Thanks very much for looking into this, and sharing all those details about the conclusion you came to!
I have the PM-type skills for this, but if the consensus of smart people far more numerate than I is that the risk of debilitating long COVID is low enough that it’s comparable to other risks normal people routinely tolerate, it doesn’t seem worth it.
Some follow-up questions for you:
1) Is this still your assessment (i.e. how your assessment evolved since the post you wrote 8 months ago, if at all)?
My assessment that, post-vaccination, covid was in the range of other health concerns, and most people had lower hanging fruit to pick on their health.
2) How likely do you think it is that this would change with further variants? Do you think it is likely enough that this is worth keeping tabs on? (My guess is that this is covered in your overall comment above, but thought I’d check, in case your overall conclusion was about updating risk assessment to reflect new studies, rather than new variants).
My assessment that, post-vaccination, covid was in the range of other health concerns, and most people had lower hanging fruit to pick on their health.
I haven’t done any hardcore investigation since that post, and haven’t changed my mind based on anecdata.
How likely do you think it is that this would change with further variants? Do you think it is likely enough that this is worth keeping tabs on? (My guess is that this is covered in your overall comment above, but thought I’d check, in case your overall conclusion was about updating risk assessment to reflect new studies, rather than new variants).
I think this is where the real value of a covid assesment systems would pay off, if it ever did. To do this it would need to cover both long term damage and acute disease parameters like severity and transmission. Unfortunately this means you need to:
invest a lot with ~no payoff, because you’re not in a world where LessSick is useful
drop everything and respond really quickly whenever new data comes out, even though the answer is probably “no one cares”, because your value prop is that if reality takes a bad turn, you will alert people immediately.
I’ve watched this play out with microcovid and “infinite readiness punctured by quickly doing a lot of cognitively intensive work” is just a very hard dynamic to keep going for years. It’s also not obvious to me that covid is the best use of that energy, relative to other pathogens, and that monitoring pathogens are the best use of that energy relative to exercising and eating well.
However if you feel personally motivated to work on covid, for years, under taxing conditions, in a way you don’t on other projects, I think it’s plausibly worth doing, and there are some generalizable lessons that can be pulled from the project.
Thanks very much for looking into this, and sharing all those details about the conclusion you came to!
I have the PM-type skills for this, but if the consensus of smart people far more numerate than I is that the risk of debilitating long COVID is low enough that it’s comparable to other risks normal people routinely tolerate, it doesn’t seem worth it.
Some follow-up questions for you:
1) Is this still your assessment (i.e. how your assessment evolved since the post you wrote 8 months ago, if at all)?
My assessment that, post-vaccination, covid was in the range of other health concerns, and most people had lower hanging fruit to pick on their health.
2) How likely do you think it is that this would change with further variants? Do you think it is likely enough that this is worth keeping tabs on? (My guess is that this is covered in your overall comment above, but thought I’d check, in case your overall conclusion was about updating risk assessment to reflect new studies, rather than new variants).
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/selfreportedlongcovidafterinfectionwiththeomicronvariant/6may2022 which a couple other commenters shared seems to indicate that Omicron certainly hasn’t been more likely to cause long COVID than Delta (based on a quick read of the summary at the beginning)
I haven’t done any hardcore investigation since that post, and haven’t changed my mind based on anecdata.
I think this is where the real value of a covid assesment systems would pay off, if it ever did. To do this it would need to cover both long term damage and acute disease parameters like severity and transmission. Unfortunately this means you need to:
invest a lot with ~no payoff, because you’re not in a world where LessSick is useful
drop everything and respond really quickly whenever new data comes out, even though the answer is probably “no one cares”, because your value prop is that if reality takes a bad turn, you will alert people immediately.
I’ve watched this play out with microcovid and “infinite readiness punctured by quickly doing a lot of cognitively intensive work” is just a very hard dynamic to keep going for years. It’s also not obvious to me that covid is the best use of that energy, relative to other pathogens, and that monitoring pathogens are the best use of that energy relative to exercising and eating well.
However if you feel personally motivated to work on covid, for years, under taxing conditions, in a way you don’t on other projects, I think it’s plausibly worth doing, and there are some generalizable lessons that can be pulled from the project.