Yet, one would still think that Having covid would be more predictive of Long covid than Believing you’ve had covid, since Believing and Long ought to be correlated only through their shared association with Having (common cause rather than mediation). The fact that this is not the case could indicate that people with chronic conditions come to think they Had covid (discussed at the end of the study) or that the measure of Having covid is not that good (see Siebe’s comment), or that it’s psychosomatic (loose usage of the term), or something(s) else.
Or that long covid is mainly caused by symptomatic covid, and Believing is a better predictor of symptomatic covid than antibody tests. Which seems pretty likely.
Or that long covid is mainly caused by symptomatic covid, and Believing is a better predictor of symptomatic covid than antibody tests. Which seems pretty likely.
Yes!