Does "Long Covid" Actually Exist? Does the Flu Bring MORE Long Term Consequences?
Sequlae Affecting Wellbeing Happen MORE OFTEN with non-Covid Illnesses
Many people believe that Long Covid exists and is unique to Sars-Cov-2, the novel lab-made chimeric virus.
An amazing study from JAMA throws doubt on such beliefs:
The authors compared the health outcomes of people who had Covid (a positive test) and a non-Covid illness (negative test) such as flu or RSV. Only the patients having their first Covid illness were considered.
The results are earth-shattering: Covid patients reported BETTER outcomes on the well-being scale than non-Covid patients, who were assembled in cohorts that generally matched each other, but for the Covid status.
Results Among 1000 participants, 722 (72.2%) received a positive COVID-19 result and 278 (27.8%) received a negative result; 406 of 998 participants (40.7%) were aged 18 to 34 years, 644 of 972 (66.3%) were female, 833 of 984 (84.7%) were non-Hispanic, and 685 of 974 (70.3%) were White. A total of 282 of 712 participants (39.6%) in the COVID-19–positive group and 147 of 275 participants (53.5%) in the COVID-19–negative group reported persistently poor physical, mental, or social well-being at 3-month follow-up. After adjustment, improvements in well-being were statistically and clinically greater for participants in the COVID-19–positive group vs the COVID-19–negative group only for social participation (β = 3.32; 95% CI, 1.84-4.80; P < .001); changes in other well-being domains were not clinically different between groups.
What the study shows is not exactly that “Long Covid does not exist.” Instead, it demonstrates that other similar illnesses, such as the flu, can also bring on undesirable long-term reductions in well-being — to an even greater share of sufferers.
The article, sadly, does NOT account for the vaccination status of the cohorts.
If it did, then perhaps it would discover something like THIS:
My Personal Experience
I know one person with permanent Covid damage and one whose sequelae (consequences) lasted five months and led to numerous doctor visits, which I considered quite necessary. I personally suffered a month-long loss of smell.
Overall I believe that people should generally be believed, and I am not trying to dismiss anyone’s experiences. Nevertheless, I wonder if other illnesses also bring long-term consequences and if Covid is not quite as special as we were led to believe.
Is Long Covid, as a concept, partially an artifact of viral hypervigilance?
After I just read the above Jama article, I also realized that two of my relatives had bad non-Covid viral pneumonia around 2016 related to one of them visiting Costa Rica. They also suffered unpleasant long-term health problems that were eventually resolved.
What About You?
Do you or your associates have “Long Covid”? Did you or your loved ones ever have “Long Flu”?
Do you think that Long Covid is made up?
Please share your thoughts!
P.S Modern Discontent wrote a long write-up taking a skeptical look at the study.
As a health care provider seeing new "long hauler" patients to the tune of 2 to 4 new patients every month, I'd be hard pressed to question that it exists.
In my 20 years as a primary care physician, I've rarely seen folks come to harm after the flu/colds. Not saying never, but definitely more on the rare side.
Since the pandemic however, I've been seeing a regular population of patients - some who never tested positive for the rona, but most that did. They all share many similar symptoms - the most common being brain fog and fatigue/exhaustion.
Personally, I'm going to trust my patients over any study such as this. Remember, the conventional medical establishment has a LOOONG history of gas lighting all sorts of health complaints, notably chronic fatigue/fibroymalgia, vax injuries and the like.
I also have some issues with the study. Firstly, using using the pcr covid test to stratify who had covid and who didn't does not inspire confidence ( I can’t find any mention of what they used for testing, but I’m assuming it’s the PCR). That's putting far too much faith in the PCR for my taste. In addition, NOT including jab status is another clear confounder. Finally, the conflicts of interest stated in the study are quite significant and numerous.
I am NOT a study design expert, but I'd say they would do better to have the study done with folks who have zero conflict of interest, stratify the groups better including jab status as a variable, and lastly either use antibody testing, T cell testing or some other more definitive testing to separate the covid positive from the negative.
Call me a quack, but I tend to side with my patients. This study, for the reasons above, don't really change my take on long haulers to any great degree. My responsibility to my patients is still such that they need to be taken seriously, treated effectively & supported regardless of "official" opinions.
Many of the long haulers I've treated are patients I've been seeing for years. They are NOT malingers or given to hyperbole - their suffering is real. None the less, I'm not going to jump up on a pedestal and say I know they are or are not suffering sequelae from having had covid - that's more a moot point.
The main point is these patients DEFINITELY exist, are NOT rare, and deserve to be taken seriously and get effective treatment.
Thankfully, the spike injured CAN definitely recover. This is true for both camps; the covid injured and the jab injured.
The covid injured (long haulers) definitely tend to recover quicker. They also on the whole have less symptoms and tend to be markedly less gravely harmed. I'm definitely seeing more jab injured be full on disabled. In addition, they tend to have a stunning array of brandy new very bad symptoms.
The jab injured also recover, but it's slower - especially in the jab disabled folks. On the whole, I'm glad someone is studying these folks. But we really need to be vigorously studying both cohorts (covid AND the jab injured).
The other issue is I'm seeing some patients who appear to be suffering from both. Also there are no shortage of "mystery" patients who it's pretty near impossible to determine an etiology. Some you can’t tell if their often bizarre and brand new symptoms are from the jab, the infection itself, a combo of both, or some other entirely unrelated etiology.
In addition, it's WAY more important to do studies that stratify what treatments are getting good replicable outcomes with both groups of patients. This is a WAY more important need - getting them help. To my mind, our job as providers is to provide answers for sure, not get caught in trying to decide if our patients issues are real. More important by far, is to provide relief - and really full on recovery is the goal. That's my priority, and I hope the research community will begin to simply focus on what works to help these folks.
Anyways, that's my 2 cents.
Peace
I think long stupid is a bigger problem.