[llm_nerd]

You are absolutely correct. Any infection has the potential to cause serious, long-term problems. Often it is our own immune system going haywire.

I don't think anyone has any problem with that notion. Severe illness is severe.

I think pushback on long covid is when it is similar to antivaxxers claims of vax injuries -- where everything that anyone suffers after the event is lazily traced back to a single source, whether it's "got vaccinated" or "had covid". If someone who had a mild case of covid now attributes every mental state, malaise, physical discomfort, headaches, trouble concentrating, etc, to "long covid", it should properly earn skepticism.