[vecinu]

You mention the IFR but what about the long term implications of so many people catching COVID and having reduced lung capacity or long term damage?

Can we please address this fact that scares a lot of us? We already know the death rate is low for groups that are not at risk but it seems even healthy people are suffering from "long COVID" with serious long term implications.

[timr]

"what about the long term implications of so many people catching COVID and having reduced lung capacity or long term damage?"

There is almost no evidence of either in mild-to-moderate cases of Covid-19 (i.e. the vast majority of cases). People who have been on ventilators, or hospitalized for extended periods due to severe illness are a different story, as ventilators themselves often cause lung damage. The scariest anecdotes that have been widely circulated online have come from ventilated or hospitalized patients with severe illness.

Beyond these anecdotes, stories of "long covid" thus far are predominantly based on anecdote and self-reporting of symptoms, and the symptom profiles that you hear are frequently vague and/or unverifiable ("brain fog") and in most cases, not significantly different than you might see with any respiratory virus.

For example, here is a report from the CDC that was widely reported as evidence that "35% of covid cases had long-term illness". However, "long-term" here, is defined as "three weeks", and "illness" was defined as a spectrum of mild symptoms that resemble any flu-like illness, such as fatigue, cough and congestion:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6930e1.htm

Even more specific studies have had serious problems. There have been a few reports of cardiac inflammation and other specific clinical signs in otherwise healthy people. To date, most of these have been debunked for statistical problems. For example, it was widely reported that Division I athletes were found to have heart inflammation after mild Covid-19 infections, which led the Big10 to start screening athletes with MRI before play. Subsequently, so few abnormalities have been found that doctors are now calling for the rule to be rescinded:

https://www.si.com/college/2020/10/28/big-ten-covid-protocol...

https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/cs_srgb/MTc2NDI1M...

In short, the science of "long-term covid" exceptionally poor, and I caution you that most of what you're reading online is rumor and speculation.

[tinus_hn]

Please provide a number instead of ‘so many’ and ‘it seems’. I’ve seen ‘so many’ alarmist stories on this but no statistics at all, this is turning me rather skeptical.

[cannedslime]

We simply do not know right now. I think ARDS and the risk of permanent lung damage is one of the main reasons that we named this SARS pandemic "COVID".

For the previous SARS pandemic I believe it was about half of every infected person who developed long term respiratory problems. This strain shares around 80% of its genome with the previous SARS-1 strain.

[tinus_hn]

If you don’t know, bringing it up as an established fact is dishonest. But again, if the claim is really so many people are experiencing an obvious issue, yet they are so hard to find we still don’t have an idea I’m rather skeptical.

[cannedslime]

If you never look for them you will never find them. I was very sick in december and still have bad lungs because of it. Wether it was "COVID" or just multiple types of the flu hitting me relentlessly I don't know, but the short story is that you basically are not taken serious by doctors if you come up to them and say "My lungs feel really bad after that thing you said was simply the flu one year ago". And I live in Denmark, the exemplary of free medical health care...

Governments seem more keen on burning an uncountable amount of money on dubious PCR testing instead of treating or at least debunking any concerns of long term issues.

Its obvious that MY government really has no clue what they are doing. They have given themselves absolute power in this state of emergency, they make decisions and then announe them before other parties have a chance to say anything about the material handed to them. First our government sold The state serum institute to a rediculous low price to some sheikh from Saudi Arabia, and now they pay BILLIONS every month to that very same company and take all the advice they give as unconditional fact.

But fact is they are a private company with a stake in government funded PCR testing.

[tinus_hn]

Not sure what your point is.

You tell us an anecdote about how you are experiencing problems after you were sick in December.

I’m pretty sure you didn’t get tested for Corona in December but anyway I don’t see how that justifies scaremongering about ‘a lot of cases’ where people have longlasting damage. Again, if it is so pronounced and affects so many people it shouldn’t be hard to show.

[cannedslime]

No I didnt get tested, first of all historically you do not get PCR testing for the coof unless you die, thats a trend beginning with covid. Also because it wasn't even on the radar unless you were one of those types of persons who hung out on 4chans /pol/ where they had daily threads about the virus since december at least.

My point is that governments do NOT want to address the ARDS concerns because it will mean millions of citizens will have to get early pensions, which will be a massive strain on welfare states. They'd rather not address this at all. My other point is that we have reached a point where PCR testing is utterly meaningless, it SOLELY benefits big pharma.

It makes no sense to keep on doing PCR testing, we should have done like china when shtf there and started doing symptom diagnostics instead since its way cheaper.

Also, if you need a respirator to breathe, you need it COVID or not. If you are sick, it doesn't really matter if its SARS-2, covid-20 or the flu. Stay home!