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Long COVID in the Long Run—23-Month Follow-up Study of Persistent Symptoms , 2022, Helmsdal et al

Discussion in 'Long Covid research' started by Andy, Jul 27, 2022.

  1. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

    Messages:
    21,810
    Location:
    Hampshire, UK
    Abstract

    Symptoms of long coronavirus disease (COVID) were found in 38% of 170 patients followed for a median of 22.6 months. The most prevalent symptoms were fatigue, affected taste and smell, and difficulties remembering and concentrating. Predictors for long COVID were older age and number of symptoms in the acute phase. Long COVID may take many months, maybe years, to resolve.

    Open access, https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/9/7/ofac270/6603333
     
    ahimsa, Trish, Sean and 3 others like this.
  2. Hutan

    Hutan Moderator Staff Member

    Messages:
    26,524
    Location:
    Aotearoa New Zealand
    Faroe Islands - mainly non-hospitalised cases. 94% followup of a prospective cohort. Looks like a decent study.

    I think this is more like the percentages we will see affected at 2 years than some of the figures that have been put about.

    It would be good if someone could assess these people against an ME/CFS criteria with PEM.
     
    ahimsa, Snow Leopard, Sean and 10 others like this.
  3. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    12,299
    Location:
    Canada
    No doubt the single digit % will be spun as good news. Even though given runaway spread of the virus, it inevitably amounts to a % of the whole population (and doesn't even take account the added risk from multiple re-infections). Even though the people who will say that were all mocking the idea that this would exist at all, their starting point was literally 0. And that's not counting how it's not normal to accept that a significant % of the population should lose months to a year of their life to illness that is literally denied to exist (in the form patients report).

    There's this weird fixation over how a problem is completely trivial unless it completely overruns all healthcare services. It has to basically cripple the entire system before people will even consider thinking about possibly doing something eventually. On the spread of monkeypox, I've seen a dude (ah screw it it's Balloux) showing a log scale growth and said it's not a concern because the rise is not exponential, which I assume he means a full square growth.

    But meanwhile most problems for which people insure themselves, fire, car, house insurance, etc. are far, far lower than this. Car owners spend hundreds, sometimes thousands, to insure themselves against a risk that is about 10-100x lower than even a low end of 2%, which is about similar to polio (although I'm not sure if it came back and vaccines weren't a silver bullet that it wouldn't end up being trivialized just the same).

    Instead everything is made about the impact on healthcare systems, the impact on the patients is completely trivialized and diminished in the most insulting possible way: "well, it doesn't bother us, we can manage it". Like a systemic version of "will this hurt doctor? no I won't feel a thing".

    So the people with all the stakes in the matter aren't part of any decisions, aren't even considered in those decisions, while people with no stakes in the matter make all the decisions, based on how much it bothers them, and nothing else. No wonder everything is falling apart, this system was built for easy mode, and it can't even face moderate difficulty. And given the absurd scale of failures, we're likely to see hard mode pretty soon, and medicine isn't ready for that.
     

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