And just like that, the mask slips and you just out and admit that your position is simply an argument from incredulity. You don't like the results you see, therefore make assumptions that you presume "have to be" true because you believe you simply know better and that therefore good data must confirm your preconceptions. That is to say, you had already decided what the conclusion should be and are trying to force the data to fit it. You think the results are too high, and therefore conclude that they must be using a catch-all definition.
Never mind that this isn't some abstraction or matter of opinion. People can see that you're wrong just by reading
the paper, and seeing that their methods focused on patients with a self-reported and unconfirmed
belief that they had Long Covid, that this
belief was then tested against serology, and their conclusion was that and I quote - 'A medical evaluation of these patients may be needed
to prevent symptoms due to another disease being erroneously attributed to “long COVID” '. This rather neatly spells out that no, a catch-all definition was
not being used because the cases that lacked a positive serology result were deemed
erroneously attributed to Covid. These were not considered valid Covid cases, but false positives that came from
laymen making presumptions about the cause of their symptoms. Which is to say that it's quite easy to see that you are mischaracterizing it and that they are not, in fact, using the definition you're insisting upon.
You not wanting to believe it - or alternately being too inept to grasp the practical meaning of each of those points of data - is
your failing. You don't get to lie about the data just because you don't want to accept that you shot your mouth off in ignorance and were wrong about it.
How about we cut the shit and get right to the chase. Because I could probably pull and quote medical journals until I was blue in the face, but at the end of the day it wouldn't matter. I've already provided you with resources that lay out a few tests doctors currently use to identify whether or not a patient had a recent covid infection, and the very sources you yourself are citing not only corroborate them but actively employ them in their methodology. Hell, the aforementioned paper specifically laid out the serologic testing they employed. And yet you're still insisting on acting like I'm trying to innovate some hypothetical test rather than simply explaining that the methods you're claiming can't exist actually do exist.
Setting aside that I've already given you an overview of a method that is employed to evidence this diagnosis and that you've already abundantly proven that you aren't paying enough attention to even recognize that your own sources explain how they have been using similar methods to get the results you're bastardizing - much less raise informed objections about them - the fact of the matter is that the
how of it is not even germaine to this conversation. I am not proposing a new method, nor would you be in a position to test or object to them if I was. I am simply telling you that what you ignorantly believe to be impossible is in fact not just possible but in broad use,
as you should already know because the very things you cite corroborate as much. Whether or not you understand how it is done is immaterial to that fact. Point of fact, as you are a layman for this topic rather than a subject matter expert, your unfamiliarity with the topic making it difficult for you to understand it is expected.
I speak to you like that
because you very obviously don't understand basic things. For goodness sake, this entire conversation is a product of you trying to pass off your ignorance as expertise and being so stubbornly prideful that you started insisting on demonstrably false statements and downright idiotic non-sequitur that showed that you didn't even read the things you were citing and simply didn't want to accept that you were wrong.
You may have noticed a bit of a trend in people telling you for a
long time now that it's painfully obvious that you don't have any idea what you're talking about and that you have been doing nothing but trying to bullshit your way through the conversation because you're too proud to own up to your own ignorance. That keeps happening because you keep saying stupid things when you're shooting your mouth off in ignorance.
You want me to stop talking down to you like you don't understand basic things? Then start actually putting in the legwork and learn about those basic things instead of assuming that that you're already an expert in a subject that you are demonstrably ignorant of. I'm not going to pretend you're acting like a figurative A-student when your responses indicate that you haven't so much as opened the figurative textbook, much less when you stubbornly refuse to even acknowledge that deficit in knowledge, never mind learn from your mistakes.
I treat you that way because you consistently demonstrate that you
need even basic things explained to you, and that you have shown absolutely no initiative to learn about them yourself. For that matter, I've had to repeatedly explain multiple definitions to you several times over because you evidently couldn't be bothered to even look up something that simple, and then kept trying to insist that those definitions -
even as employed by your own sources - must be wrong simply because they clashed with your presumptions.
I have had to explain basic things to you multiple times because you made it explicitly clear that you do not understand them, at which point you have then continued to ignorantly sound off about them because you evidently lack the emotional and intellectual maturity to concede an error. For fuck's sake, just above I had to explain to you
again that it was both explicit in the paper and patently obvious through its methods that the paper was not using the definition you claimed. Your response was to double down and claim that they
must have used the definition you claimed because you unilaterally declared that the numbers were unrealistically high. Never mind your demonstrated inability to weigh reliability or sourcing hierarchy, as you have - rather tellingly - upon learning about their disagreement - tried to champion an editorial over the primary source it was inaccurately representing.
So yes, you absolutely
do need basic things explained to you because you obviously don't understand them.
Perhaps you should try actually reading the post and links provided instead of just making assumptions about them? Once again:
"Among other things, you're also making the mistake of assuming that people are claiming that this is unique to Covid, else it wouldn't be worth mentioning. Neither of those things are true. Point of fact,
precedence is why this could be so quickly recognized in the first place. Acute respiratory infections have a bit of history with lingering effects. Further reading
here and
here."
Had you read the links, you might have noticed that other diseases have long been recognized as providing precedence of what you are objecting to as ridiculous in covid. Eg, long term health effects of EBV sometimes only being noticed years later. Never mind the third link focusing on explaining Long Covid specifically.
Bluntly, "to your knowledge" is an argument from ignorance fallacy as far as you're concerned, as at this point we've already
well established that you have a lower than layman's understanding of the topic and certainly have not put in any effort (not even following supplied resources) to develop an informed opinion even as the gaps in your knowledge are demonstrated and resources to help expand your knowledge are provided. Maybe you should stop trying to bullshit your way through the conversation (and let's cut that crap, that is
exactly what you have been doing) and instead start
actually doing some research under the presumption that the
many people telling you that your conclusions are patently ridiculous, that you've consistently misunderstood your sources to an almost unbelievable degree, and that you are
much more ignorant of the subject matter than you presume...might just be onto something.
Oh goody, yet another study you're bastardizing. From your argument, I think it's more likely that you didn't bother to read it than it is that you simply misunderstood their results, because it strains credulity that you could have walked away with that conclusion naturally.
Let's review:
You claim: the study "basically flies in the face that covid is triggering long-term symptoms any more than similar viruses." or alternatively that it "shows that the people with covid end up doing better faster than those with other viruses."
Which again:
IS NOT REMOTELY WHAT IT SAYS
Its actual problem statement: How do
patient-reported physical, mental, and social well-being compare at 3 months after symptomatic illness among those who tested positive vs negative for SARS-CoV-2 infection?
So again, it's a study wherein the data consists of a sample group of
laymen answering
survey questions to self-report in
broad strokes about how well they perceived their recovery to be progressing. And by broad strokes, I mean "on a scale of 1-5, how would you rate your experience" broad. No, seriously. When you read further you see that that is literally the methodology.
Speaking as someone who actually has to deal with surveys and focus groups as part of the data I work with...using that to evidence relative measurement of physical wouldn't have been compelling even if the people writing the paper had made the claim (Which they didn't. That's you,
yet again, projecting your desired conclusions onto the paper), as such questions only describe the respondent's
perceptions. As such they are both necessarily subjective and are subject to a staggering amount of warping based on the respondent's personality, personal tolerances, perceptions of relative significance, emotional state, perception of which answers present them in a more favorable light, what's going on in their life, and even how much they're paying attention that day, to name but a few of the variables at play. Eg, if they're having a bad day for any reason (eg flare ups, a bad night's rest, missed their usual morning coffee, feeling frustrated about a project at work...), they're pretty likely to rate their health over that period as worse than they would have on a good day. It's not exactly a robust methodology that's good at evidencing objective criteria. It has its place and purpose (largely in evaluating general opinion and other subjective perspectives), but that is not one of them.
We use surveys in my line of work, and they do have their purpose, but that's almost always near the
starting point for research. Quite literally, the typical pattern for market research would go Focus Group -> Survey -> hypothesis -> proof of concept test -> revision of hypothesis -> test again -> expansion of test -> refinement of methods -> test
again -> bring product to market. Even in marketing, surveys are more often used to serve as
initial research, and the exceptions when they are used to reach a conclusion is when the conclusion is to the
very specific tune of "what is
public perception of <x> right now?"
Here, I want you do do something I know you didn't bother to do and look at the
PROMIS-29 survey, which this study utilized to measure patient reported outcomes. It's pretty short (literally 29 questions, hence the name) and shouldn't take you more than a minute or so to read through it. You might notice a few things if you do so. To start with, the questions are general wellness questions like "are you able to do chores", "have you felt fearful/uneasy", "have you felt depressed", "have you felt tired", and "have you been able to participate in social activities"...you also might notice that the results can generously be described as...inexact. Point of fact, they're downright vague. And they are, of course, based on the respondent's memory and subjective values.
It is not even tracking the symptoms, it is tracking the respondent's
subjective perception of those symptoms and their psychosocial ability to
cope with them. "That is the basis of their results. In this cohort study, SARS-CoV-2 infection was not associated with worse physical, mental, and social well-being (
as measured through PROMIS scores) at 3-month follow-up compared with no SARS-CoV-2 infection among adults with symptomatic illness." It doesn't even utilize a controlled environment, testing, or even daily reflection, just surveyed the participants about their memory of their subjective experience over the preceding period. Again, this is information that would at best be used to
develop a hypothesis and identify something to test, not to derive a conclusion from. Hence why the
actual conclusion is nothing more substantial than what amounts to a "further study is needed" statement in the form of emphasizing the importance of including control groups in future testing (
which is Standard Operating Procedure).
And yet here you are instead claiming that it proves that Covid isn't even
causing long term symptoms more often than similar viruses? That it proves that Covid patients
recover faster than people suffering from other viruses? The study and its methods are literally
not capable of positing the results you claim, and it speaks to your ignorance that even understanding that much was evidently beyond you. You very obviously didn't even know what you were looking at (presuming that you even bothered to look at it at all) and what it's stated conclusions were, much less how to ascertain the reliability or significance of the data provided.
I'm going to be blunt here, Phoenix. The extent of your ignorance would be less insulting if it were not for your arrogance in trying to present yourself as if you were some kind of expert and so frequently assumed that the presumptions you pull out of your ass must be reflected in the data you evidently couldn't even be bothered to look at.
You demonstrably don't have the slightest clue about the topic, much less the data you're citing. You're just parroting hucksters that took advantage of your inability to vet their claims to sell you a falsehood by flattering your ego and making you think you were clever for trusting them over everyone else.
Bluntly, I don't give a flying flip what pretentious and self-serving justification you're telling yourself as to
why you claim to be arguing. I care that you're ignorantly mistaking your uninformed - and frequently unequivocally false - assumptions for robust data, brazenly
lying about the data you're
pretending to defer to because you evidently either didn't look at it or didn't understand a word of it, and then doubling down on that when people point out that you're not only demonstrably wrong but
breathtakingly so.
You're not being clever, just obstinate. You're been doing little more than saying one
painfully stupid thing after another and mistaking that for wisdom because you're so out of your depth that you fail to understand the data you're pulling. You don't even realize how frequently your arguments rely on contradictory premises. You confuse the fact that you don't understand even the data presented to you with the information not existing, and you keep claiming simple things whose underlying principle has not been under dispute for
decades to be impossible.
So to be as polite as I can about this: Just
stop. You're trying your hardest to make us come away with a positive opinion of your abilities but you're only succeeding in making yourself look worse and worse.