Trial Report Insights into early recovery from Long COVID—results from the German DigiHero Cohort, Mikolajczyk et al, 2024

Abstract
65 million people worldwide are estimated to suffer from long-term symptoms after their SARS-CoV-2 infection (Long COVID). However, there is still little information about the early recovery among those who initially developed Long COVID, i.e. had symptoms 4–12 weeks after infection but no symptoms after 12 weeks.

We aimed to identify associated factors with this early recovery. We used data from SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals from the DigiHero study. Participants provided information about their SARS-CoV-2 infections and symptoms at the time of infection, 4–12 weeks, and more than 12 weeks post-infection.

We performed multivariable logistic regression to identify factors associated with early recovery from Long COVID and principal component analysis (PCA) to identify groups among symptoms.

5098 participants reported symptoms at 4–12 weeks after their SARS-CoV-2 infection, of which 2441 (48%) reported no symptoms after 12 weeks. Men, younger participants, individuals with mild course of acute infection, individuals infected with the Omicron variant, and individuals who did not seek medical care in the 4–12 week period after infection had a higher chance of early recovery.

In the PCA, we identified four distinct symptom groups. Our results indicate differential risk of continuing symptoms among individuals who developed Long COVID. The identified risk factors are similar to those for the development of Long COVID, so people with these characteristics are at higher risk not only for developing Long COVID, but also for longer persistence of symptoms. Those who sought medical help were also more likely to have persistent symptoms.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-59122-3#:~:text=The term “Long COVID” is,pain4,5,6.

 

That's a very particular way to present "people who recovered quickly didn't go to the doctor's".

 

Well, they didn't really identify anything useful, but it at least data showing that half recovered naturally without doing anything could spell the end of all the crap rehabilitation that would be great, but I might as well ask for the damn moon so whatever.

Anyway this was always likely the only usefulness of observation studies, but as is tradition instead of showing how most treatments boasting benefits can be explained by natural courses, those natural courses continue to be used to pretend that useless treatments work.

They seem to think that they identified clusters of symptoms but lots of people overlap between those, so they aren't likely to be useful. They didn't even notice problems with exertion, so it's all very superficial. Their effort preference is definitely low here.

Only 4% were hospitalized, so despite the higher risk factor, it's ultimately trivial to the point of being almost irrelevant.

So here continues what was known early in 2020, that recoveries appear to be a natural thing that happens or doesn't happen regardless of what people do( and even though they didn't notice it here rest is an important factor), and people have higher chances of recovery if they recover early on, which is kind of tautological and not entirely useful since we still don't know why or how. It doesn't allow to predict anything, making it useless.

If only I had some confidence that those data would be used wisely, but I certainly don't.

And now just thinking that RECOVER wasted over half of their budget on similar observational studies fills me with despair, but I was already so full of despair that I can barely notice it anymore. It's all just so disappointing, lacking in ambition and motivation.