What doctors wish patients knew about long Covid
I think taking most illnesses seriously is wise, particularly so today as Covid has been around a shorter period of time and the long term effects are less known.<p>What I’m curious about is how does the frequency of “long-Covid” compare to other post-viral syndromes? Having various forms of malaise, lethargy, and other health problems after an illness is not a new phenomenon. Does this affect 1 in 100 or 1 in 100,000 people severely? How does this compare with say past flus? It’s hard to compare long Covid to anything without a basis for comparison.<p>I’ve had the flu before and was a physical wreck for about 6 months after until my body finally snapped back. Because it was pre-Covid times, I just sucked it up and focused on struggling through my day and then resting. I can easily imagine people going through something similar today, and because everybody is scared because of the media, we’re looking for a problem and labeling it rather than just generally sucking it up. (This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t work to understand and treat this problem, just that it might not be anything significantly different than all prior human experience)<p>How much of the concern over “long-Covid” is simply a byproduct of psychology? We may be fixated on a problem and looking for it and therefore finding it more even though it’s not necessarily any more common of a problem. Maybe a direct comparison with other viruses shows different, but this is the comparison I’d like to see to better understand the risk-management here.