I've got 19 friends and family, one has Long COVID. Does that help?
Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]
- Thread starter RDGoodla
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I've got 19 friends and family, one has Long COVID. Does that help?
We run a mail order business and quite a few of our customers are elderly and I know from chatting to them (elderly folk often like to phone their orders through) than many have suffered for months after infection. One of those pretty understandable as he'd spent a few weeks in an induced coma as he fought the illness! No quick way of coming back from that. One of the publishers we deal with was unwell for some months also. I think she's in her late thirties/early 40s from what she's mentioned about her kids when we've communicated on the phone.
You seem to be doubting the numbers estimated by these doctors. Other than your personal anecdote, is there any reason why?
I suspect that the number of younger people with long term chronic illness is lower but my teenage niece was very unwell for many months last year, pretty much certainly in part due to Covid although she did have some psychological issues at the time as well. Thankfully, her mobility eventually improved, as did her mood (with the assistance of some useful therapy) and she's now thriving in an exciting job she loves. Phew!
By coincidence, I woke up this morning feeling unwell so tested myself (first time I've used one in a while) and the dreaded line appeared. My second infection that I know of, the previous one coming in January 2022. I feel a little worse than last time but nothing much at the moment - a little fatigue, headache, croaky voice. A good job I tested as I was going to take my kids to visit my elderly Mum in her care home today, which could have been bad!
It's a strange one, as I went away for a weekend with some friends in a largish city in mid-February (two nights in busy bars and restaurants), then out for drinks and a meal again last weekend. No infection from either of those events, but I've somehow caught it this week when the only places I've been are my daughter's nursery and a smallish local grocery shop. Had my last booster at the start of February so not particularly effective at keeping me Covid-free.
You seem to be doubting the numbers estimated by these doctors. Other than your personal anecdote, is there any reason why?
I suspect that the number of younger people with long term chronic illness is lower but my teenage niece was very unwell for many months last year, pretty much certainly in part due to Covid although she did have some psychological issues at the time as well. Thankfully, her mobility eventually improved, as did her mood (with the assistance of some useful therapy) and she's now thriving in an exciting job she loves. Phew!
By coincidence, I woke up this morning feeling unwell so tested myself (first time I've used one in a while) and the dreaded line appeared. My second infection that I know of, the previous one coming in January 2022. I feel a little worse than last time but nothing much at the moment - a little fatigue, headache, croaky voice. A good job I tested as I was going to take my kids to visit my elderly Mum in her care home today, which could have been bad!
It's a strange one, as I went away for a weekend with some friends in a largish city in mid-February (two nights in busy bars and restaurants), then out for drinks and a meal again last weekend. No infection from either of those events, but I've somehow caught it this week when the only places I've been are my daughter's nursery and a smallish local grocery shop. Had my last booster at the start of February so not particularly effective at keeping me Covid-free.
Personal anecdote should suffice, unless distribution of Long Covid is skewed towards certain populations that aren't represented in the average sphere (taking my sphere as average!). If LC is aggregated among the elderly, say, then it wouldn't come up as much perhaps. I'm certainly going to take to asking people more.
Still, today in class today two people out of 12 had knowledge of someone with LC. If that's out of 100 people they know, that's a small percentage (2 people out of 1200, 100 acquaintences each of 12 students). At 5%, it should be pretty common. I should know a couple of people with it personally. Everyone with 20+ friends would know someone with LC.
You mention hearing about it in your mail order business. What about your direct friends, family, and acquaintances? How many people do you personally know and how many of them have LC? Is it 5%?
WhiningKhan
Regular
Shifty, no offense but you are going really unscientific here. At least I don't (and have no desire to) know about medical/physical conditions of overwhelming majority of people I know.
Still, I do know a few persons who have chosen to open up about suffering from LC.
Still, I do know a few persons who have chosen to open up about suffering from LC.
LC can be debilitating but not necessarily so. It can encompass a variety of symptoms of varying degrees.
Some people can't get out of bed while maybe some people don't notice problems until they try to do something moderately strenuous, like go up several flights of stairs that they used to be able to handle.
In the US currently, there are 10.5 million job openings but only half as many job seekers. Throughout 2022, over a million people called in sick every month, which is way above pre-pandemic levels. Not saying all these are explained by people having a covid infection or LC.
Then there are a number of studies which show higher risk of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes. Researchers will have to study if incidence of these events and chronic diseases increase over the next decade or two.
That's an incredibly bizarre argument, Shifty. You're arguing that the people I have contact with through work aren't a representative sample. Only close family and friends should count for some unspecified reason? Just odd.
There are perhaps 20 or so customers who regularly phone through their orders and who I recognise by their voices and 2 or 3 of those suffered longer term issues. The one I mentioned who was seriously ill isn't that regular and, coming to think of it, I've not spoken to him since early in 2021. Might not be with us any longer. Our mailbase has been somewhat denuded during the pandemic with long term customers (of decades) passing away. Quite an elderly client base, as I mentioned, so this isn't perhaps surprising.
Of direct contacts at publishers, that's 1 out of perhaps half a dozen people who I communicate with regularly who I know suffered from some Long Covid symptoms for several months.
I'm not claiming that my personal anecdote defines the actual truth, but it certainly tallies with what the doctors are saying. I can't see any reason why they wouldn't be truthful, so why do you doubt them, other than your personal anecdote?
(Anecdote probably not quite the right term here, but I'm a bit groggy today so won't worry about it too much!)
There are perhaps 20 or so customers who regularly phone through their orders and who I recognise by their voices and 2 or 3 of those suffered longer term issues. The one I mentioned who was seriously ill isn't that regular and, coming to think of it, I've not spoken to him since early in 2021. Might not be with us any longer. Our mailbase has been somewhat denuded during the pandemic with long term customers (of decades) passing away. Quite an elderly client base, as I mentioned, so this isn't perhaps surprising.
Of direct contacts at publishers, that's 1 out of perhaps half a dozen people who I communicate with regularly who I know suffered from some Long Covid symptoms for several months.
I'm not claiming that my personal anecdote defines the actual truth, but it certainly tallies with what the doctors are saying. I can't see any reason why they wouldn't be truthful, so why do you doubt them, other than your personal anecdote?
(Anecdote probably not quite the right term here, but I'm a bit groggy today so won't worry about it too much!)
To be fair, the doctors are saying they're estimates of the patients they've seen.
Since Omicron, there are probably far more infections than officially reported, as more home testing was done and a lot of agencies around the world scaled downwards the mass testing -- one reason China went to Zero Covid was that a lot of city and regional agencies no longer had the budget to do constant and frequent testing.
Waste water surveillance indicates there's more virus circulating than reported, though hospitalizations and deaths, which are running at about 100k per year for the US, are well off peaks of other waves.
So even 5% of a large number could mean tens of millions with LC, though like I said, a lot of LC patients may not have debilitating symptoms.
Since Omicron, there are probably far more infections than officially reported, as more home testing was done and a lot of agencies around the world scaled downwards the mass testing -- one reason China went to Zero Covid was that a lot of city and regional agencies no longer had the budget to do constant and frequent testing.
Waste water surveillance indicates there's more virus circulating than reported, though hospitalizations and deaths, which are running at about 100k per year for the US, are well off peaks of other waves.
So even 5% of a large number could mean tens of millions with LC, though like I said, a lot of LC patients may not have debilitating symptoms.
No, I'm not. If 5% of the population has Long Covid, one in twenty has it. That'll be reflected in the everyman knowing people who have it. It's basic stats. If I hand you a sack of snooker balls and tell you that 5% are estimated to be red, and you start pulling out balls and they are all white, one after the other, for 50, 60, 70 balls, you're going to start to question my estimation. If there isn't an obvious ~5% present in the everyman, then the estimates have to be wrong. The only way that can't be true is if there's a huge skew to the populations with LC, such as the North of England have 3x the rate as the South and so my local populace doesn't show it. Or it's among all Black and Asian populations and not my mostly Caucasian contacts. But there's no such delimitation that I know of.
I'm saying it'll be 5% of everyone, which should include 5% of the people you encounter at work, and 5% of your friends, family, and acquaintances that you meet in everyday life. It'll be 5% of the populace on this forum. So if it's one in 20, as well as the people you encounter through work, one in 20 of your friends+family+acquaintances should also have LC, no?
The presence of people with LC through your line of work shows LC exists, but doesn't quantify it. We can quantify it by getting a proportion of those with LC out of the whole population. We can sample an arbitrary group of the population, our own immediate contacts, which will show if LC is very prevalent or not because approximately the (inter)national average for LC will be present in the sample. There's a lot of margin for error on the specific details, whether it's 10% or 2%, but 5% is such a large target that statistically it should be present among our contacts (unless, as mentioned earlier, it's confined to subsets of the population).
Also, that's the low estimate! The estimate you gave went as high as 10%. There's no way you can have 10% of the population have LC and yet have people like me not even know one person among 100! You'd have to be counting something as LC that people themselves aren't considering LC, so in the UK self reporting (here) that has <2% for the under 35s, and 4% for the overs, there's an additional 5% of the population with LC not reporting it.
Furthermore, fromthe UK self-reporting estimates, LC is higher among the older age-groups which are the more vaccinated ones, which doesn't fit with the view that the unvaccinated at 3x more likely to develop LC.
I'll leave you with your own quote:
"Out of 100 people you see, 95 or 96 people are going to be just fine. But you could be one of those unlucky four, and I personally don’t want to take my chances," Al-Aly said.
A reference to random public sampling, and 4%, not 10!
In short, I think the prevalance of LC is being overstated in the content you linked to.
Yes. If everyone states how many people they know with LC out of how many people they know, we should see 5-10% according to these estimates. It should even be present ni the population of this board - a poll should 5+% have it. If only 2% have LC, then the notion of 10% of people having LC is highly questionable and would need explaining, such as the population of B3D having different health and contacts to the average.
WhiningKhan
Regular
You just completely ignored my following sentences. We only know of those people who have told about it to us.
I mentioned Peyronie's disease earlier in this thread. It has an estimated prevalence of 5-10% of males, higher by age. Also seems to have been increased as part of post-covid syndrome. I'm pretty certain you are not aware of nearly as many cases in your acquaintances as your logic makes you expect.
How do you know that estimate is right? When presented with an estimate, we can either take it at face value, or critically evaluate it with a bit of common sense. If the estimate is derived from proper population sampling, it should be good, but then the data should be there to support the estimate and it should be apparent in appropriate observations of the populace. In this case I'm told in an internet post that some doctors estimate upto 10% of people have Long Covid, and so I'm supposed to just accept that without applying any critical thinking? I'm not supposed to question how those doctors came to those estimates?
On the point of me missing cases within my acquaintances, we've been openly discussing Covid cases for the whole pandemic. I can't see why they'd tell me they have C19 (each time they get it) and then have recovered from C19 although perhaps they have lingering taste or smell issues, and then that a few weeks later they feel fine obscuring reality where they have ongoing issues they now no longer want to talk about - we're all friends with a genuine interest in each other's welfare
Of course, if the Long Covid symptom is something like Peyronie's, they wouldn't share, obviously, but then you're saying the UK monitoring, and all the discussion around LC, that places fatigue, weakness, lack of concentration as the primary sequelae is wrong and the most common LC symptom among men is affecting the penis, not being reported anywhere. So the hidden reality is 10% of people have LC but in embarrassing ways and the fatigue and whatnot is just the tip of the iceberg, to be taken on faith in the people reporting the estimates.
Here's what the ONS reckoned back at the start of December 2022:
3.3% of the UK population had been suffering from symptoms for more than 4 weeks at that point.
The data and the methods by which it is collected/calculated is clear. If you want to make a critique of it, by all means feel free to do so. For the lack of cases in your personal acquaintances, perhaps this quote is of relevance:
If most of your acquaintances don't fit into these groupings, it could help to explain why you are personally not aware of many cases.
I'm other Covid news, the flawed Cochrane review about the efficacy of masking which was much-lauded by anti-maskers has just released the following update:
Back-pedalling from the initial reported conclusions to some degree without actually admitting they are back-pedalling. Not that the media groups who lauded the report initially are likely to make much of a mention of the new 'clarification'.
Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics
Estimates of the prevalence of self-reported long COVID and associated activity limitation, using UK Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey data. Experimental Statistics.
www.ons.gov.uk
3.3% of the UK population had been suffering from symptoms for more than 4 weeks at that point.
The data and the methods by which it is collected/calculated is clear. If you want to make a critique of it, by all means feel free to do so. For the lack of cases in your personal acquaintances, perhaps this quote is of relevance:
If most of your acquaintances don't fit into these groupings, it could help to explain why you are personally not aware of many cases.
I'm other Covid news, the flawed Cochrane review about the efficacy of masking which was much-lauded by anti-maskers has just released the following update:
Back-pedalling from the initial reported conclusions to some degree without actually admitting they are back-pedalling. Not that the media groups who lauded the report initially are likely to make much of a mention of the new 'clarification'.
I don't understand a counter-argument based on the data I already linked to and referenced.
That doesn't contradict my personal observations which are looking at the estimate of 5-10% from wco81's post, the one I responded to saying that estimate doesn't play out in real world personal sampling.
That doesn't contradict my personal observations which are looking at the estimate of 5-10% from wco81's post, the one I responded to saying that estimate doesn't play out in real world personal sampling.
As wco81 mentioned, it could just be that it is 5 to 10% of the people that doctors see who have symptoms. I know that I, personally, didn't see the doctor for years at a time at points when I was in my 20s and 30s. If I had a mild ongoing issue, I'd just get on with things until it cleared up. I suspect this could be some of the discrepancy in numbers. People who visit the doctors frequently generally do so due to ill health/pre-existing conditions and we already know the likelihood of such people suffering LC is going to be greater than the general populace.
Which is a plausible explanation, but also I'm not wrong in my estimation nor my application of data-science sampling principles which some would dismiss as 'anecdotal evidence'. 
Curiously also, that would be anecdotal evidence from the doctors, which is fine to take at face value where mine is unscientific...
What is actually wrong with my original post that has been debated?
Curiously also, that would be anecdotal evidence from the doctors, which is fine to take at face value where mine is unscientific...What is actually wrong with my original post that has been debated?
WhiningKhan
Regular
Where was it actually written LC has 5-10% prevalence of total population?
The estimates are that 5-10% of covid patients end up with LC. That obviously does not mean current prevalence in full population is 5-10%...
The estimates are that 5-10% of covid patients end up with LC. That obviously does not mean current prevalence in full population is 5-10%...
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The comment didn't say that was the case rate among Covid patients.
At this point we're talking about LC in the general population. These estimates are based on observations and surveys...
And Doctors reporting their estimates of the population with LC.
The surveys, observations, and doctor opinions talking about LC in the general population...
If the issue was me misunderstanding the datapoint, why wasn't that raised as opposed to questioning the validty of observational qualification of the estimates?
At this point we're talking about LC in the general population. These estimates are based on observations and surveys...
And Doctors reporting their estimates of the population with LC.
The surveys, observations, and doctor opinions talking about LC in the general population...
At no point has this estimate been qualified as a subset of people. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If the issue was me misunderstanding the datapoint, why wasn't that raised as opposed to questioning the validty of observational qualification of the estimates?
WhiningKhan
Regular
Dude, how can you get long covid without having covid? Of course the dataset is those who have had covid.
Review of current LC knowledge for those interested:
www.nature.com
Edit:
Actually by googling around, in UK and US pretty high prevalence of LC in general populace is proposed. Nasty.
Review of current LC knowledge for those interested:
Long COVID: major findings, mechanisms and recommendations - Nature Reviews Microbiology
Long COVID is an often debilitating illness of severe symptoms that can develop during or following COVID-19. In this Review, Davis, McCorkell, Vogel and Topol explore our knowledge of long COVID and highlight key findings, including potential mechanisms, the overlap with other conditions and...
www.nature.com
Edit:
Actually by googling around, in UK and US pretty high prevalence of LC in general populace is proposed. Nasty.
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One other thought which has just occurred to me, Shifty. The 5 to 10% number we're discussing in the posted article is from US doctors. US population and health is somewhat different to the UK (I think you're based over here as well?). Obesity levels a third higher, for example. Levels of extreme poverty are worse over there as well, I believe and we know that many have little or no healthcare provision which could also add up to more people with pre-existing health issues which make them more at risk of LC.
You can get Covid without being a patient. 2/3rds of UK's data is from people who didn't have medical contact for their C19 prior to LC.