[timr]

> the controls also lived through lockdown. If this is the rigorous analysis you’re bringing to the studies you read, I’m not surprised none of them pass the muster.

You've missed the point. I'm not suggesting that the other factor or factors has to be "lockdown". I'm just giving examples that illustrate the idea: even if you assume that the differences between the control and the experimental group are non-random and significant, you still cannot attribute the longitudinal difference to the one factor alone. If you don't like my theory, it's easy to find another, if you're even a little bit imaginative.

> “Results disappear excluding hospitalized” is wrong because the paper says they persisted.

No. They lose all but one. The final "significant" result is teetering on the edge of insignificance. See table 4 [1]. Models 2-4.

> the statistical weaknesses you describe are in the papers own limitations section.

Yes, because they're real. It's great that they wrote them in the paper, but they're fatal flaws.

"We openly disclosed the reason our study is nonsense!" is not the damning indictment you're suggesting that it is.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9046077/table/Tab4/

[kranke155]

Yes of course.

It’s lockdown and now no lockdown. Could be anything. All observational studies are wrong. The stated limitations are fatal flaws. You heard it here first in HN. All medical research is fatally flawed, says user “timr”.

Good luck with that.

[timr]

> All observational studies are wrong...You heard it here first in HN.

No, but most of them are wrong, and all of them need to be treated with an incredibly high degree of skepticism. This is critical review 101. When you push on this paper, even lightly, it falls over.

Not all papers are bad, but this one is bad, and while there are a great many well-done studies in the world, the subject of "long covid", to date, has essentially ~none of them.

[kranke155]

I knew this would be the conclusion. Again - good luck. You are always right.

If you’re right and everyone else is wrong about hundreds if not thousands of studies, then you should be writing a book, not comments in HN.

We started at “some studies have errors” and we ended in “an entire field of research is wrong”.

You have already decided the field has no valid studies. Even when given dozens of examples you picked one and made up a series of points about one study. You made mistakes, never admitted it, and now are calling into question an entire field of medical research.

Again. Good luck with that.