Comment by solarparade
20 days ago
I have a friend who had to stop his career and move back in with his parents in his 30s. After an infection he was suddenly unable to read or do anything that requires visual fixation without intense pain. It took years to find a doctor that was able to help him at all and he's still not back to normal. This is an online anecdote so it will make no difference to you if you keep choosing not to believe it. But the idea that it is a purely online phenomenon with no real-world basis is absurd. It's been 6 years and there is a preponderance of evidence. The most common estimate is that it affects 400 million people worldwide.[1] Whether or not people want to talk about this to you in person is a completely different story. Covid is a societal red line that no one wants to bring up.
[1] https://academic.oup.com/ooim/article/6/1/iqaf010/8379704?lo...
Why did you friend assume it was the Covid and not some other issue? How did the doctor help him?
That 400 million number is BS though. Here is the methodology:
> After acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, an estimated 400 million people globally and 17 million, or 6.8% of Americans, based on Household Pulse Survey, experienced Long COVID symptoms, such as fatigue, cognitive impairment, body pain, headache, dizziness, sleep disturbance and a myriad of other symptoms and signs spanning multiple body systems [1, 2]
They surveyed people after the biggest societal disruption in 50 years and found some of them were tired.
This is why people don’t take long COVID seriously. It’s just a catch-all for feeling off.
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