[baldfat]

Everything you stated is based on emotional stances and conclusions. Medicine doesn't work that way. This was a pretty good study with a very large sample size.

The cohort included 486 149 people with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection who were not admitted to hospital, matched with a control group of 1.9 million people with no recorded evidence of coronavirus infection.

[buscoquadnary]

> People who tested positive for the virus reported at least one of 62 symptoms more frequently 12 weeks after initial infection with SARS-CoV-2 than those who had not contracted the virus.

It was also a self reported. Self reporting for something like this is probably going to be useless.

In fact what might be more interesting is using this as an opportunity to study med student syndrome.

EDIT: Looking at the quote again, less troubling than the self reporting part is the 62 symptoms, I mean how many of you know how much hair loss you've had over the past year vs 12 weeks. They did have a considerable control group, but I also know there are plenty of ways to massage data.

But seriously 62 different possible symptoms? This seems like a very wide list of possible symptoms cast over a very wide net of people.

[progrus]

They were also given their test results. In a drug clinical trial, that kind of thing would instantly invalidate the whole project.

[josephcsible]

> But seriously 62 different possible symptoms? This seems like a very wide list of possible symptoms cast over a very wide net of people.

Yep, this is the same mistake the study in https://xkcd.com/882/ makes.

[Jedd]

> It was also a self reported.

Out of curiosity, could you please describe what you think that entails for a study like this?

[briHass]

Still, it's an observational study with no reasonable, plausible mechanism of action presented. Worst of all, the study participant were in no way blinded: they knew, from testing, that they contracted a virus that was the constant focus of fear and uncertainty and pushed by media, quite literally 24/7, for months.

[spookthesunset]

> Still, it's an observational study with no reasonable, plausible mechanism of action presented.

Anything that supports the narrative is absolutely fine. Doesn't matter if the methodology is crap, the data is crap... none of it matters. Pointing any flaw out makes you a horrible person.

Now if you publish any kind of research that goes against the narrative suddenly every single flaw, no matter how irrelevant, comes into play. I don't think you can ever publish research that goes against the narrative and not have it somehow "discredited" by "experts".

I trust absolutely none of the research that has been conducted over the last 2.5 years. It's all garbage. Too much emotion and incentive is involved in making things follow the narrative.

And for people that downvote this... ever been on the other side? Ever been a critic of our covid policies? You get yelled at, called absolutely horrible things, and wished horrible death upon you. Your career can fall apart, relationships can dissolve, friends will stop talking to you. It's miserable. Yet, here we are... on the other side. It's not like we chose this... The science, data and morals just happen to be on our side (according to us (which history will almost certainly support)).

[kcplate]

> I trust absolutely none of the research that has been conducted over the last 2.5 years. It's all garbage. Too much emotion and incentive is involved in making things follow the narrative.

Glad I am not the only one with this level of skepticism. I say that implicating both sides of the debate. Every study I read seems filled with overt examples of confirmation bias.