The number of people prone to psychosomatic symptoms is probably not going to go up, so your growth rate should be overestimated.
There are also other risk factors involved, same argument applies to those.
In the extreme scenario those people prone to develop long covid already have it and very few other people will get it.
The assumptions in your simulation also seem consistent with that possibility: Maybe the reinfection long covid probability of 5% is mostly the 60% of the 10% … ;-)
For what it’s worth I know zero people with long covid and I have also never heard anybody mention an acquaintance with long covid.
Isn’t there also evidence that long covid is partly psychosomatic
I think an equally compelling explanation is that people with symptoms are more likely to attribute them to covid than other causes because it leads to better treatment. The implications for long covid in particular are identical though.
It’s the opposite, actually. I have family members with obvious long COVID symptoms they don’t acknowledge because they’re committed to a political ideology which asserts that COVID is “over”. Most people with long COVID will have to visit half a dozen doctors before they are properly diagnosed. And long COVID treatment is literally non-existent. There are no approved treatments or therapies at this point. None. So, rather than get “better” treatment, they won’t get any. There are long COVID clinics at various universities. They have waiting lists that are several months long, and their treatments involve things like coaching on CFS pacing strategies (e.g. listen to your body, don’t exert yourself).
Apologies- I didn’t mean to suggest they got better medical treatment. You’re correct that the state of the art is terrible. But doctors, employers, and family members will be nicer to people labeled with long covid than they will be to people with a different label of the same constellation of symptoms.
TBC I’m not disputing your description of “takes 6 doctors to get diagnosed, and that last doctor still can’t help”. If anything I think it glosses over how awful the first 5 doctors are on average. But 6 doctors, followed by a socially legitimized diagnosis, is still better than the average fatigue-inflammation-brainfog-metabolic-neuro-??? cluster because that cluster is treated miserably.
Social legitimacy varies by social group, of course. Some people are assholes about long covid and that’s devastating for their friends, family, and employees who suffer from it. But I have trouble imagining any of them would be nicer about a CFS or chronic Lyme diagnosis, while I think there are a decent chunk of people who mock those diagnoses while taking long covid seriously.
Well, we know that COVID damages the brain, and some people have had psychotic episodes following a COVID infection.
But long COVID is not psychosomatic, at least probably not in most cases. As it is novel, there’s no straightforward test at this point, but there has been a decent amount of research in the last couple of years, so physical markers have been found. Some I listed in the essay, but others include things like inflamed vagus nerve, different enzyme levels in the blood, etc. And of course, a lot of long COVID is actual organ damage which can be viewed on an MRI or other tests.
I personally know many people with long COVID, but they often didn’t identify it as such. I’m shocked that you don’t at least know one person with long term smell/taste loss.
Isn’t there also evidence that long covid is partly psychosomatic? (random paper that lists some studies)
The number of people prone to psychosomatic symptoms is probably not going to go up, so your growth rate should be overestimated.
There are also other risk factors involved, same argument applies to those.
In the extreme scenario those people prone to develop long covid already have it and very few other people will get it.
The assumptions in your simulation also seem consistent with that possibility:
Maybe the reinfection long covid probability of 5% is mostly the 60% of the 10% … ;-)
For what it’s worth I know zero people with long covid and I have also never heard anybody mention an acquaintance with long covid.
I think an equally compelling explanation is that people with symptoms are more likely to attribute them to covid than other causes because it leads to better treatment. The implications for long covid in particular are identical though.
It’s the opposite, actually. I have family members with obvious long COVID symptoms they don’t acknowledge because they’re committed to a political ideology which asserts that COVID is “over”. Most people with long COVID will have to visit half a dozen doctors before they are properly diagnosed. And long COVID treatment is literally non-existent. There are no approved treatments or therapies at this point. None. So, rather than get “better” treatment, they won’t get any. There are long COVID clinics at various universities. They have waiting lists that are several months long, and their treatments involve things like coaching on CFS pacing strategies (e.g. listen to your body, don’t exert yourself).
Apologies- I didn’t mean to suggest they got better medical treatment. You’re correct that the state of the art is terrible. But doctors, employers, and family members will be nicer to people labeled with long covid than they will be to people with a different label of the same constellation of symptoms.
TBC I’m not disputing your description of “takes 6 doctors to get diagnosed, and that last doctor still can’t help”. If anything I think it glosses over how awful the first 5 doctors are on average. But 6 doctors, followed by a socially legitimized diagnosis, is still better than the average fatigue-inflammation-brainfog-metabolic-neuro-??? cluster because that cluster is treated miserably.
Social legitimacy varies by social group, of course. Some people are assholes about long covid and that’s devastating for their friends, family, and employees who suffer from it. But I have trouble imagining any of them would be nicer about a CFS or chronic Lyme diagnosis, while I think there are a decent chunk of people who mock those diagnoses while taking long covid seriously.
Well, we know that COVID damages the brain, and some people have had psychotic episodes following a COVID infection.
But long COVID is not psychosomatic, at least probably not in most cases. As it is novel, there’s no straightforward test at this point, but there has been a decent amount of research in the last couple of years, so physical markers have been found. Some I listed in the essay, but others include things like inflamed vagus nerve, different enzyme levels in the blood, etc. And of course, a lot of long COVID is actual organ damage which can be viewed on an MRI or other tests.
I personally know many people with long COVID, but they often didn’t identify it as such. I’m shocked that you don’t at least know one person with long term smell/taste loss.