Thanks for chiming in! If I’m interpreting your response correctly, it seems you’ve stopped closely analyzing evidence on long COVID not because you necessarily think your original analysis is highly likely to be robust against further findings; rather, you think that the cost of avoiding COVID is high enough that even a significantly higher risk of long COVID wouldn’t change your behavior.
This suggests to me that for folks who weigh the cost of avoiding COVID differently, it would be worthwhile continuing to assess the risk of long COVID. (Not saying you should be the one assessing it further, given your relative priorities—just that this is useful information for other interested parties who may be thinking, “well, Zvi doesn’t think any of the new stuff refutes his analysis, so must be fine.”)
As tslarm’s comment suggests, I think there are a bunch of personal options that significantly COVID risk without having to “never live your life and hide in your apartment forever.” (For me personally, that looks like avoiding public indoor dining, bars, and large events, and avoiding even smaller indoor events when transmission risk is very high). That wouldn’t be ideal, but if the alternative is, say, a 30% chance of years of fatigue / brain fog, for me it would be very much be a price worth paying. (For the many reasons you articulate, I think the alternative is much less dire—just illustrating that at a certain risk of debilitating long-term symptoms, the cost-benefit analysis weighs towards avoiding COVID, so “live your life or never live your life and hide in your apartment forever” doesn’t seem like the right frame to analyze this from.).There are also a ton of societal investments that could be made to shift that cost-benefit analysis (e.g. broad deployment of better ventilation/filtration, UV light, continuing investment in vaccines, treatments, etc), some of which you cover in your posts.)
Look. This is dumb. Every week someone comes in and says things like 30% chance of brain fog, but think about that for a second. Half the country has had Covid. So this is saying 15% or more of the population is suffering from crippling brain fog? Wouldn’t we know? I mean come on.
Every time there is a new factoid or study the same impossible claims get made and I have to go through the same statistical fallacies and correlations and impossibility arguments again and again, life beckons.
If you want to go installing UV lights, I mean, sure, go nuts. But I wouldn’t try to convince the Feds to do anything, it won’t work.
Thanks—I find that (“Half the country has had Covid. So this is saying 15% or more of the population is suffering from crippling brain fog? Wouldn’t we know?”) compelling, and it usefully cuts through the new claims / studies that continue to pop up without needing to examine every one.
My personal logic here I think is the same as Zvi’s: I know at least ten or fifteen people fairly well who have had Covid, I think in at least one case twice, and only one of them seems to have had significant long term fatigue (and that was from a bad untested case in April 2020, and he is highly sensitive to health concerns—that is to say, I think he is a hypochondriac, but he probably doesn’t think he is one—and whose fatigue mostly went away after more than a year).
If there was a really high chance of healthy pepole having bad fatigue/ brain fog from each mild case of Covid, everyone’s anecdata would look different.
Thanks for chiming in! If I’m interpreting your response correctly, it seems you’ve stopped closely analyzing evidence on long COVID not because you necessarily think your original analysis is highly likely to be robust against further findings; rather, you think that the cost of avoiding COVID is high enough that even a significantly higher risk of long COVID wouldn’t change your behavior.
This suggests to me that for folks who weigh the cost of avoiding COVID differently, it would be worthwhile continuing to assess the risk of long COVID. (Not saying you should be the one assessing it further, given your relative priorities—just that this is useful information for other interested parties who may be thinking, “well, Zvi doesn’t think any of the new stuff refutes his analysis, so must be fine.”)
As tslarm’s comment suggests, I think there are a bunch of personal options that significantly COVID risk without having to “never live your life and hide in your apartment forever.” (For me personally, that looks like avoiding public indoor dining, bars, and large events, and avoiding even smaller indoor events when transmission risk is very high). That wouldn’t be ideal, but if the alternative is, say, a 30% chance of years of fatigue / brain fog, for me it would be very much be a price worth paying. (For the many reasons you articulate, I think the alternative is much less dire—just illustrating that at a certain risk of debilitating long-term symptoms, the cost-benefit analysis weighs towards avoiding COVID, so “live your life or never live your life and hide in your apartment forever” doesn’t seem like the right frame to analyze this from.).There are also a ton of societal investments that could be made to shift that cost-benefit analysis (e.g. broad deployment of better ventilation/filtration, UV light, continuing investment in vaccines, treatments, etc), some of which you cover in your posts.)
Look. This is dumb. Every week someone comes in and says things like 30% chance of brain fog, but think about that for a second. Half the country has had Covid. So this is saying 15% or more of the population is suffering from crippling brain fog? Wouldn’t we know? I mean come on.
Every time there is a new factoid or study the same impossible claims get made and I have to go through the same statistical fallacies and correlations and impossibility arguments again and again, life beckons.
If you want to go installing UV lights, I mean, sure, go nuts. But I wouldn’t try to convince the Feds to do anything, it won’t work.
Thanks—I find that (“Half the country has had Covid. So this is saying 15% or more of the population is suffering from crippling brain fog? Wouldn’t we know?”) compelling, and it usefully cuts through the new claims / studies that continue to pop up without needing to examine every one.
My personal logic here I think is the same as Zvi’s: I know at least ten or fifteen people fairly well who have had Covid, I think in at least one case twice, and only one of them seems to have had significant long term fatigue (and that was from a bad untested case in April 2020, and he is highly sensitive to health concerns—that is to say, I think he is a hypochondriac, but he probably doesn’t think he is one—and whose fatigue mostly went away after more than a year).
If there was a really high chance of healthy pepole having bad fatigue/ brain fog from each mild case of Covid, everyone’s anecdata would look different.
Thanks! I find that compelling.