Coronavirus

[telum12]

Did some read up on so called "long covid".

Doesn't seem like a thing to be worried about.
There were some mildly clickbaity titles in some Finnish newspapers about those, like dozens of % of people having symptoms. Which is scary.
..But then from the actual article, it occurred that most of those symptoms were self reported things like "tiredness" and inability to focus.

And from some a bit more trusted sources it seems that its mostly just kind of like sensitivity electricity or magnetic fields and all that.
Symptoms caused by the patient thinking that he has some long symptoms from the past disease. Not all of them, but most, especially shortness of breath, tiredness etc.
Of course it was not directly stated that most reports were just a load of bs, but the recommended treatments were stuff like mindfulness, relaxation and psychotherapy. From which I deduced that this must be the case. Something about "overactive autonomous neural system" which probably means worrying and stress about the disease.

It's not bs. It's too early to tell but there's a variety of potential problematic, long-term effects of covid. There is some preliminary evidence increased neurological morbidity [1][2], though this may be confounded by pre-existing neurological conditions.

The more scary issue in my opinion is, however, the discover that although the main effect of the virus can be felt in the respiratory system, a potential secondary effect can be felt in the blood vessels. COVID seems to, as far as I understand it, carry along the blood vessels and attach itself in regions with very fine blood vessels (such as the lungs, heart, kidneys) which can cause severe long-term issues. For example, a study comparing young adults 3-4 weeks after recovering from a mild form of COVID to a control group found increase carotid stiffness, indicating potential long-term hearth issues in adults who would otherwise be perfectly healthy. [3] There is also some evidence that the inflammation experienced during covid may cause direct damage to the brain [4].

I would be careful reading random news articles on this in general, as most journalists who do not specifically write scientific news are either not scientifically literate or don't bother actually reading research, instead focusing on personal stories and/or don't have the time to actually write out a proper article due to time pressures.

In other words, I'd very much like to not get covid.

[1] Taquet, Maxime, et al. "6-month neurological and psychiatric outcomes in 236 379 survivors of COVID-19: a retrospective cohort study using electronic health records." The Lancet Psychiatry 8.5 (2021): 416-427.

[2] Zangbar, Hamid Soltani, Ali Gorji, and Tahereh Ghadiri. "A review on the neurological manifestations of covid-19 infection: a mechanistic view." Molecular neurobiology 58.2 (2021): 536-549.

[3] Szeghy, Rachel E., et al. "Carotid stiffness, intima–media thickness and aortic augmentation index among adults with SARS‐CoV‐2." Experimental Physiology (2021).

[4] Qin, Yuanyuan, et al. "Long-term microstructure and cerebral blood flow changes in patients recovered from COVID-19 without neurological manifestations." The Journal of Clinical Investigation 131.8 (2021).

[shubla]

It's not bs. It's too early to tell

Millions have had covid, if there were some serious risks for certain things it would be well known effect now already.
What I meant is that majority of symptoms being reported are bs. Most of these serious and real ones are from those which were admitted to ICU or at least to a hospital.
Those people are a small fraction of people that have had the disease. So there is really no need to worry too much, if you are not in some risk group.

Reading and linking papers is nice and all, but quite meaningless. There are a shit ton of papers on this and most people who read these forums have no idea what 90% of words in those even mean. So its very difficult to interpret them correctly, best one can do is to just look at what some reviews/analyzes on these papers done by organizations like WHO etc.

How would one even avoid covid? Wash your hands? Avoid getting too close to sneezing persons? Possibly. But these work only to a very limited extent.

---
Just a few days ago in Finland there started to appear these articles about "how much risk can we stand etc", preparing people for the reality, so probably it will all be back to normal in late autumn at the latest! Finally!
Interestingly, more people have died because of alcohol abuse than covid in Finland. Median age of those who died is like 82 years, and not one younger than 50 years has died... Still many people seem to be way too afraid of this disease.

I'm baffled of people thinking that restrictions that we saw in early stages would come back if infections started to rise. Do they not realize that much has changed? (nearly?) 70% of people have had the 1st dose, and most in risk groups the 2nd too. The situation is very different now. Real purpose of restrictions was to avoid ICU units and hospitals going way too much over their capacities, but at the moment, the situation is good, even the hospitals themselves have expressed that.

[Zentetsuken]

words

I think using Finland as an example for covid restrictions and infections is probably really dumb.

Finland has very low population density, and is known to be culturally / stereotypically introverted and antisocial

Wheather or not restrictions and measures were needed there bears absolutely no weight on what may be needed in other countries.

It's very likely that Finland will be back to normal in autumn given its current circumstances. However, if this new delta variant becomes an issue I am sure that there are other countries that are culturally less educated, have denser populations and are more likely to gather in masses that will require restrictions to tone down the spread of infection.

If you are taking reviews and analysis from WHO or CDC or practically anybody at this point, I think it has been confirmed 100 times over that practicing social distancing and wearing masks absolutely lowers the infection rate in relevant countries.

[telum12]

words

I think using Finland as an example for covid restrictions and infections is probably really dumb.

Finland has very low population density, and is known to be culturally / stereotypically introverted and antisocial

Wheather or not restrictions and measures were needed there bears absolutely no weight on what may be needed in other countries.

It's very likely that Finland will be back to normal in autumn given its current circumstances. However, if this new delta variant becomes an issue I am sure that there are other countries that are culturally less educated, have denser populations and are more likely to gather in masses that will require restrictions to tone down the spread of infection.

If you are taking reviews and analysis from WHO or CDC or practically anybody at this point, I think it has been confirmed 100 times over that practicing social distancing and wearing masks absolutely lowers the infection rate in relevant countries.

Helsinki has 6x the population density of my country's capital. We're similarly considered introverted and antisocial. The first two waves included no masks and barely any social distancing. The second included both, and reduced the rates considerably, even though more infectious variants became dominant.

People still go to the grocery store etc. in Finnland and other countries that don't fall under your "less educated people"-grouping.

Could you make an argument that it's more effective if you're in a country with a high-density population? Probably. But it seems a stretch to claim that because other countries benefit more from it, you shouldn't do it in e.g. my country or Finland.

If I had a poison that killed 2% of every person in country A, but only 1% of every person in country B, you'd want to what? Be fine administering the poison to the population of country B because it's less harmful than to those in country A? Seems fishy to me

[MagicManICT]

Millions have had covid, if there were some serious risks for certain things it would be well known effect now already.

We just finally figured out a few years ago (relatively speaking) that shingles are caused by the chicken pox virus. That was one of the first identified viruses. You think we're going to know the long term effect of a disease that had its first outbreak less than 24 months ago? Someone is clueless, deliberately trolling, or just not thinking.

[Zentetsuken]

words

I have no idea what you are asking me but I assure you that I think anybody who doesn't wear a mask is utterly retarded.

I don't know why or how Finland had better luck, or if anything shubla said is true, I am just suggesting a speculative reason as to why

[telum12]

words

I have no idea what you are asking me but I assure you that I think anybody who doesn't wear a mask is utterly retarded.

I don't know why or how Finland had better luck, or if anything shubla said is true, I am just suggesting a speculative reason as to why

Lmao didn’t realise shubla made another post, I read your post as the opposite as what you said.

Shubla, linking papers is at least better than making claims without any evidence. Science takes time.It’s usually difficult to separate confounding variables etc. We probably won’t know long-term effects of COVID until a long time has passed, but we might never know even if there is some effect. Right now it looks like there is some long-term impact on various organs, including the brain, heart and kidneys.

There’s some very smart, specialised people making educated guesses given available data. Hopefully this line of thought is irrelevant, however, assuming most countries partake in vaccinations.

[shubla]

Right now it looks like there is some long-term impact on various organs, including the brain, heart and kidneys.

Well yea it sure may have some, but I meant that people reporting themselves "tired" and such are likely just imagining their illness, if nothing can be found from their brains when scanned. (and majority of these long covid things were such cases)
Or well, one could say that they are indeed ill, because of the stress and worries caused by covid, not the covid directly.

[MagicManICT]

Well yea it sure may have some, but I meant that people reporting themselves "tired" and such are likely just imagining their illness, if nothing can be found from their brains when scanned. (and majority of these long covid things were such cases)

So if a person who has a mental illness has constant fatigue and other symptoms not detectible by any scan doesn't have an illness? Hmm... interesting theory, doctor.

[shubla]

Well yea it sure may have some, but I meant that people reporting themselves "tired" and such are likely just imagining their illness, if nothing can be found from their brains when scanned. (and majority of these long covid things were such cases)

So if a person who has a mental illness has constant fatigue and other symptoms not detectible by any scan doesn't have an illness? Hmm... interesting theory, doctor.

Well yes, that person has illness, kind of like people who are allergic to electricity. So not a "real" illness I'd say, but a fake one, and then they refuse to accept that its fake one and insist that its caused by covid/electricity whatever. Even though doctors are unable to find any link.