(2021-03-22) We Need To Start Thinking More Critically About Long Covid

We need to start thinking more critically about long Covid. What media stories about long Covid and the people who call themselves long-haulers describe is frightening. Ed Yong, a writer for The Atlantic, has been particularly influential in sculpting this narrative. In “Long-Haulers Are Redefining Covid-19,” he describes a mysterious syndrome that strikes even those with mild Covid-19

Such reports are concerning, but I also worry that the narrative about a new chronic disease caused by a mild infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is getting ahead of the evidence.

Long Covid has no universal definition. It is instead often used as a catchall to describe individuals whose symptoms last more than a few weeks or months after the onset of Covid-19.

narratives evoke something entirely different: a debilitating syndrome seemingly affecting multiple organ systems for months on end — and perhaps indefinitely — but without any specific diagnosis

The symptoms of this condition are often, if not predominantly, non-respiratory in nature, and the people most affected seem to be relatively young

Reporting on long Covid needs to be more cautious for several reasons.

First, consider that at least some people who identify themselves as having long Covid appear never to have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In Yong’s influential article, he cites a survey of Covid long-haulers in which some two-thirds of them had negative coronavirus antibody tests

found virtually no difference in the long-haul symptom burden between those with and without antibody evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (or any positive test), which undercuts the likelihood of a causative role for SARS-CoV-2 as the predominant driver of chronic symptoms in that cohort.

Add to that the fact that the past year has produced skyrocketing levels of social anguish and mental emotional distress.

But make no mistake: the suffering described by long Covid patients is debilitating and real

But at the same time we need to start thinking more critically — and speaking a bit more cautiously — about long Covid.