[codesections]

This is a press release issued by the Trinity College, the employer of the study authors. Thus, it represents more of a claim than an independent assessment.

I suggest editing the headline to reflect this - maybe "Scientists claim to have discovered underlying cause of Long Covid linked 'brain fog'"

[drooby]

Here it is in nature

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01576-9

[naasking]

It's still technically just a claim until it's circulated awhile. The biggest journals like Nature are the most notorious for publishing papers that don't replicate.

[kamray23]

Being published in Nature basically means that your paper is fine as far as review can see and that it could have a large impact. It retracts all the time.

[naasking]

Yes, because peer review is not very good and not very deep. Retractions almost always come after the paper sees wider circulation and more people with a skeptical eye analyze the paper. Nature itself discusses this:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.15951

[snowwrestler]

Peer review evaluates only the paper. It can’t check the underlying correctness of the science, only that the paper clearly communicates what was done and observed.

Science is a process. Publishing a paper is just one step in the middle of that process. Not an endpoint.

[naasking]

Which is exactly what I and the OP have been saying. This is not a discovery but a claim of a discovery, and whether that claim stands up to scrutiny only time will tell.