I don't know about everything else you mention, but dismissing brain fog is very dangerous. It can make you completely unable to think clearly for extended periods of time, and thus completely unable to work. In general it makes no sense to me we dismiss diseases that are "non-specific" (i.e. poorly understood) while ignoring the magnitude of the harms. I'm much more worried about getting something poorly understood.
Not dismissing it, I had brain fog for three months and it was terribly disconcerting. I say 'nonspecific' because it can be caused by a huge number of things, including extreme stress or burnout or anxiety, and because most people will still eventually recover with sufficient time. It's like fatigue after EBV - very few actually develop CFS.
In other words, having symptoms for 3-6 months sucks, I don't deny it, but with the very likely prospect of recovery for most it's not the worst thing. Anecdotally though I don't know a single person who has had covid who is still reporting any symptoms after ~2 months (n=~20).
Fair enough. I've heard about it happening. I've seen how it's underreported, so I suspect it's undercounted.
I understand others may want to take the gamble that, while there are short and medium term symptoms, Covid has minimal long term effect. Until there's much better research that doesn't make sense to me. I'd rather take the known small suffering of wearing a mask and avoiding indoor activities instead of accepting the unknown risk of never being able to code large projects, climb, or hike for the rest of my life.
My 'case' is that the persistence of long covid is absolutely not guaranteed and most people will recover. It's people making it out like it's a death sentence or going to last for the rest of their lives that are causing huge amounts of psychological damage at the moment. Spare a moment for the people who will recover but have to live with the opinions of so many on the internet that no, in fact, they're utterly and completely doomed. Does wonders for preventing horrible, profound depression. Does it need to be said that becoming horribly depressed does few wonders for improving health conditions?
