For example, a trillion dollar question is still long covid. Very significant numbers of people are on disability right now. About 10% of Americans have some form of long covid, and >1% are unable to work due to long covid (or >2% of the workforce). Long covid comes up even with mild and asymptomatic cases, and seems to have a strong autoimmune component. If you're trying to understand where those sorts of symptoms came from, it's good to know whether or not you had covid before they started.
Given that we don't understand what's going on here medically at all, it's not immediately useful, but it may be useful to know as treatments come up. A big part of the reason why I test is simply to know.
There are many other potential purposes one might have for testing too. For example, studies might want to track prevalence of covid in populations. It's good to know, methodologically, what they're tracking.
Can long covid be considered post-viral fatigue? I remember being knocked out with Mononucleosis years ago and being tired out for over a month afterwards. Or is long Covid something entirely different?
It is my wholly-uninformed WAG hypothesis that lots of sorts of infections cause long-term changes and problems—we just don't usually make the connection between the illness and the later trouble.
Like, if I had to bet money on it, I'd wager that "long flu" and even "long cold" are real things that happen at least sometimes, but just haven't gotten much attention (and, to be fair, they might also be less common, or less-commonly-as-severe, if they are real).
There's a link between EBV and multiple sclerosis!
Also, n=1, but I had a bout of bacterial laryngitis a few weeks ago (was briefly intubated for elective surgery—apparently this is a common side effect) and I'm still feeling a little breathless/cough-y despite having hacked up every last bit of phlegm and finished a full course of antibiotics. Doesn't seem shocking that my lungs would take a bit to recover, even if the bacteria in question have already cleared out.
A cursory google suggests that post-viral fatigue from COVID is expected to last a few weeks. Long COVID can last months; I know at least one person who still has long COVID symptoms from an infection that occurred in April 2020.
Long covid is generally defined as >4 weeks. There are subdefinitions for different lengths. However, a lot of long covid may be a form a post-viral fatigue. That doesn't discount it's importance, though. It's a lot more common than with a cold or flu.
Anecdotally, for people I know, it would take six weeks to half a year to resolve.
I'd be very surprised if it helped. There's pretty good evidence that long covid isn't caused by persistent virus.
My own speculation is that it's autoimmune, simple due to having it seen resolved when people were vaccinated. However, "anecdote" is not the plural of "data," and it just as well be unrelated.
There are wonky changes to organs during covid, which many doctors speculate are the root cause.
In either case, I'm unaware of any mainstream theories where paxlovid would be likely to help.
Footnote: That's a 180 turn-around from state-of-the-art science a year or so ago. At the time, we thought there were individuals where it persisted (evidence in immunocompromised), but nothing like this.
Last I heard — massive caveats that was a while ago, and I'm not medically trained so I don't have a useful anti-BS filter for anything medical — is that it does seem to be a form of post viral fatigue/ME/CFS.
the reason to keep testing even if asymptomatic/mildly symptomatic is to have a track record for further physical evaluation, legal and insurance claims (they are coming, insurers are already shitting themselves)
I think its highly likely long COVID simply does not exist, at least in the way we currently imagine it. The body of evidence that long COVID has a biological/chemical/physical basis is very unconvincing. The demographics of the people who get long COVID is the most telling evidence that its more of a syndrome than an actual disease. Over 20% (!) of bisexual people have/had long COVID. Long COVID sufferers are more likely to have conditions like POTS, where a significant number of patients are very likely just exaggerating physiological symptoms. We should stop elevating these "diseases" into the public consciousness before there is scientific evidence that they actually exist.
Yeah, no. The science -- and basic common sense -- is against you. There are many people who are hypochondriacs and make stuff up. However, anecdotally, I know people who:
- Had severe memory problems for a few months following covid
- Had severe balance problems for a few months following covid (to the point of falling when walking around the house)
- Basically couldn't talk for a month after a mild covid infection, due to coughing fits (despite having mild/no respiratory symptoms during a very mild covid).
... and so on. These are not psychosomatic symptoms. You can't make up a hoarse voice with an extreme cough.
You can talk to doctors too. This stuff is pretty severe. If your argument was that, rather than 4 million people out on long covid disability, it was, say, 2 million, I'd listen. However, your argument is like someone near the equator arguing snow doesn't exist.
Under/over/misdiagnosis is a thing for a lot of conditions, but that doesn't mean those conditions don't exist.
You'd also be better off citing medical journals than conspiracy web pages with web surveys and sample biases.
This not true, a plenty of well established scientific authorities in Cobid accept the existense of long Covid. Check Akiko Iwasaki for example https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity. exsitense of long Coivid is not controversial.
The point of the test is to tell the carrier if they should isolate to slow the spread - if you're asymptomatic today, take the test, get a negative, go to work for the week, it's as if you didn't do the test.
It's not to begin treatment. So it is a pretty big problem!
Why, if asymptomatic cases are unlikely to infect others, is a false negative for asymptomatic cases a problem? Doesn't this all boil down to "if you feel sick, stay home, if you don't, don't worry about it?"
"won't" isn't a reasonable standard. People get sick. You get other people sick. Other people will get you sick. It happens, and completely eliminating every occurrence is not a valid or reasonable goal.
Going from 50% to 75% to 88% to 94% to 97% to 99% to 99.5% reduction in risk carries an exponential increase in cost. Bringing risk to zero isn't a reasonable -- or possible -- goal, but how much this should decrease depends on individual and cultural profiles.
If you think one risk profile is reasonable, and you're interacting with someone who has a much more conservative profile and putting them at risks they consider unreasonable, you're probably being a dick (and vice-versa). That's not just diseases -- it's everything from gun safety to outdoors safety to sparring.
If you've been exposed to covid, and are asymptomatic, you should take reasonable precautions. For introverts, that might be staying at home. For others, it might be testing. For others, it might be using a high-filtration mask. It sort of depends on your preferences. Asymptomatic spread is pretty common, and it's not unreasonable to try to prevent it.
If you've been exposed to covid and are symptomatic, you should take stronger precautions.
If someone is testing themselves to make sure they will not spread it, they expect a level of certainity higher than the subjective "feel sick" - say you're visiting grandma who has asthma, and you take the bus everyday. I'd want to be as sure as I can be that I can't share it.
This isn't saying everyone needs to be testing at all times and tests should be 100% effective - some situation require testing, and it'd be nice if it caught asymptomatic covid as well.
It's just funny that you have to mention this is a question even if a question mark exists. It shows how much toxic people got instead of understanding others.
> It's just funny that you have to mention this is a question even if a question mark exists. It shows how much toxic people got instead of understanding others.
Excessively-defensive Internet writing style. You have to make everything clear in three different ways and over-explain everything so that careless, poor, or hostile readers won't/can't flame you or derail the conversation over something that isn't even actually true about your post.
See also: disclaiming "in my opinion", sometimes more than once, for things that are obviously opinions, just to keep idiots from going "LOL that's just your opinion but you're stating it as fact" in all your responses. Once you notice this style, it's a can't-unsee kind of thing. Makes reading Web forums frustrating.
This kind of distracting, mealy-mouthed crap is absent from any decent, say, traditional-publishing book or article, but is standard online.
It's worse on HN (which, you'd think the whole "read generously" guidance would counter it pretty well—but no) than most places, but it's common all over. It's a bad way to write, generally, but there's a reason people do it in these kinds of contexts—one reliably draws lots more stupid or angry-for-dumb-reasons responses, when one does not so-write.
I actually think it's the opposite. There is a hyper-polite culture in the west where people tone down statements:
- It's [X]
- Have you considered it might be [X]?
- Is it possible it might be [X]?
- ...
The goal is to not appear overly assertive / confident / arrogant. Once that happens, people start to read subtexts into questions, and all of a sudden, you need disclaimers.
I like direct communications, so I find this obnoxious, but I don't think it's ill-willed or toxic.
This is basic communication within a traditional setting. There are at least two issues:
1) In a multicultural setting, words written and words read may carry different meaning. Words carry subtly different meanings, and tones and subtexts need to be translated.
2) Unless one takes 2 hours to draft each email, people will misspeak.
Miscommunications are part of life. Any process needs to account for that.
I think the big problem is that a large number of "asymptomatic" cases can also be seen as "presymptomatic?" And it is not fully clear on when you would flip to being a carrier/spreader.
(This is a question, not a statement)