Our Covid Response

[Thaluikhain]

But we're not talking about "the Chinese". Any more than talking about the recent train crash is racist because it concerns "the Americans".

We're talking about the people who do the things at fault. Why on earth would that somehow extrapolate outwards onto everyone who shares a demographic with those people?

It would be unwise, but people might. Judging a nation by those stupid or evil enough to make the news isn't new

 

[Silvanus]

Have you ever heard of any-ism before? Extrapolating outwards to everyone of a demographic is literally was doing an -ism is.

Uhrm, yes. And since we're not extrapolating outwards to everyone of the demographic when we acknowledge that wet markets exist, we're not exhibiting racism when we do so.

Your reasoning applies equally to any crime, anywhere. We can't say that the mafia exist, because that concerns "the Italians" and therefore is racist. Its completely unworkable.

 

[SilentPony]

Uhrm, yes. And since we're not extrapolating outwards to everyone of the demographic when we acknowledge that wet markets exist, we're not exhibiting racism when we do so.

Your reasoning applies equally to any crime, anywhere. We can't say that the mafia exist, because that concerns "the Italians" and therefore is racist. Its completely unworkable.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

That's not required. You're yet again trying to shift the conversation onto whether/how much we should care, rather than sticking with your original claims.

A positive relationship would be demonstrated by a comparison with the wider group of people who did not suffer from covid. And on that measure, you yourself have already provided the data.



Just reiteration of your position, and some more blabbering. Nothing new here to address.

The relevant resources are money, workforce, training, and time. On each of those measures the US had more than enough to compensate, and chose not to. The same is true of dozens of other countries.



*rolleyes*

They were not global pandemics in the era of modern contact tracing, no.

But you'll notice that contact tracing has in fact been used to address influenza, and has been successful in reducing the impact.



I've already provided you with the CDC data, which includes numbers from early March. I'm not interested in your incessant moaning that data hasn't been provided, when it already has and you've just failed to read it properly. It's your favourite tactic but it's tiresome as all hell.

I'm banking on the people that did the study know have better knowledge on the subject than you. Plus, it's been like 3 years now and no good data exists on long covid to be concerned about it either.

The US gave plenty of money for it. The US didn't have the workforce, every industry was down workers; fast food places didn't even have enough people to have the inside open. Oh, and we still don't even have tests (not number but actual type of tests) that would work well with a contact tracing strategy.

So we can just end the flu via contact tracing?

You provided data of official cases, not all the actual cases, the CDC didn't even have that data.

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.

20% of asymptomatic cases of covid do not lead to long covid. Where is this data at the would prove that in any way? You do know that if that was true, everyone would know quite a few people that had long covid and be very concerned about long covid because they know quite a few people with it, but that completely isn't the case at all and nobody is really concerned about long covid. If they were then kid vaccine rates would be way higher and the bivalent booster rate would be way higher if people actually believed long covid was happening at those rates.

OMFG, I literally asked you if so and so has those certain antibodies and has symptoms a month later, is that a good way to determine that it's long covid, and you're like "no, because it can trigger months later and those antibodies won't be there".

I literally just attached long covid (catch-all version) to the wrong group (researchers vs people claiming long covid is some mass disabling event).

Study literally says this:
After adjustment, improvements in well-being were statistically and clinically greater for participants in the COVID-19–positive group vs the COVID-19–negative group only for social participation

How else are you supposed to do a study about this without fucking asking people questions? How are you gonna know someone is overly tired or has brain fog or still has a cough without you asking and them telling you. Sure a cough is pretty objective obviously, but are you gonna bring in these people every week to see if they actually cough or not? And there's no test for being tired or having brain fog. It's the same basic thing with pain, there's no way to determine someone's pain without you asking and them telling you, same with many of these long-term symptoms.

Okay, let's think that through.

The country was under special measures to reduce transmission. Flu was around and covid-19 was around, both were suppressed by infection control measures, and yet many, many more children died of covid than flu. So... covid's actually pretty dangerous, isn't it?

What you mean is that if one child contracts covid and another 'flu, the one with 'flu is statistically more likely to die. Sure, fine. However, you can't actually ignore infectiousness, because if covid is sufficiently more infectious than 'flu, then more children die of covid than flu. In much the same way, whilst the average assault rifle may be more lethal than the average handgun, an awful lot more people in the USA die to handguns than assault rifles. Needless to say this is the point the site makes (there are links to it). And indeed, more children died of covid pre-vaccination than die in the same space of time from 'flu in a normal year, as they point out. So... covid was more dangerous than 'flu to children.

Dude, these guys know their stuff, and they are way ahead of you. You're dismissing them because you didn't read them properly - whether you're lazy or afraid to see the arguments I don't know - they've got a whole page on this that they reference.



Firstly, ZDogg has given a platform to people who oppose vaccinating children. Secondly, they might not be explicitly saying "don't vaccinate", but they have been free to advance a series of misleading and tendentious arguments that tend to deter vaccination. This is just anti-vaxx lite. Saying "Hey, you can get that vaccination, but it's on your own head if you suffer a lethal complication": no-one would be under any illusions that this was warning against vaccination that serves to deter people. And again, I suggest you read the article, which stresses how ZDogg's channel has hammered this line very heavily.



Uh-huh. And which groups are they?



You go by cherry-picked data from biased sources. "The data" needs to be comprehensive or representative of the whole.



Yes, we all remember you touting Paul Offitt all those times... and quietly ignoring the bit where Offitt said he thought people should get vaccinated. Thus, cherry-picking.



I think you're confused about what "scientific truth" is: your very phrasing is scientifically illiterate.

If you've had covid, it reduces the likelihood of harm from later infection. If you have the vaccine, it also reduces the likelihood of harm from later infection. If you have both, or have caught covid twice or been vaccinated twice, it reduces the likelihood of harm from later infection even more. And every booster or infection you have after that will also reduce the likelihood of harm from later infection more. (Well, there will be the odd case this isn't true, but at a general population level...)

Uhh.. per CDC
For example, even though the reported number of flu-related deaths in children during the 2019-2020 flu season was 199, CDC estimates the actual number of flu-related deaths in children that season was approximately 434 when correcting for under-detection

Pediatric flu deaths top 100 this season; most unvaccinated

CDC reported 9 new flu-related pediatric deaths this week, bringing the total for the season to 106.

www.cdc.gov

From Statista, 1,460 children deaths in 3 years = 486/year

COVID-19 deaths by age U.S. 2023 | Statista

Between the beginning of January 2020 and June 14, 2023, of the 1,134,641 deaths caused by COVID-19 in the United States, around 307,169 had occurred among those aged 85 years and older.

www.statista.com

Pretty damn close to the flu. Prasad is just completely off in his assessment that covid is similar to the flu in kids? They guy trying to "debunk" Prasad is not arguing in a good faith as they were saying there was 1 flu death to 200-something covid deaths. When the flu literally vanished because covid out-competed it, of course covid is gonna kill far more. If covid never happened, then the flu would've killed about the same amount over that time frame anyway. Covid effectively replaced the flu during a 1-2 year period.

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Who is this person that was against child vaccination that ZDogg platformed? ZDogg just talking with straight honesty and nuance has gotten quite a few people vaccinated that were rather against it because he doesn't treat anyone as opposed to the covid vaccine as an idiot without no valid reasons and shame them for really no reason. ZDogg has never said anything like on his channel ever.

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Weighing post‐vaccination myo/pericarditis against COVID‐19 hospitalization during delta, our risk‐benefit analysis suggests that among 12–17‐year‐olds, two‐dose vaccination was uniformly favourable only in nonimmune girls with a comorbidity. In boys with prior infection and no comorbidities, even one dose carried more risk than benefit according to international estimates. In the setting of omicron, one dose may be protective in nonimmune children, but dose two does not appear to confer additional benefit at a population level.

BNT162b2 Vaccine‐Associated Myo/Pericarditis in Adolescents: A Stratified Risk‐Benefit Analysis - PMC

Male patients ages 12–17 years have an elevated risk of mRNA vaccination‐associated myo/pericarditis. A risk‐benefit analysis of first and second doses of mRNA vaccination in adolescent boys by health status and history of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection has ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Where is there any data whatsoever that says people with prior covid infection need a vaccine, that the vaccine actually provides community benefit, that non-vulnerable people benefit from a booster (that 2 top FDA officials quit because of that), that masks work, etc?

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Paul Offit literally said it's a very reasonable argument that those with covid previously don't need a vaccine. His opinion tended towards everyone getting it but where's the data to support that opinion? I go by data as well as opinions. If Offit had that data proving it, then I'd be in complete agreement but it doesn't exist.

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Where's your data to back up that claim of a vaccine or booster (with previous immunity) conferring any more protection to serious disease than you already have with either prior infection or prior vaccination? Paul Offit literally told his son not to get a booster...

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How is that not censorship if you're not allowed to talk about something?

The thing that always amused me about the debate over Covid origins was the backwards knee-jerk reactions from us Western people.
So Covid being from a high-tech covid research lab where Chinese scientists were conducting experiments on new strains of Covid, and an error in their safety procedures allowed a test subject(likely a bat) to escape. That's racist and you're a bad person for even thinking it.
But that the Chinese are a backwards gross peasant people with no health or sanitation knowledge eating whatever raw animals they can catch and then coughing all over their over-cramped apartments caused Covid...that's not racist, that just common sense.
Its just funny how so many people didn't realize how insanely racist the wet-market theory is.

The claim that lab leak was more racist than the wet market was beyond asinine. Lab leak theory is literally more inclusive because if it did leak from the lab vs the wet market, that means not only would it be due to Chinese safety standards (to a degree at least) but also the funding of that lab by the US as well. Also, lab leaks aren't nearly that uncommon to where it would equate to the Chinese being so incompetent either.

Nonsense.

Wet markets factually, demonstrably exist, and are very poorly regulated. And it's also factually true that they provide a perfect environment for diseases to transfer from other animals to human. We already know Its happened before.

This is not "racist"-- it doesn't reflect badly on the Chinese people as a whole. It only reflects badly on those who operate such under-the-radar businesses with shoddy standards and hygiene, as well as on the authorities who refuse to regulate them.

Uhh... Where are you going to find something like a wet market in the US or England or France or Sweden? The Chinese wet market is definitely a cultural thing to some degree that isn't a thing in many other countries. Show the average person in a developed western nation a video of the wet market (not just the lower standards aspect) but the fact people eat all those types of animals like that and they will definitely have the opinion that that's pretty gross. Hell, I think eating non-breaded calamari is gross because of how it looks, I love calamari but I'd never eat it without breading because of how it looks.

You think the majority of people (western culture) would say eating a bat like this (even if it's perfectly clean and sanitized and safe) isn't gross?

 

[Silvanus]

I'm banking on the people that did the study know have better knowledge on the subject than you. Plus, it's been like 3 years now and no good data exists on long covid to be concerned about it either.

Uh-huh, but we weren't discussing how much we should care. Get back on topic.

The US gave plenty of money for it. The US didn't have the workforce, every industry was down workers; fast food places didn't even have enough people to have the inside open. Oh, and we still don't even have tests (not number but actual type of tests) that would work well with a contact tracing strategy.

So the resource you're concerned about is workforce, then-- at least you've finally been specific on that point.

At no point was a contact tracing system in place and struggling to find employees.

So we can just end the flu via contact tracing?

Nope. But it'd be nice if you addressed what I actually said.

You provided data of official cases, not all the actual cases, the CDC didn't even have that data.

Data of diagnosed cases, yes.

So you want... stats on how many undiagnosed cases there were. Just so I'm clear on what you're demanding. And you see no issue with that.

 

[Asita]

20% of asymptomatic cases of covid do not lead to long covid. Where is this data at the would prove that in any way? You do know that if that was true, everyone would know quite a few people that had long covid and be very concerned about long covid because they know quite a few people with it, but that completely isn't the case at all and nobody is really concerned about long covid. If they were then kid vaccine rates would be way higher and the bivalent booster rate would be way higher if people actually believed long covid was happening at those rates.

...And I see that the meltdown is continuing. At this point you're rather transparently throwing shit at the wall and hoping anything will stick. You're once again confusing your own self-imposed ignorance through your own lack of research with the information not existing. Moreover, you have completely abandoned any semblance of coherent or rational argument and fully embraced "well if that were true then why wouldn't they..." ranting and raving. Never mind the passive aggressive insinuation that the statistics you don't want to hear must be wrong because they don't make sense to you (due in no small part to your proclivity to misunderstand and strawman them).

Case in point, right here you incredulously claim that "20% of asymptomatic cases of covid do not lead to long covid". Best I can tell, this is evidently traces to a bastardization of a CDC report that actually said "One in five COVID-19 survivors aged 18–64 years and one in four survivors aged ≥65 years experienced at least one incident condition that might be attributable to previous COVID-19" and that "These findings are consistent with those from several large studies that indicated that post-COVID incident conditions occur in 20%–30% of patients (6,7), and that a proportion of patients require expanded follow-up care after the initial infection", which is a different kettle of fish altogether from what you're trying to rail against.

OMFG, I literally asked you if so and so has those certain antibodies and has symptoms a month later, is that a good way to determine that it's long covid, and you're like "no, because it can trigger months later and those antibodies won't be there".

*facepalm*

Ok, let me walk you through this very carefully:

You claimed that there was no way to prove long covid on the grounds that covid had spread too much and between that and vaccinations it would be impossible to tell who had covid and who didn't.
I pointed out that the labwork is not just possible but that labwork can determine - through Anti-S and Anti-N antibodies - whether or not they caught the wild strain, and that they can make an estimate about how recently the infection occurred by measuring IgM and IgG antibodies.
You insinuated - and I quote - "If they don't have IgM antibodies, then is it not long covid for sure?"

I said that no, that is not the case, because IgM antibodies are short-lived and don't persist much past the active Covid infection. Long Covid - aka Post Covid Conditions - is by definition something that lingers well past the active Covid infection. Therefore, lack of IgM antibodies only rules out an active Covid infection, not Post Covid Conditions, and consequentially provides circumstantially supports a Long Covid diagnosis by ruling out an active Covid infection, with measurements of the longer-lived IgG antibody levels further helping the doctors make a proper diagnosis for or against.

And your takeaway from that is "it can trigger months later and those antibodies won't be there"? Setting aside the brazen shifting of the goalposts, I said nothing in that exchange about long covid "triggering months later". I said that lack of IgM antibodies does not rule out a Long Covid diagnosis because long covid is typically diagnosed after months of symptoms and IgM antibodies only last for weeks. That does not mean that long covid first appears months after you've healed from Covid, it means that if you still have symptoms months after your Covid diagnosis, then that could well be long covid.

Let me be perfectly clear on this: You still are arguing as if you presume that Long Covid is itself a virus. It isn't. Long Covid is the term we use for long term complications following a Covid infection, such as scarring in the lungs as the aftereffect of their inflammation during the infection. These can take a lot longer to heal than it does to kill off the virus in your body, leading to prolonged symptoms. I know that I've already explained this to you, but here you are making the same mistakes again because you refuse to learn.

I literally just attached long covid (catch-all version) to the wrong group (researchers vs people claiming long covid is some mass disabling event).

Bluntly, even if I were inclined to believe that - and given how you have consistently misrepresented even your own sources because you didn't understand them and made so many brazenly false claims about others because you evidently never read them, that's one hell of a big if - rather than that you're simply backpedaling to save face once again, it still would not change the fact that THERE IS NO FUCKING CATCH-ALL VERSION! You might find hypochondriacs insisting that any long term symptoms they have to be long covid, but that's nothing but amateur misdiagnosis. It has no more weight than if someone were to tell you that the white powder in that 'envelope' (actually a packet of sugar) they opened was anthrax. That does not translate to a catch-all version of anthrax that includes sugar. The "catch-all version" is a strawman, pure and simple.

Study literally says this:
After adjustment, improvements in well-being were statistically and clinically greater for participants in the COVID-19–positive group vs the COVID-19–negative group only for social participation

...You didn't read a thing I just posted about the scope and limitations of this study's methods, did you? Again, that does not imply the conclusion that you think it does, and the study is not capable of producing the conclusion you ascribe to it. Again: Their method was a "On a scale of 1-5" survey, which evaluated the participants subjective memory and impression of their recovery based off of their individual criteria. That is not exactly not a robust methodology, much less one that provides support for your claims that Covid isn't even causing long term symptoms more often than similar viruses, or that Covid patients recover faster than people suffering from other viruses. The paper does not claim that, and indeed its methods preclude it from drawing such a conclusion. And no amount of quote mining will change the fact that you are willfully ignoring the limitations of this form of data to try and force it to support a conclusion that it was never capable of making.

And mind you, - setting aside that this data is nothing more substantial than patient reported well being - that you're latching onto that particular quote to claim that "the people with covid end up doing better faster than those with other viruses" is mildly amusing because it so handily illustrates your issues with scientific literacy and how your eagerness see your own extant conclusion causes you to you gleefully misrepresent the studies you're pretending to defer to.

I want you to read that quote you pulled a few more times. Slowly, if you please. Here, I'll even help you focus on the key parts: "After adjustment, improvements in well-being were statistically and clinically greater for participants in the COVID-19–positive group vs the COVID-19–negative group only for social participation".

That is to say: According to their Patient Reported Outcomes, the Covid-positive participants only showed greater improvements in well-being in the category of social participation. Even ignoring the limitations of survey data, the statement still does not say anything remotely resembling what you claim it does. It does not say that Covid patients are doing better faster. It says that, by the participants own accounts, the Covid-positive participants are only doing better in that they are re-socializing faster.

Again, that you so confidently made that mistake - repeatedly, no less - is quite telling.

How else are you supposed to do a study about this without fucking asking people questions? How are you gonna know someone is overly tired or has brain fog or still has a cough without you asking and them telling you. Sure a cough is pretty objective obviously, but are you gonna bring in these people every week to see if they actually cough or not? And there's no test for being tired or having brain fog. It's the same basic thing with pain, there's no way to determine someone's pain without you asking and them telling you, same with many of these long-term symptoms.

Oh golly gee, I don't know...patient observation? Regular checkups over the extended recovery period (aka, follow up care)? Having participants wear something like a Smart Watch to collect data on their vitals and activity levels, perhaps corroborated by a recovery diary in which they'd explain their activities and perceived obstacles, thereby giving greater context to those vital readings? Semi-regular cognitive performance evaluations? Physical performance evaluation? You know, anything that would let the doctors independently evaluate the symptoms based off of more consistent - if not outright standardized - criteria rather than just leaving it at the participants answering "on a scale of 1-5, I think I mostly felt like a 2 over the last month or so..." survey questions? And that's just off the top of my head.

You're doing that thing again where you confuse your own ignorance and lack of imagination for a lack of answers. Again: You're not being clever, just obstinate.

 

[CriticalGaming]

After three years I finally got hit with the Covid.

It has been annoying, mostly because I've been really sleepy but also not able to sleep. And there is that weird shit were you are really hot, then really cold in rapid succession. So i like had the heater on, but also a fan, and under the covers, but with one leg out. Really dumb.

I don't even understand how I could have gotten the damn thing either, because I didn't get sick until Sunday night after locking myself in my apartment for the entire weekend. Literally I hadn't interacted with, or even seen another person who could have infected me so my only possible source of infection must be aliens.

 

[Buyetyen]

I don't even understand how I could have gotten the damn thing either, because I didn't get sick until Sunday night after locking myself in my apartment for the entire weekend. Literally I hadn't interacted with, or even seen another person who could have infected me so my only possible source of infection must be aliens.

Covid has an incubation period of about a week before the patient starts showing symptoms. Could have been anybody in the week leading up to last Sunday who passed it to you.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Covid has an incubation period of about a week before the patient starts showing symptoms. Could have been anybody in the week leading up to last Sunday who passed it to you.

I'm going to blame the Taco Bell then.

 

[CriticalGaming]

The weirdest thing about covid this week, each day ive been sick in a different way.

Day 1: body aches, fever.
Day 2: hot and cold flashes, no body aches, barely a fever
Day 3: none of the above, replaced with the shits and a runny nose.
Day 4: feel great except if i move too much i cough like i have asthma. Runny nose still around but everything else is gone. No fever, no aches, nothing.

Tomorrow im hoping for super powers.

The thing is while being sick is never fun, i neevr really felt miserable except the first day. Every other day has been inconvenient in different ways. A lot of people compare covid to the flu, but i feel like the flu is consistnatly worse. Covid felts like it is trying to be a bunch of different illnesses and that dilutes how bad it made me feel.

Also interesting thing that ive seen with covid is that everyone i know whos had it, all had a different experience with it.

 

[Silvanus]

The thing is while being sick is never fun, i neevr really felt miserable except the first day. Every other day has been inconvenient in different ways. A lot of people compare covid to the flu, but i feel like the flu is consistnatly worse. Covid felts like it is trying to be a bunch of different illnesses and that dilutes how bad it made me feel.

If you're vaccinated, that'll probably be why. The vaccines drastically dampen the symptoms of covid when caught.

Also interesting thing that ive seen with covid is that everyone i know whos had it, all had a different experience with it.

Partially owing to a huge number of distinct strains. Although (as others on the forum pointed out) influenza actually mutates at a higher rate, covid has a greater likelihood of distinct strains spreading.

 

[CriticalGaming]

If you're vaccinated, that'll probably be why. The vaccines drastically dampen the symptoms of covid when caught.

I am but that was almost 2 years ago.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Uh-huh, but we weren't discussing how much we should care. Get back on topic.



So the resource you're concerned about is workforce, then-- at least you've finally been specific on that point.

At no point was a contact tracing system in place and struggling to find employees.



Nope. But it'd be nice if you addressed what I actually said.



Data of diagnosed cases, yes.

So you want... stats on how many undiagnosed cases there were. Just so I'm clear on what you're demanding. And you see no issue with that.

That's been my entire point the whole fucking time. Show me data that says long covid is something that happens at higher rates and/or worse than long whatever from other similar infections. Until then, there's no reason to use long covid as some scare tactic. If long covid was treated the same as long flu from the covid narrative, I wouldn't have ever brought up the subject.

Yes, how many times do I have to say you can't just throw money at shit and have it magically happen for you to get that I'm saying it wasn't that the US didn't have the money for it? The article I linked from August 2020 completely contradicts that the US contact tracing system had enough of a workforce. You're also wholly underestimating how big of an issue not getting back good tests fast enough or having actual good rapid tests is to contact tracing effectively. Logistics were the issue, not money. Also why put the insane amount of resources into contact tracing to get worse results than putting those elsewhere? Look at Sweden that had the lowest excess death rate in Europe and they probably put less resources per capita into covid than most countries, Sweden's excess death rate is even better than Australia.

What, that the flu isn't a pandemic? Why can't we just contact trace the flu? It spreads slower than covid.

Yes, that was my whole point. We only saw the tip of the iceberg (that's all we knew at the time). Sure, we knew there were undiagnosed cases obviously but no idea the magnitude of those undiagnosed cases. Fauci saying on Feb 29th that New Yorkers can still live normally demonstrates that perfectly. Everyone knew more people were infected in New York City than the under 2% of officially known cases, but no one thought it was anywhere near close to 20% either. The US wasn't set up to contact trace just known cases let alone the fact that there was more than 10 times the number of infections to be traced.

...And I see that the meltdown is continuing. At this point you're rather transparently throwing shit at the wall and hoping anything will stick. You're once again confusing your own self-imposed ignorance through your own lack of research with the information not existing. Moreover, you have completely abandoned any semblance of coherent or rational argument and fully embraced "well if that were true then why wouldn't they..." ranting and raving. Never mind the passive aggressive insinuation that the statistics you don't want to hear must be wrong because they don't make sense to you (due in no small part to your proclivity to misunderstand and strawman them).

Case in point, right here you incredulously claim that "20% of asymptomatic cases of covid do not lead to long covid". Best I can tell, this is evidently traces to a bastardization of a CDC report that actually said "One in five COVID-19 survivors aged 18–64 years and one in four survivors aged ≥65 years experienced at least one incident condition that might be attributable to previous COVID-19" and that "These findings are consistent with those from several large studies that indicated that post-COVID incident conditions occur in 20%–30% of patients (6,7), and that a proportion of patients require expanded follow-up care after the initial infection", which is a different kettle of fish altogether from what you're trying to rail against.



*facepalm*

Ok, let me walk you through this very carefully:

You claimed that there was no way to prove long covid on the grounds that covid had spread too much and between that and vaccinations it would be impossible to tell who had covid and who didn't.
I pointed out that the labwork is not just possible but that labwork can determine - through Anti-S and Anti-N antibodies - whether or not they caught the wild strain, and that they can make an estimate about how recently the infection occurred by measuring IgM and IgG antibodies.
You insinuated - and I quote - "If they don't have IgM antibodies, then is it not long covid for sure?"

I said that no, that is not the case, because IgM antibodies are short-lived and don't persist much past the active Covid infection. Long Covid - aka Post Covid Conditions - is by definition something that lingers well past the active Covid infection. Therefore, lack of IgM antibodies only rules out an active Covid infection, not Post Covid Conditions, and consequentially provides circumstantially supports a Long Covid diagnosis by ruling out an active Covid infection, with measurements of the longer-lived IgG antibody levels further helping the doctors make a proper diagnosis for or against.

And your takeaway from that is "it can trigger months later and those antibodies won't be there"? Setting aside the brazen shifting of the goalposts, I said nothing in that exchange about long covid "triggering months later". I said that lack of IgM antibodies does not rule out a Long Covid diagnosis because long covid is typically diagnosed after months of symptoms and IgM antibodies only last for weeks. That does not mean that long covid first appears months after you've healed from Covid, it means that if you still have symptoms months after your Covid diagnosis, then that could well be long covid.

Let me be perfectly clear on this: You still are arguing as if you presume that Long Covid is itself a virus. It isn't. Long Covid is the term we use for long term complications following a Covid infection, such as scarring in the lungs as the aftereffect of their inflammation during the infection. These can take a lot longer to heal than it does to kill off the virus in your body, leading to prolonged symptoms. I know that I've already explained this to you, but here you are making the same mistakes again because you refuse to learn.




Bluntly, even if I were inclined to believe that - and given how you have consistently misrepresented even your own sources because you didn't understand them and made so many brazenly false claims about others because you evidently never read them, that's one hell of a big if - rather than that you're simply backpedaling to save face once again, it still would not change the fact that THERE IS NO FUCKING CATCH-ALL VERSION! You might find hypochondriacs insisting that any long term symptoms they have to be long covid, but that's nothing but amateur misdiagnosis. It has no more weight than if someone were to tell you that the white powder in that 'envelope' (actually a packet of sugar) they opened was anthrax. That does not translate to a catch-all version of anthrax that includes sugar. The "catch-all version" is a strawman, pure and simple.

...You didn't read a thing I just posted about the scope and limitations of this study's methods, did you? Again, that does not imply the conclusion that you think it does, and the study is not capable of producing the conclusion you ascribe to it. Again: Their method was a "On a scale of 1-5" survey, which evaluated the participants subjective memory and impression of their recovery based off of their individual criteria. That is not exactly not a robust methodology, much less one that provides support for your claims that Covid isn't even causing long term symptoms more often than similar viruses, or that Covid patients recover faster than people suffering from other viruses. The paper does not claim that, and indeed its methods preclude it from drawing such a conclusion. And no amount of quote mining will change the fact that you are willfully ignoring the limitations of this form of data to try and force it to support a conclusion that it was never capable of making.

And mind you, - setting aside that this data is nothing more substantial than patient reported well being - that you're latching onto that particular quote to claim that "the people with covid end up doing better faster than those with other viruses" is mildly amusing because it so handily illustrates your issues with scientific literacy and how your eagerness see your own extant conclusion causes you to you gleefully misrepresent the studies you're pretending to defer to.

I want you to read that quote you pulled a few more times. Slowly, if you please. Here, I'll even help you focus on the key parts: "After adjustment, improvements in well-being were statistically and clinically greater for participants in the COVID-19–positive group vs the COVID-19–negative group only for social participation".

That is to say: According to their Patient Reported Outcomes, the Covid-positive participants only showed greater improvements in well-being in the category of social participation. Even ignoring the limitations of survey data, the statement still does not say anything remotely resembling what you claim it does. It does not say that Covid patients are doing better faster. It says that, by the participants own accounts, the Covid-positive participants are only doing better in that they are re-socializing faster.

Again, that you so confidently made that mistake - repeatedly, no less - is quite telling.



Oh golly gee, I don't know...patient observation? Regular checkups over the extended recovery period (aka, follow up care)? Having participants wear something like a Smart Watch to collect data on their vitals and activity levels, perhaps corroborated by a recovery diary in which they'd explain their activities and perceived obstacles, thereby giving greater context to those vital readings? Semi-regular cognitive performance evaluations? Physical performance evaluation? You know, anything that would let the doctors independently evaluate the symptoms based off of more consistent - if not outright standardized - criteria rather than just leaving it at the participants answering "on a scale of 1-5, I think I mostly felt like a 2 over the last month or so..." survey questions? And that's just off the top of my head.

You're doing that thing again where you confuse your own ignorance and lack of imagination for a lack of answers. Again: You're not being clever, just obstinate.

It wasn't MY claim, it was reported and I'm calling bullshit on it. The covidian narrative kept pushing restrictions because of the fear of long covid.
Average person: Everyone is vaccinated so why do we still have to mask?
Covidian response: because long covid

1 in 5 asymptomatic COVID patients will eventually suffer long-haul symptom, study suggests

The report indicated that just under 19% of all asymptomatic COVID-19 patients began to exhibit “persistent or new symptoms” 30 days or more after their initial positive diagnosis.

www.news10.com

People observe stuff happening around them and make informed decisions quite often. If people actually saw long covid happening, they'd get boosters and vaccinate their kids, but they ain't doing that. It's just like how people knew covid was an actual thing when they saw what happened in Italy or NYC early on vs just being told numbers. I don't need numbers to tell me covid was worse than the say the flu when you see what's going on and you've never seen the flu do that in your life. It's common sense and basic observation.

---

I didn't say there was no way to determine long covid or not, I said you don't have that super convenient method that the French study had available to them, and then asked how to go about it. I'm not presuming long covid is itself a virus, I don't know how you got this from what I said at all. If I thought long covid was itself a virus, I would simply say there's no such thing because everyone with long covid would test negative. When have I ever made that argument? I've compared it long covid to other long [whatevers] as it's probably basically the same thing as those, which we've never figured out either.

Again, you're totally misreading what I'm saying about the IgM antibodies. My question is that if someone still has covid symptoms a month later, why would the IgM antibodies be gone? I ask that because I don't think there's known cases of long covid (or long flu or long whatever) where the person gets better for weeks or months and then gets hit with long covid. A person that gets long covid is not fully recovering then getting hit with long covid 2 months later. I realize that if someone goes to the doctor 3 months after covid complaining about still having symptoms, those antibodies will be gone and thus that doesn't mean it's not long covid. However, in an actual study situation to figure out the rate of long covid, you will not have that type of situation happening as the people in the study are monitored throughout. That's what I want, the actual rate of long covid found via an actual study vs just a tally of people saying they have long covid (and trying to figure out a valid way to confirm it is indeed long covid or not).

---

Yes, the covidians were strawmanning...

---

There's studies on looking at biomarkers as well and they can't find anything with regards to long covid in that area either. I really don't understand how you think patient surveys is some just horrible way to do a study like this. Sure, it's not the best way to do it but that doesn't mean it's not a valid way either. I guess doctors shouldn't ask the patient to tell them their pain on a scale of 1-10 either, but make them run or lift something to actually see their reaction to that. Also, why would people that have covid be less inclined to report symptoms than people without covid?

The weirdest thing about covid this week, each day ive been sick in a different way.

Day 1: body aches, fever.
Day 2: hot and cold flashes, no body aches, barely a fever
Day 3: none of the above, replaced with the shits and a runny nose.
Day 4: feel great except if i move too much i cough like i have asthma. Runny nose still around but everything else is gone. No fever, no aches, nothing.

Tomorrow im hoping for super powers.

The thing is while being sick is never fun, i neevr really felt miserable except the first day. Every other day has been inconvenient in different ways. A lot of people compare covid to the flu, but i feel like the flu is consistnatly worse. Covid felts like it is trying to be a bunch of different illnesses and that dilutes how bad it made me feel.

Also interesting thing that ive seen with covid is that everyone i know whos had it, all had a different experience with it.

The 1st symptom I get with covid is a fever, which happens at the end for me with the flu/head cold so it's pretty obvious when I got covid vs something else. Also, if I could actually have a choice between getting covid or the flu, I'd choose covid every time, it's far less annoying and doesn't last as long either.

 

[Silvanus]

That's been my entire point the whole fucking time.

Yes, but in arguing that point, you made other statements of fact. It is those I've been addressing. I'm not arguing with you about how much you should care.

Yes, how many times do I have to say you can't just throw money at shit and have it magically happen for you to get that I'm saying it wasn't that the US didn't have the money for it?

You can say it as many times as you like, it won't become any more relevant. You're just repeating it in response to arguments which have nothing to do with it.

The article I linked from August 2020 completely contradicts that the US contact tracing system had enough of a workforce.

"X didn't have Y" =/= "X could not have had Y". Honestly, most of your responses at this point are the most banal, basic irrelevances.

What, that the flu isn't a pandemic? Why can't we just contact trace the flu? It spreads slower than covid.

We can and do contact trace the flu during particularly bad outbreaks. Those cases provide examples of it working successfully.

Yes, that was my whole point. We only saw the tip of the iceberg (that's all we knew at the time). Sure, we knew there were undiagnosed cases obviously but no idea the magnitude of those undiagnosed cases.

I'm glad at least you've stopped pushing the inane line that we just didn't have any stats, even though they'd already been given in this very thread.

Funny how the "tip of the iceberg" was enough to convince the authorities to implement restrictions in mid-March. Truth is, they knew how quickly it was growing, and they had plentiful models from scientists showing how severe it could get-- leading them to implement controls long before you said it was ever possible to know. How did that happen, I wonder?

 

[Silvanus]

People observe stuff happening around them and make informed decisions quite often. If people actually saw long covid happening, they'd get boosters and vaccinate their kids, but they ain't doing that. It's just like how people knew covid was an actual thing when they saw what happened in Italy or NYC early on vs just being told numbers. I don't need numbers to tell me covid was worse than the say the flu when you see what's going on and you've never seen the flu do that in your life. It's common sense and basic observation.

LOL

I can't believe I almost missed this absolute gem of a paragraph.

So first of all, you argue that people just... you know, act rationally when faced with a public health emergency. They see what's going on and act calmly and reasonably, do they? Do they? After two years of super-spreader events; anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers; vociferous protests against even the mildest restrictions; panic-stocking toilet paper, crises of supply and demand entirely due to consumer hysteria; constant breaches, widespread ignorance and wilful disregard for any rules, entire countries run by deniers and conspiracy theorists... absolute gold.

And then, the hilarity of smugly pointing out how obvious it is from simple observation that covid is worse than influenza. When you yourself spent weeks and weeks insisting it was no worse at all.

Just a shred of awareness or self-reflection-- or even just a half-decent memory of what you yourself have been incessantly arguing-- would be such a gift. But it would be a loss to the world of comedy.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Yes, but in arguing that point, you made other statements of fact. It is those I've been addressing. I'm not arguing with you about how much you should care.



You can say it as many times as you like, it won't become any more relevant. You're just repeating it in response to arguments which have nothing to do with it.



"X didn't have Y" =/= "X could not have had Y". Honestly, most of your responses at this point are the most banal, basic irrelevances.



We can and do contact trace the flu during particularly bad outbreaks. Those cases provide examples of it working successfully.



I'm glad at least you've stopped pushing the inane line that we just didn't have any stats, even though they'd already been given in this very thread.

Funny how the "tip of the iceberg" was enough to convince the authorities to implement restrictions in mid-March. Truth is, they knew how quickly it was growing, and they had plentiful models from scientists showing how severe it could get-- leading them to implement controls long before you said it was ever possible to know. How did that happen, I wonder?

Then, can we end this discussion because unless you have something proving long covid is indeed some mass disabling event, then I honestly don't even care.

The government gave enough money to hire X amount of workers but couldn't get X amount of workers = that we had enough of a workforce do it (without straight up forcing people)?

Why do we even have flu outbreaks if we can contact trace it? Funny how flu season comes around at the same time every year and we can't stop it.

It was the hospital situation, not number of cases, that caused authorities to implement restrictions. Oh god, all those models were such BS.

LOL

I can't believe I almost missed this absolute gem of a paragraph.

So first of all, you argue that people just... you know, act rationally when faced with a public health emergency. They see what's going on and act calmly and reasonably, do they? Do they? After two years of super-spreader events; anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers; vociferous protests against even the mildest restrictions; panic-stocking toilet paper, crises of supply and demand entirely due to consumer hysteria; constant breaches, widespread ignorance and wilful disregard for any rules, entire countries run by deniers and conspiracy theorists... absolute gold.

And then, the hilarity of smugly pointing out how obvious it is from simple observation that covid is worse than influenza. When you yourself spent weeks and weeks insisting it was no worse at all.

Just a shred of awareness or self-reflection-- or even just a half-decent memory of what you yourself have been incessantly arguing-- would be such a gift. But it would be a loss to the world of comedy.

Where's the data masks do anything? Still waiting on that for about 3 years now... There's a very small proportion on of people that are actually anti-vaxxers. Believing that you don't need a vaccine because you had covid doesn't make you an anti-vaxxer like the media likes to claim nowadays. Why was people voluntarily getting the vaccine so high if the average person is irrational? People hording resources during an event they don't really know the extent of is rather normal, it's the unknown they are afraid of. Funny how Sweden with like the least restrictions ended up doing really really well.

- Covid in 2020 =/= Covid in 2022/23 (novel viruses are more deadly than endemic viruses)
I wonder why everyone is carrying on like normal and you don't have the same situation you had in NYC in March 2020.

 

[Asita]

It wasn't MY claim, it was reported and I'm calling bullshit on it. The covidian narrative kept pushing restrictions because of the fear of long covid.
Average person: Everyone is vaccinated so why do we still have to mask?
Covidian response: because long covid

Translation: You're making up a dialogue to strawman the opposing position. AGAIN.

People observe stuff happening around them and make informed decisions quite often. If people actually saw long covid happening, they'd get boosters and vaccinate their kids, but they ain't doing that. It's just like how people knew covid was an actual thing when they saw what happened in Italy or NYC early on vs just being told numbers. I don't need numbers to tell me covid was worse than the say the flu when you see what's going on and you've never seen the flu do that in your life. It's common sense and basic observation.

Non-sequitur and faulty assumptions that try to boil down human actions to perfectly optimized rationality (and one need only look at smokers and widespread obesity to punch a hole in that premise), while simultaneously ignoring the role of pretentious ideologues - such as yourself - pushing antivax misinformation almost since covid first hit.

And as an aside: "I don't need numbers to tell me covid was worse than the say the flu when you see what's going on and you've never seen the flu do that in your life" DO YOU HAVE NO SENSE OF SHAME??? "

You've been trying to insist that the flu was worse as recently as a few weeks ago (never mind at the bottom of this post where you say you'd rather catch covid than the flu)! "Uhh..... THE FLU WAS FUCKING GONE FOR A YEAR OR SO. No shit covid will kill more when the thing you are comparing it to vanished during that time. The question would be, did covid kill more kids than the flu USUALLY does during that time?" And now you want to turn around and pretend that Covid being worse than the flu was always self-evident to you? You can fuck right off with that shit.

---

I didn't say there was no way to determine long covid or not, I said you don't have that super convenient method that the French study had available to them, and then asked how to go about it. I'm not presuming long covid is itself a virus, I don't know how you got this from what I said at all. If I thought long covid was itself a virus, I would simply say there's no such thing because everyone with long covid would test negative. When have I ever made that argument? I've compared it long covid to other long [whatevers] as it's probably basically the same thing as those, which we've never figured out either.

*sigh* ...We're really doing this?

Your current lie: "I didn't say there was no way to determine long covid or not, I said you don't have that super convenient method that the French study had available to them, and then asked how to go about it."
Your actual statement:

however, all those that claim long covid are assumed to have long covid. It's not to say anyone is lying or anything but a person saying they are having said symptoms is the main way to know they are having said symptoms as Silvanus is acting like self-reporting is a bad way to do a long covid study, it's basically the only way to do such a study, there is no test for long covid or long anything. There's really no way to prove long covid one way or the other. That study was able to accomplish that aspect because of when it was done (during the 1st wave) when it was easy to test of someone had covid or didn't. Now, everyone has had covid at some point, who knows if it was covid that triggered the long-term symptoms or not.

I say that you're treating it like a virus not because you've said it in as many words but because your arguments - even in this very post - only make sense if they rely on that as a premise. I mean for fuck's sake, you do it again right there:

Again, you're totally misreading what I'm saying about the IgM antibodies. My question is that if someone still has covid symptoms a month later, why would the IgM antibodies be gone? I ask that because I don't think there's known cases of long covid (or long flu or long whatever) where the person gets better for weeks or months and then gets hit with long covid. A person that gets long covid is not fully recovering then getting hit with long covid 2 months later. I realize that if someone goes to the doctor 3 months after covid complaining about still having symptoms, those antibodies will be gone and thus that doesn't mean it's not long covid. However, in an actual study situation to figure out the rate of long covid, you will not have that type of situation happening as the people in the study are monitored throughout. That's what I want, the actual rate of long covid found via an actual study vs just a tally of people saying they have long covid (and trying to figure out a valid way to confirm it is indeed long covid or not).

The IgM antibodies might be gone because IgM antibodies decay pretty quickly after the active infection passes. And Long Covid is not an active infection, it is the longer term damage that had been caused during the infection and persists after it.

It's less that I'm misreading you, and more that you're so ignorant of this topic that you don't understand the ramifications and implications of the nonsensical bullshit you're confusing with argumentation.

Bluntly, you can't even keep your arguments or premises straight. Your only actual position is just "nuh-uh! You're the one who's wrong!" You couldn't even keep a consistent position within that paragraph, and alternated between "why would the IgM antibodies be gone" and "I realize that if someone goes to the doctor 3 months after covid complaining about still having symptoms, those antibodies will be gone and thus that doesn't mean it's not long covid"

Yes, the covidians were strawmanning...

Oh grow up.

There's studies on looking at biomarkers as well and they can't find anything with regards to long covid in that area either. I really don't understand how you think patient surveys is some just horrible way to do a study like this. Sure, it's not the best way to do it but that doesn't mean it's not a valid way either. I guess doctors shouldn't ask the patient to tell them their pain on a scale of 1-10 either, but make them run or lift something to actually see their reaction to that. Also, why would people that have covid be less inclined to report symptoms than people without covid?

Ok, starting at the bottom, I didn't so much as hint at anything about comparative inclination to report symptoms between disease. I said that patient reported outcomes are unreliable for the conclusion you're pushing due to the subjectivity and vagueness of these answers. Example: Think on the statement that "in the last 7 days, I felt fatigued" and whether your answer would be "not at all", "a little bit", "somewhat", "quite a bit", or "very much". The statement is itself vague and subject to interpretation. Some people might count it if they felt that they had to put more effort into their exercise routine, or even felt fatigued after an especially vigorous routine. Others will count it if they don't feel up to exercising, others will count it only if they feel that even simple office work is physically draining, etc. Never mind the question of whether or not a participant counts it if they can still power through it. And then, of course, there's the question of how prevalent something has to be to qualify as "somewhat" vs "a little bit" or "quite a bit".

As I said before, surveys like this have a place, but nobody with any statistical experience would make the mistake of thinking that a survey tracking subjective personal experiences was capable of ruling on objective criteria such as comparative severity between diseases, as you are insisting on. That could generously be described as a rookie mistake.

Let me be perfectly clear here. You say: "I really don't understand how you think patient surveys is some just horrible way to do a study like this" I say: That's exactly my point. You clearly don't understand, so stop trying to argue the point as if you do. Fuck's sake, this entire conversation has amounted to people telling you exactly that: It's been one long chain about people who understand the topic a lot better than you do telling you to your face that you're wrong about one thing or another, and you turning around and trying to prove that it is instead they who must be wrong, because your ignorance is pronounced enough that you can't understand their explanations on why your claims don't even make sense.

 

[Silvanus]

Then, can we end this discussion because unless you have something proving long covid is indeed some mass disabling event, then I honestly don't even care.

You're not obligated to endlessly argue whenever one of your factual errors is pointed out. I'd be more than happy for it to just be acknowledged and for the two of us to move on. Never seems to happen that way, though.

The government gave enough money to hire X amount of workers but couldn't get X amount of workers = that we had enough of a workforce do it (without straight up forcing people)?

They could have had the workforce, with a tiny bit of forsight and preparation. They didn't.

Why do we even have flu outbreaks if we can contact trace it? Funny how flu season comes around at the same time every year and we can't stop it.

"It hasn't eradicated the disease, so therefore it doesn't work!" Please.

It was the hospital situation, not number of cases, that caused authorities to implement restrictions. Oh god, all those models were such BS.

Oddly enough, the two are intensely connected. Diagnosed cases are, after all, recognised in... hospitals. And the knowledge of the growth rate and wider incidence can be extrapolated from that information- which then tells you how badly the hospital situation could get in future.

I do enjoy the fact that you're now acknowledging the hospital situation was severely bad in mid March, when earlier you were insisting blind that we didn't know anything at all until April.

Where's the data masks do anything?

Yawn.

 

[Trunkage]

Guys, you're shouting at someone who speaks a completely different language. Shouting at someone who only speaks Japanese doesn't help them understand. Similar, he doesn't use a lot words in the English language like most English speakers do, particularly when it comes to jargon

That being said, I don't think there is an interest in making a connection, so it might be impossible anyway

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Translation: You're making up a dialogue to strawman the opposing position. AGAIN.



Non-sequitur and faulty assumptions that try to boil down human actions to perfectly optimized rationality (and one need only look at smokers and widespread obesity to punch a hole in that premise), while simultaneously ignoring the role of pretentious ideologues - such as yourself - pushing antivax misinformation almost since covid first hit.

And as an aside: "I don't need numbers to tell me covid was worse than the say the flu when you see what's going on and you've never seen the flu do that in your life" DO YOU HAVE NO SENSE OF SHAME??? "

You've been trying to insist that the flu was worse as recently as a few weeks ago (never mind at the bottom of this post where you say you'd rather catch covid than the flu)! "Uhh..... THE FLU WAS FUCKING GONE FOR A YEAR OR SO. No shit covid will kill more when the thing you are comparing it to vanished during that time. The question would be, did covid kill more kids than the flu USUALLY does during that time?" And now you want to turn around and pretend that Covid being worse than the flu was always self-evident to you? You can fuck right off with that shit.

---



*sigh* ...We're really doing this?

Your current lie: "I didn't say there was no way to determine long covid or not, I said you don't have that super convenient method that the French study had available to them, and then asked how to go about it."
Your actual statement:



I say that you're treating it like a virus not because you've said it in as many words but because your arguments - even in this very post - only make sense if they rely on that as a premise. I mean for fuck's sake, you do it again right there:



The IgM antibodies might be gone because IgM antibodies decay pretty quickly after the active infection passes. And Long Covid is not an active infection, it is the longer term damage that had been caused during the infection and persists after it.

It's less that I'm misreading you, and more that you're so ignorant of this topic that you don't understand the ramifications and implications of the nonsensical bullshit you're confusing with argumentation.

Bluntly, you can't even keep your arguments or premises straight. Your only actual position is just "nuh-uh! You're the one who's wrong!" You couldn't even keep a consistent position within that paragraph, and alternated between "why would the IgM antibodies be gone" and "I realize that if someone goes to the doctor 3 months after covid complaining about still having symptoms, those antibodies will be gone and thus that doesn't mean it's not long covid"



Oh grow up.




Ok, starting at the bottom, I didn't so much as hint at anything about comparative inclination to report symptoms between disease. I said that patient reported outcomes are unreliable for the conclusion you're pushing due to the subjectivity and vagueness of these answers. Example: Think on the statement that "in the last 7 days, I felt fatigued" and whether your answer would be "not at all", "a little bit", "somewhat", "quite a bit", or "very much". The statement is itself vague and subject to interpretation. Some people might count it if they felt that they had to put more effort into their exercise routine, or even felt fatigued after an especially vigorous routine. Others will count it if they don't feel up to exercising, others will count it only if they feel that even simple office work is physically draining, etc. Never mind the question of whether or not a participant counts it if they can still power through it. And then, of course, there's the question of how prevalent something has to be to qualify as "somewhat" vs "a little bit" or "quite a bit".

As I said before, surveys like this have a place, but nobody with any statistical experience would make the mistake of thinking that a survey tracking subjective personal experiences was capable of ruling on objective criteria such as comparative severity between diseases, as you are insisting on. That could generously be described as a rookie mistake.

Let me be perfectly clear here. You say: "I really don't understand how you think patient surveys is some just horrible way to do a study like this" I say: That's exactly my point. You clearly don't understand, so stop trying to argue the point as if you do. Fuck's sake, this entire conversation has amounted to people telling you exactly that: It's been one long chain about people who understand the topic a lot better than you do telling you to your face that you're wrong about one thing or another, and you turning around and trying to prove that it is instead they who must be wrong, because your ignorance is pronounced enough that you can't understand their explanations on why your claims don't even make sense.

Nope, you can find that argument online in many places. Where Leana Wen actually starts speaking with basic logic, people get all mad and random stuff like masks work and we need to mask because of long covid and tons of bullshit.

Fucking stop with your bullshit. When did I ever say anything that is anti-vax misinformation?

YES, NOW THE FLU IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN COVID, THAT'S WHAT OFFICIAL ONS NUMBERS HAVE SAID.

What way do we have of confirming long covid or not for some guy walking into a doctor's office today (first time) that says he has long covid and it's been 3 months since he was originally sick?

You can run a study and determine long covid rate but not just some guy walking into a doctors office months after the original infection that was never even tested for to begin with.

Fatigue is always subjective!!! What does it matter if you do surveys or some other test (acting like there's no issue with confounders or the test itself).

You're not obligated to endlessly argue whenever one of your factual errors is pointed out. I'd be more than happy for it to just be acknowledged and for the two of us to move on. Never seems to happen that way, though.



They could have had the workforce, with a tiny bit of forsight and preparation. They didn't.





"It hasn't eradicated the disease, so therefore it doesn't work!" Please.



Oddly enough, the two are intensely connected. Diagnosed cases are, after all, recognised in... hospitals. And the knowledge of the growth rate and wider incidence can be extrapolated from that information- which then tells you how badly the hospital situation could get in future.

I do enjoy the fact that you're now acknowledging the hospital situation was severely bad in mid March, when earlier you were insisting blind that we didn't know anything at all until April.




Yawn.

How are you going to get people to want to join up for a job that is obviously pretty limited in time? I'm going to take a job that I know won't last instead of a job that could last or at worst give me experience in the field I want to be in?

Show me data that contact tracing works in a virus like covid (where it's not contained greatly already) or just shut up about it already.

Knowing X amount of something vs knowing a good deal about something are 2 different things. Literally every model almost instantly was shown to be wrong. The UK one time voted to lockdown even when the model they were basing the decision on was already shown as very wrong.