Something that I have not seen studied at all, and which I think desperately needs to be, is the degree to which other viruses which cause similar infections - flu, RSV, other cold viruses - cause "long" symptoms similar to COVID.
I bet they do, and I bet we've been ignoring it for a long time. The number of people whose bodies are changed semi-permanently after a flu or bad cold - messed up sense of smell, brain fog, all the classics of long COVID - are not actually particularly low. Maybe lower than with COVID, but not low.
I think looking at this as "long COVID" and not "long respiratory virus" is making a mistake. It both makes people more alarmist about COVID, and makes people less alarmed about other viruses which are no less serious just because we've been living with them a long time.
What we need are comprehensive treatments for and prevention options for respiratory viruses as a class, not just COVID.
(By the way, in an ironic twist of events, I have COVID for the second time as I write this, post four vaccinations. It's pretty the same as a cold at the moment.)
It's odd how little attention we've paid to the long-term effects of viruses in general. The cumulative effects of the illnesses they cause could easily be carving off multiple years of healthy lifespan for millions of people but until COVID, nobody really cared as long as the majority were able to return to productivity relatively quickly in the short term.
I think part of the reason for that is that COVID was new, and an unknown. Also, severe COVID in the early part of the pandemic seemed much more serious than a cold, though it is less so now.
> Contrary to public belief, he warns, COVID is not like the flu. New variants evolve much faster, making annual shots inadequate. He believes that if things continue as they are, with new COVID variants emerging and reinfections happening rapidly, the majority of Americans may eventually grapple with some form of Long COVID.
> Let’s repeat that: At the current rate of infection, most Americans may get Long COVID.
Vaccines do not prevent transmission, and each reinfection increases your chances for Long COVID. Sure, your second infection might be like a cold, but the third could do you in for good. For the person next to you, it might be 4th/5th infection, etc. But either way, it's a risky gamble for most people to be making blindly, especially as time marches forward with no end game in sight.
> Sure, your second infection might be like a cold, but the third could do you in for good.
I don't think there's evidence of this? Long COVID doesn't 'do you in for good'. The only evidence I'm aware of is that subsequent COVID infections tend to be less dangerous, not more.
But none of this is relevant to my point anyway, really, which is that COVID is not the only virus capable of causing these kinds of effects; it's increased the incidence, but the underlying phenomenon is the same and won't go away if we get rid of COVID somehow.
> Long COVID doesn't 'do you in for good'. The only evidence I'm aware of is that subsequent COVID infections tend to be less dangerous, not more.
FTA:
> A new report commissioned by the Social Security Administration in 2022 says that Long Covid is a chronic illness. People see gradual improvement in symptoms over time, but a plateau may occur 6-12 months post-infection, and only 22% fully recover within a year. Others remain stable or get worse.
This coupled with normalized non masking means reinfections and their consequences will continue to occur.
More than 200 symptoms have been reported in those with long COVID. [1]
Light sensitivity. Dizziness when scrolling webpages. Daily headaches. Intense pain. Brain fog. Allergic to “synthetic fabrics”, and detailed cataloguing of more such "symptoms" can be found in [4].
Interestingly, there are cases where people have ended up with long covid, without ever going through short or medium COVID and in fact, no COVID at all.
The NIH reiterates that there is no definition of long COVID researchers can use to identify the disease, nor should insurers, disability agencies, or physicians use the study’s findings to clinically define or rule out long COVID. [3]
There are lots of covid infections where the person develops no symptoms but gets organ damage or long covid anyway, if that is what you mean about no COVID. Test positive = you have COVID, even if no symptoms. No symptoms and no test = you might or might not have COVID. It might be possible to detect virus reservoirs in people after the infection itself resolves, though.
I'm sure many viral infections potentially have effects that linger.
However, what makes COVID different is it's not really a respiratory virus like flu, even if that is the primary transmission mechanism. It manages to infect many different organs in the body to varying degrees (hence the huge constellation of different symptoms presented).
I bet they do, and I bet we've been ignoring it for a long time. The number of people whose bodies are changed semi-permanently after a flu or bad cold - messed up sense of smell, brain fog, all the classics of long COVID - are not actually particularly low. Maybe lower than with COVID, but not low.
In fact, there's substantial evidence of this. See, for example, https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/long-flu-has-emerged-as-a-co..., or https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/long-flu-long-cov....
I think looking at this as "long COVID" and not "long respiratory virus" is making a mistake. It both makes people more alarmist about COVID, and makes people less alarmed about other viruses which are no less serious just because we've been living with them a long time.
What we need are comprehensive treatments for and prevention options for respiratory viruses as a class, not just COVID.
(By the way, in an ironic twist of events, I have COVID for the second time as I write this, post four vaccinations. It's pretty the same as a cold at the moment.)