[vundercind]

I suspect lots of viruses do tons of long-term damage in at least some cases, but it’s just less-studied or comes up less in the media. Flu, colds, hand and foot, all that stuff.

Though even allowing that, it’s still possible Covid-19 is worse than most viruses, as far as that sort of damage goes.

[Animats]

The big 2024 National Academies consensus paper says that they see similar long term damage from chronic fatigue syndrome and several rare diseases, but don't mention this as an outcome from more common viruses.[1] (Skip ahead to the summary).

The big open question is cumulative damage from multiple COVID-19 infections.[2] There are now many people who have had COVID more than once. (US: 60% at least once, maybe 11% more than once.) A few people have had it many more times, but that seems to involve some pre-existing condition. A VA study of older veterans indicates that cumulative damage is real in older adults. As time goes on, there will be more previously healthy people who have had COVID multiple times, and this question will be answered the hard way.

[1] https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/27756/chapter/1

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/well/live/covid-reinfecti...

[rapjr9]

It's been known for a long time and is called post-viral syndrome and post-acute infection syndrome:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-acute_infection_syndrome

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326619

Measles for example wipes out the immune systems memory of everything it has learned to defend against, leaving people newly vulnerable to everything they were immune to before:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-...

There's a good chance that a lot of the "mystery diseases" are due to longer lasting damage from viruses, to organs and to the immune system, including ordinary colds and flu. Colds and flu are probably spread via the air also, yet this also remains unstudied (otherwise known as "there is no evidence") and hospitals don't take precautions for most patients, probably because the cost would be large to treat the air in all hospital rooms. It would mean ending practices like putting two patients in each room as well. I think that in the past a lot was overlooked as being too complex to deal with ("we can't cure flu, it mutates too fast") or too costly (but so was mapping DNA), or both (drugs personalized to each persons DNA) so a certain amount of death and disability was allowed and drugs and surgery statistically only work for some people (see "number needed to treat", NNT). Now we have better tools and understanding and these things should change.

[DANmode]

> because the cost would be large to treat the air in all hospital rooms.

It would not.

Compared to the rest of hospital maintenance costs, UV-C hydrogen peroxide generators for the HVAC system are cheap, and effective.

[jerlam]

Even if Covid-19 was similar in terms of causing damage, its high transmissibility and mutability means that it's worse on a population level.

[nostrebored]

That's not true, as you have no idea what the distribution of complications is for almost any illness... you need to understand the complication distribution and the transmissibility in order to judge impact.

[graeme]

They were speaking hypothetically. Even if denotes a scenario where the impact per infection is equal.

In such a scenario Covid has worse impact due to the higher transmissibility. People seem to get it every 6-12 months. Flu infection is much less frequent.

[nostrebored]

Your assumption is that the impact per infection is equal or worse.

I think that there's no real basis to assume that, especially when young. I would expect the distribution of flu complications (externally validated, not based on self-reports) is actually worse.

[taeric]

I think the flu data is somewhat difficult here. Most people do not refer to having had it if they didn't get sick. Yet, studies are showing from a third to a half of people with the flu will be asymptomatic. Which, is kind of terrifying to me.

[graeme]

True, but Covid also has plenty of asymptomatic or low symptomatic cases. I’ve known a few who tested positive while reporting no symptoms.

A Chinese field study estimated people got the flu once every five years. It is simply much less contagious. Flu collapsed globally when countries put in place Covid precautions.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-31698038.amp

[taeric]

Latest study I saw on flu was about 10% of people get it each season. And there was another study showing that families with toddlers are basically always exposed.

COVID does follow the same general rates of corona viruses, from what I remember. Which is to say it is higher than flu. So, I am not trying to downplay that.