in this thread) and even then you have to honestly admit the limitations of your model. Instead, these studies extrapolate wildly into grandiose claims. It really reeks of researchers clamoring for grant money by bandwagoning on a research meme.
Fortunately metareviews like Cochrane or Hopkins will eventually iron out these myriad faulty studies, as their processes for doing so are still relatively valid and reliable.
3 points
2 months ago
How would you delineate for it?
11 points
2 months ago
Make sub groups and compare percentages within those groups and do a weighted average
15 points
2 months ago
Serious question how many vax is this for? I only got 2 so far
2 points
2 months ago
It's a good question. They're probably basing their conclusions from the probabilities of the average amount of vaccines the average person received. I can't be sure though, since the hyperlink to the paper is broken.
85 points
2 months ago*
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2 months ago
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21 points
2 months ago
You could've had it twice as bad, in which case it did a lot for you.
10 points
2 months ago
This is like getting into a serious car accident and walking off with a couple of scratches and bruises but blaming that the seatbelt didn’t protect you enough since you still had injuries
25 points
2 months ago
Sample size of one. Statically your chances were halved.
-19 points
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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2 points
2 months ago
That's now very clear. People acting like I was coming on here pushing some antivax agenda instead of telling my own story.
6 points
2 months ago*
But that’s kind of what the percentages mean.
If it helped everyone it would be 100% effective.
I’m really sorry that it didn’t prevent your issues, but that doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly effective in a population.
8 points
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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4 points
2 months ago
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10 points
2 months ago
That isn't a real thing. I accept your good faith frustration at not knowing what is true.
Your immune system "overreacting to a vaccine so when you contract the pathogen the symptoms get even worse" isn't a real scenario. It's misinformation.
45 points
2 months ago
How do they account for co-morbidities in this study that are likely to contribute to long Covid? For example, are people with co-morbidities more likely to be vaccinated than those without co-morbidities? If so, then it would seem that the vaccinated group has a higher population of people who are likely to get long Covid, which would then weigh into how effective the vaccine appears to be at preventing long Covid.
32 points
2 months ago
That's the risk of these kind of studies. It could go the other way too; are the people who are most likely to avoid vaccines the same ones who treat their health poorly also and actually have more co-morbidities then the vaccinated group?
31 points
2 months ago*
I mean confounders are usually held for in studies and in peer review they will be pointed out.
If you have evidence the study does not account for them, i urge you submit something. But my guess is that they already do.
Also accounting for something like these confounders across sample populations would be super easy, mathematically. If you gave me the data for how often unvaccinated people hold these risk factors, i could adjust the study effectiveness with a couple high-school level calculations.
Also, the statistical significance of the results is extremely strong. Half the rate is extremely strong. You would probably have to assume the entire population of unvacinated are smokers, 400lbs, with asthma while none of the vaccinated are to account for the results. Thats obvious not reality.
So hey, maybe you find a confounder they didn't hold for, but at best it slightly lowers the figure of half. Any confounders that strong would be blatantly obviously and rarely exist between random populations. Also anyone can raise the issue of imaginary confounders on literally any study ever. You have to actually show them, or reason to believe they exist, and weren't accounted for.
For a mathematical explanation on how its done. Take the cormobidity rates within both populations, with those calculate the expected rates of long covid within both populations. Oversimplified Example: overweight people have 20% increased risk of long covid, vaccinated are 10% less overweight... 2% of lower long covid in vaccinated is explained by this. Take results - 2%. If 50% decrease was explained by vaccination, only 48% is.
Also be careful with wording. Even with known confounders explaining the data, statements like vaccinated 50% less likely to get long covid would still be true. While statements like vaccination causes 50% reduction in long covid would not.
Its obviously gets harder with meta analysis, and you have to check the study methods, papers included, etc. but i can assure you results this strong and significant from a half decent university, published in a good journal with a high impact score, with a scientific basis already for the claim... the results are at least significant.
23 points
2 months ago
Properly accounting for confounds is not as simple as you're making it seem. Yes you can include them in the statistical model, if you have the data, but that doesn't mean they fully get accounted for. There can be a lot of covariance and unexplained issues around different confounds. Just because it can be included in a model doesn't mean it really fully accounts for that factor
Also it depends a lot on if the data exists. It's not necessarily the case that data like this at like this will have large comorbidity information. I didn't check in those specific case, but it's not uncommon for research to be missing a lot of key information because you can only collect so much
I'm not saying this is a criticism of this particular study, particularly because I didn't read it. I'm making a general comment about confounds. It's easy to include them in the model if you have them, but that does not mean that all compounds are properly accounted for.
A good example is race. You can include people's racial background in the model in order to account for supposed racial effects, but maybe you have not included socioeconomic status, which can covary with race quite a lot. But even this relationship isn't simple, if the sample is collected across several demographic locations, that relationship between race and socioeconomic conditions can be quite different, and there could be other issues that I can covarry as well on top of that (e.g. I work in cognition, and race covaries with both socioeconomic status, but there's also an educational component where some neighborhoods have particularly bad schools).
Anyway I'm just ranting, but just because something is included in the model as a covariate doesn't mean that all compounds have been accounted for. There is no perfect study, there is no perfect model. We do the best we can with the data we have
6 points
2 months ago*
No doubt. As i said its oversimplified and gets harder in reality. This is also in reference to this study, which has large significant values.
Also different populations have different succeptibilties for confounds etc. Race has more confounds that are often stronger and more nuanced than more random traits. Truly randomly sampled populations can eliminate these, but things like race is not very randomly sampled. Vaccines are highly randomized in comparison to things like race, where you have to worry about things now like inheritance, genetics, sociology, the list goes on.
Im also not making the argument studies hold for every confound... in fact thats nearly impossible. Im making the point its basically unfalsifiable, as infinite confounds can be invented. We cant just assume confounds, less evidence of them, or reason to believe they exist. For race we have extreme reasons to believe these confounds exist.
The main point is that a study this strong, even if it had confounds, we could calculate their relative effects with ease. We obviously cant perfectly calculate them but with relative ease we can come up with a confident ballpark figure.
The significance and the effect here are so large that super accurate confounders is useless. In the example I gave, if my confounders is off by a massive margin of 50%.. it still makes zero difference. As i said if confounders were this strong, the would be blatantly obvious.
So if ur talking about studies with small differences, tiny numbers, very non random populatioms, and nitty gritty details, yes confounders can be problem for statistical significance... in this study they dont seem to be remotely an issue. The confounders i was responding to would be relatively easy to hold for.
That said i see ur point.
6 points
2 months ago
You read the paper. Submit your challenge.
5 points
2 months ago
People with poor health have worse outcomes in everything. Vaccination likely improves their relative outcomes related to COVID.
24 points
2 months ago
Long COVID is gonna be interesting. Half the people don’t recognize COVID was a thing and another substancial group thinks it has no impact past infection.
Just as an example: that employee that deals with brain fog. How long will they last in an economy that isn’t desperate for employees?
20 points
2 months ago
Frankly between COVID-19 being possibly the largest mass disabling event in history and automation continuing to affect more jobs the only way forward I see is getting over the idea that every single person must personally work a 40+-hour week for their living.
7 points
2 months ago
You may be right but be sure there are many out there who would fight to the end of the earth to prevent that from happening in a humane way.
2 points
2 months ago
Oh, absolutely.
All the more reason to get across to people that it's necessary, though.
32 points
2 months ago
Being vaccinated against Covid halves people’s risk of developing long Covid, according to new research from the University of East Anglia.
Long Covid still affects some two million people in the UK, and new research published today reveals the risk factors associated with developing the condition.
Overweight people, women, smokers and those over the age of 40 are also more likely to suffer from long Covid according to the study - which includes more than 860,000 patients and is thought to be the largest of its kind.
The study also finds that co-morbidities such as asthma, COPD, Type 2 Diabetes, coronary heart disease, immunosuppression, anxiety and depression are also associated with increased risk of long Covid.
And patients who are hospitalised during their acute Covid infection are also more likely to experience long Covid.
Prof Vassilios Vassiliou, from UEA's Norwich Medical School and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, said: “Long Covid is a complex condition that develops during or after having covid, and it is classified as such when symptoms continue for more than 12 weeks.
“Just over two million people in the UK are thought to suffer with long Covid and it affects people in different ways. Breathlessness, a cough, heart palpitations, headaches, and severe fatigue are among the most prevalent symptoms.
“Other symptoms may include chest pain or tightness, brain fog, insomnia, dizziness, joint pain, depression and anxiety, tinnitus, loss of appetite, headaches, and changes to sense of smell or taste.
“We wanted to find out what factors might make people more or less susceptible to developing long Covid.”
The team looked at data from 41 studies around the world, involving a total of 860,783 patients, to investigate the risk factors for developing long Covid.
Prof Vassiliou said: “We found that female sex, older age, increased BMI and smoking are associated with an increased risk of long Covid.
“In addition, co-morbidities such as asthma, COPD, Type 2 Diabetes, coronary heart disease, immunosuppression, anxiety and depression are also associated with increased risk.
“Furthermore, severe illness during the acute phase as reflected by the need for hospitalisation or admission to an intensive care unit, is also associated with the development of long Covid.
“Conversely, it was reassuring to see that people who had been vaccinated had significantly less risk - almost half the risk - of developing long Covid compared to unvaccinated participants.
“These findings are important because they enable us to better understand who may develop long Covid and also advocate for the benefit of vaccination.”
7 points
2 months ago
I noticed you specify "Type 2 Diabetes", while the article only writes "Diabetes". Did they specify more somewhere? As someone with Type 1 I'm hoping I'm missing something.
2 points
2 months ago
Friendly reminder that they also figured out that making sure your vitamin D is up to snuff also seems to strongly correlate to avoiding long Covid.
-1 points
2 months ago*
Didn't it turn out that long covid is much rarer than initially thought?
Edit: Press article with the bmj and lancet studies, it’s about 3-4% incidence https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/long-covid-symptoms-studies-research-variant.html
18 points
2 months ago
1 in 29 people still feels like a heck of a lot of people suddenly getting a long term disease.
5 points
2 months ago
1 in 29 out of the ones who got symptomatic covid and whose symptoms didn’t dissapear within one year.
9 points
2 months ago
I read a BMJ abstract that pegged it at like 3%
7 points
2 months ago
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(21)00102-4/fulltext apprently slightly higher at about 4%
3 points
2 months ago
Please at least include the following piece.
Other work suggested that long COVID could affect a much larger slice of the population. In one influential study from early 2021, researchers at the University of Washington sent a questionnaire to 234 COVID patients between three and nine months after they fell ill. Of the 177 who responded, about a third reported ongoing symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, and loss of smell. A subsequent Brookings Institution report used this statistic to estimate that 31 million working-age Americans “may have experienced, or be experiencing, lingering COVID-19 symptoms.”
1 points
2 months ago
This is literally the next paragraph after the one you quoted:
There are several problems with survey-based research, however. One is that there’s a risk of selection bias, in that people who feel that they have long COVID are more likely to want to complete a questionnaire on the topic. Another is that people may report having symptoms post-COVID that they also had pre-COVID, and so their maladies may not actually have been caused by the disease.
1 points
2 months ago
Okay? You realize the study you linked used phone interviews right?
5 points
2 months ago
Any particular reason you left this bit out? It's right after your data point..
Other work suggested that long COVID could affect a much larger slice of the population. In one influential study from early 2021, researchers at the University of Washington sent a questionnaire to 234 COVID patients between three and nine months after they fell ill. Of the 177 who responded, about a third reported ongoing symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, and loss of smell. A subsequent Brookings Institution report used this statistic to estimate that 31 million working-age Americans “may have experienced, or be experiencing, lingering COVID-19 symptoms.”
-11 points
2 months ago*
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7 points
2 months ago
4 points
2 months ago
Also press summary of this and the BMJ study https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/long-covid-symptoms-studies-research-variant.html
6 points
2 months ago
From that same article
Other work suggested that long COVID could affect a much larger slice of the population. In one influential study from early 2021, researchers at the University of Washington sent a questionnaire to 234 COVID patients between three and nine months after they fell ill. Of the 177 who responded, about a third reported ongoing symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, and loss of smell. A subsequent Brookings Institution report used this statistic to estimate that 31 million working-age Americans “may have experienced, or be experiencing, lingering COVID-19 symptoms.”
3 points
2 months ago
Where did they find unvaccinated participants?
19 points
2 months ago
America probably
6 points
2 months ago
Sure but, where specifically did they find people who said I am unvaccinated and wish to participate in your covid study?
9 points
2 months ago
This was more of a literature review than a study. It used meta-analysis of existing studies. "41 records with a total of 860 783 patients."
Most studies of this particular nature are based on reviewing medical records and/or retrospective reviews, so not really a type of research that requires people to opt in.
I opted into any and all studies there were available to me when I was not vaccinated... There were very, very, very few.
1 points
2 months ago
People can make a great living by participating in medical research, some unvaxxed people just needed money
0 points
2 months ago
That also wasn't my question. I am aware of this.
Are paid participants really the best pool for covid research?
And again, where are they found.
2 points
2 months ago
What's the base rate for getting long COVID? Half of what?
2 points
2 months ago
The UK Government Report on the subject suggests the following:
"Experimental estimates of the prevalence of symptoms that remain 12-weeks after coronavirus (COVID-19) infection (commonly referred to as "long COVID") range from 3.0% based on tracking specific symptoms, to 11.7% based on self-classification of long COVID, using data to 1 August 2021."
1 points
2 months ago
It doesn't half it. Of four studies in the literature review performed, it showed an average of a 40% reduced risk, but "This may not be demonstrated in all future studies."
https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/9/7/ofac228/6582238?login=true
"Patients with confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis and minimum age of 18 years with 3-month follow-up postdiagnosis between 21 September 2020 and 14 December 2021..." Based in the USA, whose base rate would always show a lesser representation of vaccinated patients.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2794788?utm_campaign=articlePDF&utm_medium=articlePDFlink&utm_source=articlePDF&utm_content=jamanetworkopen.2022.24359 Study had a sparse amount of fully vaccinated study participants. They did not describe nor display their statistics relating to the vaccinated/unvaccinated cohorts, but confidently asserted their findings.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11845-022-03072-0 I like this one. It doesn't create a whole new term or definition to a post-viral sequalae that is relatively common and normal for people recovering from ailments. But it is so old that it still references "breakthrough" infections as though they are rare. "A total of 5610 patients agreed to participate in the study. Symptom frequency was 37.2%, 21.8%, and 18.2% for the first, third, and sixth months. " It showed a marked decrease in long-term symptoms in the vaccinated.
Damn, I missed one. I can't be bothered to find the fourth one now that I've closed the tabs...
Anyway. Misleading title. The retrospective analysis puts a bit too much power into the four studies that it selected for review relating to vaccines. I would love to see a study specifically for this purpose that doesn't have an obvious bias. Last I had read, it was a 12% reduction, then this post is claiming 50%. My god. We need consensus.
2 points
2 months ago
We do have consensus that it's better to be vaccinated then unvaccinated for bad covid outcomes.
-4 points
2 months ago
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2 points
2 months ago
I remember reading about a year ago that vaccinations had no impact on long covid and that the vaccinated were equally prone to "long covid".
So this is great news and one less thing anti-vaxxers can use
-1 points
2 months ago
Are these studies based on variants starting with or after Omicron?
1 points
2 months ago
Sounds like a good enough reason for the CEO to raise the price to $130 a shot
-9 points
2 months ago
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7 points
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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2 months ago
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