Maybe the severity of the symptoms is worse; or maybe people are getting medical care more than is common for 'common' colds.

The smart parts of the response to the pandemic included: limiting risk / exposure, additional precautions while exposed, and a higher standard of care.

Now that the Endemic phase is here we must continue to limit risk where realistic, take precautions (and vaccinations) seriously, and it really would be nice if the _right_ to healthcare were made law and reality.

> People who got covid vs other viruses. When you follow up with them 3 months later, there is no difference in symptoms between the groups. In other words, long covid symptoms are no worse than any other respiratory virus.

Erm, doesn't that also just mean that there is "Long <Insert Any Virus>" that we have been ignoring prior to Covid?

I think that's pretty much the accepted explanation in the medical field? A small percentage of people have always been getting autoimmune and other disorders after a virus infection. With Covid it's just become a lot more obvious given the volume.

The way Covid makes the immune system cause irreparable lung scarring that then sticks with people for the rest of their life also probably compounds other problems.

Post viral symptoms aren’t new. They don’t happen in the prevalence that people claim long COVID at.

Yes, probably.

One thing is really different though : I had the flu (the real one) once in my life. I had covid at least twice (the third time I didn't bother getting checked) I as many years.

That’s where my thoughts have been leading, too. I remember when people used almost the same kind of condescending tone dismissing myalgic encephalomyelitis as “Incline Village yuppie syndrome” until the weight of evidence won out. I think we’re sort of primed for it with the combination of hard-to-diagnose symptoms and various cultural tropes about whingers, disability cheats, etc. — if it caused unambiguous problems (e.g. polio’s paralysis or when COVID causes lung scarring visible on X-rays) almost everyone would accept that it was real without arguing but when you have the combination of relatively low incidence and things which aren’t easy to find on a simple test, it’s just a bit too easy to dismiss. I suspect the continuing improvements in diagnostic technology are going to push out the upper bounds for how long a case of many diseases can linger.

There’s probably also some link to the reminder of our own mortality & the degree to which luck matters: a lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of disability and want to believe they have more agency than they do.

Yes, to an extent. But many people are reporting symptoms like anxiety, depression, or brain fog, which, while could be caused by the virus, could also be caused by the pandemic. Fear, isolation, lack of social interactions can cause detrimental damage, and this should not be overlooked.

You can tell it's a 'mass formation psychosis' because you still see people driving around in their cars with masks on.

Driving alone in a car with a mask on is pretty pointless, but I haven't seen people do that since the height of the pandemic, personally. Probably still happens, but certainly doesn't seem anything on a "mass psychosis" level.

On the other hand, I drove with a mask on a few times - but that's when I was sick and attempting to reduce the chances of getting family members present in the car sick too.

I'd do it when I had several stops to make. No point taking it off and potentially contaminating my hands just to put it back on again. I suspect that accounts for many others doing so too.

I've driven around with my mask on. You're busy and having worn it for hours already you dont really think or notice it, until you do half way to your destination type thing.

Aligning someone wearing a mask in their car to so mass brainwashing, Id suspect its more likely an innocent reason such as mine vs people thinking they need to wear it in a car.

There's really not much information in just seeing that situation. When I drove for 2min between a supermarket and a clinic, I didn't bother taking it off for example. (Also a good idea not to touch it anyway) You'll need to actually have the context of why they have it on.

If you ask them they always have a reason but the real reason is that they're irrationally afraid of a now-endemic virus that they've probably already been exposed to. If you're not ripping the mask off first chance you get it's most likely because it gives you psychological comfort like a blankey or a teddy bear.

edit: and that would be fine if you assholes hadn't spent two years shaming people that they were killing grandma because they didn't want to wear these inneffectual face blankets. They don't work, they never worked. Their only effect is to make neurotic people feel better and/or superior. So it's no surprise that, lo and behold, 'long covid' is actually just neuroticism.

> If you're not ripping the mask off first chance you get it's most likely because it gives you psychological comfort like a blankey or a teddy bear.

Or maybe their sister has an autoimmune disease and their mother just had open heart surgery. For fucks sake you don't know what's going on in other people's lives.

How does that prove anything?

Maybe it's not their car, or some other passengers just got our, etc. Etc.

Maybe nobody cared who they were until they put on the mask. It doesn't matter who they are, what matters is their plan...

The pandemic and response by those in power and their media arms was traumatic for many and should be treated as such. Trauma if left untreated can manifest physically as well as mentally.

“Long Covid” is just our euphemism for adverse reactions. The fact that you’re not even allowed to bring this up casts serious doubt on all studies into the phenomenon.

This is an incorrect interpretation of this paper. It is comparing COVID positive to assumed COVID non-positive. Also, the methodology is deeply flawed as they took the first 1000 folks to respond. This is an incredibly biased approach, akin to believing that individuals who submit reviews online are from a normal distribution.