[khazhoux]

The problem is that it also seems highly unlikely that a respiratory disease that primarily attacks lungs, results in long-term depression.

Whataever physiological connection exists there, is far from obvious. And I haven’t found concrete studies to explain it.

[DennisP]

Covid is not just a respiratory disease. It can affect "the heart, kidneys, skin and brain. Inflammation and problems with the immune system can also happen," according to Mayo Clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i...

They're mainly talking about severe cases, but it doesn't seem that unlikely that it could also have more mild effects to those organs.

[notacoward]

Very early on, I came to the conclusion that COVID is a blood disease, and subsequent findings (especially about effects on the epithelium) have generally backed that up. That means it's capable of affecting practically any organ, including the brain and various hormone-producing glands, so the myriad symptoms associated with Long COVID aren't that surprising.

More recently, I've seen some scientific back-and-forth about whether Long COVID is novel or just a form of already-known post-viral syndrome. I sort of feel like it doesn't matter. Even if it is "just" post-viral syndrome, it seems to be particularly severe and widespread. Whichever theory turns out to be correct (including the "just depression" theory), the empirical fact of Long COVID's existence has more to do with my continued caution than any fear of acute COVID. Getting older has been and will continue to be "fun" enough without that.

[khazhoux]

This article is about Long Covid, so in a sense this is circular evidence.

Nonetheless, the two qualifiers in the statement "People who had severe illness with COVID-19 might experience organ damage affecting the heart, kidneys, skin and brain" weakens the argument. If the long-covid issue was just that people who were in ICU then had long-term symptoms, that's an easy premise to understand. But IMHO, for mild symptoms, there's a non-obvious leap to say that long-term brain damage somehow occurred.

[minsight]

"A large study comparing brain scans from the same individuals before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection suggests that brain changes could be a lingering outcome of even mild COVID-19."

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2790595

[minsight]

It doesn't primarily attack lungs. It's novel, so it hasn't evolved a particular favourite target. It attacks everything. If you really want to hang a sign on it, a large number of symptoms are repercussions of vascular damage (in the lungs, brain, kidneys, etc). Many are arguing that Covid is far more a vascular problem than a lung ailment.