[Animats]

This. There's more understanding now, and less ambiguity. Long COVID is an inflammation disease, and can be seen in MRI scans of heart, lungs, and brain.

Recovery seems to be in the first year or not at all. “As soon as it’s 12 months, it plateaus,” says study co-author Tala Ballouz, an epidemiologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. “You have a higher chance of recovery during the first year, and after one year it really becomes more of a chronic condition.”[1]

The incidence is estimated at 10–30% of non-hospitalized cases, 50–70% of hospitalized cases, and 10–12% of vaccinated cases.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02121-7

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02121-7

[dent9876543]

> 10–30% of non-hospitalized cases

Since roughly everyone should be expected to become infected, doesn't this mean that 10-30% of the population would have had, or should expect to get, Long COVID?

That just doesn't tally with what you see out in the world.

[Animats]

More like 7.5%.

A sizable chunk of the work force has dropped out due to long COVID. You don't see them, because they don't show up at work or go out much. They're just not there.

Bloomberg: [1]

Brookings Institution: [2]

Northern Trust: [3]

JAMA: [4]

NIH: [5]

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-12-07/long-c...

[2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/long-covid-work-econo...

[3] https://www.northerntrust.com/japan/insights-research/2023/w...

[4] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2801719

[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10159592/

[Scramblejams]

You probably won't notice most of 'em.

The term Long Covid (shortened here to "LC") covers an array of symptoms and severities. For example, depending on who's defining the duration, if after infection you feel light fatigue for 3 months and it then goes away, you've had LC. Most people I interact with have no idea I've been experiencing LC for a year. I know what it's done to my stamina, but they usually don't.

[dent9876543]

> You probably won't notice most of 'em.

Right. That can start to reconcile things. But it is not only not visible from afar, but nor is it reported in smalltalk.

> [LC] covers an array of symptoms and severities

I'm fully behind the need to break down the array and make it studyable.

But, unless you net in a sizeable cohort for whom the symptoms were ultimately transient, barely noticed, or successfully managed by the sufferer, it simply can't stack up with the reality of life.

I'm aware that headlines generate $$$ for research, but 10-30% means it has to be ascribed to marketing over science. It's essentially an irrelevant figure in serious any analysis.

> I've been experiencing LC for a year

Right. And it is that long tail of high-severity/low-incidence research should focus. But here we're talking about 0.1% of the 10-30%.

[Scramblejams]

> Right. That can start to reconcile things. But it is not only not visible from afar, but nor is it reported in smalltalk.

I imagine whether you hear it in smalltalk varies a lot by peer cohort, average age within the cohort, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's distributed very unevenly across the population.

Using my cohort as an example: A brother-in-law took 18 months to feel normal again. One of my neighbors reported that three of her friends took at least 3-6 months before they felt better. She herself got it and said it took "months" to feel better. Yet my boss said I'm the first person he knows who has LC.

One thing's for sure: Covid seems like a pretty bizarre disease. :-)