If you read the article, what makes this different is explained. The severity and number of different post-covid symptoms is alarming scientists. It’s unusual and therefore worth reporting.

Some journalists are without a doubt hyping this up, but to blanket long covid as some sort of media hoax can do a lot of harm. People aught to know that their symptoms may linger and even worsen far after two weeks. Censoring this just because you don’t like it or it scares you is harmful.

These are all subjective complaints that are inherently anecdotal. I would also argue on the severity.

How many people complained of chronic fatigue 2 years ago? Maybe COVID has been spreading for decades making people tired and depressed! /s

Any severe case of pneumonia that damages your lungs is going to cause long term breathing issues, but that’s obvious and outside the scope of this conversation.

If virus consequences are not explainable by scientists, it may be time to revisit all assumptions on virus origins.

This has nothing to do with the original argument you referenced. Also, scientists are discovering more about Covid every day. What can’t yet be explained is a reflection of the rigorous scientific process being applied. Scientists are careful not to jump to conclusions. It can take years of research to confidently understand a complex virus like Covid.

Public health officials needs to adapt to the latest understanding and work with data and statistics accordingly. It’s extremely boring and un-sexy (i.e., it’s not like scientists in the movies making a sudden breakthrough), which is I suppose why so many jump to conspiracies. We crave clear and spectacular reasons for the things we fear and have no control over.

From the article:

> But he warned that until we figure out what is causing long Covid "it is difficult to figure out treatments."

If scientists don't know what is causing "Long Covid", then they don't know what is causing "Covid". Yet, many treatments have been developed for Covid.

If we accept our ability to treat without full knowledge of origin, then "Long Covid" can be treated, as has been done for Covid.

If "Long Covid" deserves a different status due to unknown origin, then the same standard can be applied to the unknown origin of Covid.

Long Covid could be caused not by an active virus, but in long lasting changes to the body caused by a prior infection. One could imagine (entirely hypothetically) that a subset of COVID infections destroys all of the cells in the nose used generate further cells that detect smells. This would result in a permanent loss of smell, but fixing it require something different than just removing the virus from the body.

Scientists do have some idea: https://twitter.com/farid__jalali/status/1293305162509910016

disclamer: IANA scientist or doctor, but it looks like long covid might be very similar to allergy (and similarly treated)

There are many known viruses that we can't fully explain everything about. Our understanding about Viruses in general is limited. Just because we can't explain something doesn't mean it was made in a lab.