OP did not claim their comment wasn’t an anecdote…

For me personally, I've been working from home for years. While the world around me changed, my life stayed the same.

When the pandemic hit I went the opposite. Focused on a healthy mind and body, was able to study a bunch and finally broken through a few mental plateaus.

But then I _got_ COVID and I can tell you COVID brain is real. Even after I had recovered physically there were a few weeks of obvious cognitive degradation. One of my first days testing negative I was trying to implement some pretty basic pagination logic but when it came time to writing the algos for it, it was like my body flipped a switch and I would get impossibly drowsy and have to go lie down.

I've had covid twice since then without the same problem but it is very real and wild.

exactly! The slighted mental effort made me want to go to sleep too :(

Long COVID is real.

there wasn't really much of a lockdown where I live, so I sincerely doubt that. Also I got COVID after the entire lockdown was over everywhere (2021), sooo no

Please forgive me for turning your words back on you: The issue with these statements such as yours is that they assume the non-existence of evidence that confirms that people’s experience is real.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2022.10.006

SARS-CoV-2 is known to cause brain damage, endocrine problems, and circulatory issues which impede oxygenation. Of the brain.