Long COVID 'May Be Four Syndromes'

Status
Not open for further replies.
Northerner

Northerner

Admin (Retired)
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
The condition commonly called 'long COVID' may not be one syndrome but possibly up to four different syndromes, according to a new review.

The finding comes from a dynamic themed review of available scientific evidence published by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

The paper, Living with COVID19 draws on the latest expert consensus and published evidence, as well as the experience of patients.

It formed the first output from the NIHR Centre for Engagement and Dissemination (NIHR CED) which is working towards a real-time knowledge base in what is an emerging field.

It is estimated that as many as 60,000 people in the UK may have long COVID.

www.medscape.com

Long COVID 'May Be Four Syndromes'

Review of ongoing COVID published by the National Institute for Health Research says wide range of symptoms creates diagnostic uncertainty.
www.medscape.com
 
Big deal. I’m getting very tired of all this crap talked about COVID. It’s not special. It’s been known for half a century that infectious mononucleosis (glandular fever) can cause long term debility, its long been suggested that T1 diabetes needs a viral trigger to start it off, the occasionally fatal and always serious Guillain-Barré syndrome is triggered by infection.

Don’t worry, all these will be ascribed to Covid before long and be ascribed to “long COVID “. It’s all b****cks. Dressing up known complications of viral infections as post Covid debases proper medicine, to say nothing of frightening people. We’ve happily trundled on for decades knowing about all these post viral conditions. None of them are common.

I say again, this virus is nothing special, and does nothing to the body that countless viruses haven’t done before. But rarely, as with COVID.
 
mikeyB said:
Big deal. I’m getting very tired of all this crap talked about COVID. It’s not special. It’s been known for half a century that infectious mononucleosis (glandular fever) can cause long term debility, its long been suggested that T1 diabetes needs a viral trigger to start it off, the occasionally fatal and always serious Guillain-Barré syndrome is triggered by infection.

Don’t worry, all these will be ascribed to Covid before long and be ascribed to “long COVID “. It’s all b****cks. Dressing up known complications of viral infections as post Covid debases proper medicine, to say nothing of frightening people. We’ve happily trundled on for decades knowing about all these post viral conditions. None of them are common.

I say again, this virus is nothing special, and does nothing to the body that countless viruses haven’t done before. But rarely, as with COVID.
Click to expand...
MikeyB,
They have to keep the fear campaign going for as long as possilbe, otherwise how can they still justify the lockdowns? In the early days it was supposed to be about preventing deaths and hospitalisations, now they are actually trying to eradicate it!!! by imposing relentless lockdowns. Even with a safe and effective vaccine (even at 70% effective) we can't eradicate the virus. it's an impossible task. You have to ask yourself what is it all for?

It's been turned into a casedemic.

On this planet, in every country, in every other situation before, never has anyone attempted to track, test and trace a virus after the main death cases have dropped off and then kept it going for months (perhaps years) with daily case reports. As you said, normally after a pandemic, life goes on and we never get to know of the after effects, they've never been relayed to us on a 24hr daily basis. They could have made the same problems out of any other virus before, had the same lockdowns, daily case reports.

Nobody is talking of the huge spikes in cases of unemployment, business closures, social disruption etc etc Why don't they do a 24hr a day daily report on those, with all the fancy stats and fear about how bad it could be tomorrow?
 
Last edited:
Today I'm frightened. I wasn't before because I think my family have had it already. My brother now tells me we can go blind, or completely deaf or lose a set of toes... agh, we already had that worry, well not the deaf.. good grief, I don't like being scared. My family haven't taken any notice of lockdown, all have carried on regardless and are continuing to do so. I might take to locking up the bungalow and dealing with them on the front path if they have to call round for one thing or another! They know I'm eccentric anyways.

edit/
In a nutshell what is long covid. I can't be bothered logging in to read the article, I'm so depressed doing anything is a chore. I have inertia.
 
Long Covid in a nutshell, is people who have definitely had Covid but suffer rather different and weird after effects, from the things people usually get after other viruses.
 
trophywench said:
Long Covid in a nutshell, is people who have definitely had Covid but suffer rather different and weird after effects, from the things people usually get after other viruses.
Click to expand...
Some these people did not not have definite diagnosis as many were not admitted to hospital or in the early months of the pandemic could not get tests.
 
Docb said:
I'm guessing @mikeyB that you might find this chap's analysis quite persuasive.

lockdownsceptics.org

What SAGE Has Got Wrong – The Daily Sceptic

by Mike Yeadon “It’s Easier to Fool People Than It […]
lockdownsceptics.org lockdownsceptics.org
Click to expand...
So "SAGE is useless".

You have to ask then, are they unwittingly useless? or are their intentions based in some way on personal interests in creating a country primed for large scale vaccine distribution or moving Doctors appointments online?

Are there some vested interests in their policies and advice or other aims?
 
Last edited:
Nothing is useless but it is easy to oversell the usefulness of something. I am sure that those who set it up invited the people they guessed would be useful. Time will tell whether they were good or bad guessers.

By the way, I don't endorse the thesis put forward in the article I pointed to. It has merit, about as much merit as the thesis it decries. Same with all this stuff, the extremes are interesting but woe betide you if you do all your planning based on one extreme, whatever extreme it is.
 
The writer of the article doesn’t say Sage are useless deliberately, or have some ulterior motive. They don’t have the right knowledge or skills. Or common sense. It’s not common sense to try and eliminate this virus, and it’s not common sense to test everybody. And testing, as he explains, doesn't tell you how many have been infected.

Just as long as the media and government go with the idea that this is a “deadly” virus, and this is the biggest threat to the UK. It isn’t either. I said this right at the start of the epidemic, and I haven’t changed my view.

The government are in a bind. They have to be seen to be trying to eliminate this virus, but as well keep the economy going. There is no chance that the virus will be eliminated - we’ll just assimilate it into our collection of respiratory viruses.

The biggest threat to the UK is a no deal Brexit. Which is odd, because the government hasn’t listened to any competent economic advice, but seem to be happy to listen to medical advice. They know bugger all about either.
 
New study by a bunch of experts in the field, which may be a better guide than people pontificating about stuff on the Internet:


Multi-organ impairment in low-risk individuals with long COVID

Findings: Between April and September 2020, 201 individuals (mean age 44 (SD 11.0) years, 70% female, 87% white, 31% healthcare workers) completed assessments following SARS-CoV-2 infection (median 140, IQR 105-160 days after initial symptoms).

The prevalence of pre-existing conditions (obesity: 20%, hypertension: 6%; diabetes: 2%; heart disease: 4%) was low, and only 18% of individuals had been hospitalised with COVID-19.

Fatigue (98%), muscle aches (88%), breathlessness (87%), and headaches (83%) were the most frequently reported symptoms. Ongoing cardiorespiratory (92%) and gastrointestinal (73%) symptoms were common, and 42% of individuals had ten or more symptoms.

There was evidence of mild organ impairment in heart (32%), lungs (33%), kidneys (12%), liver (10%), pancreas (17%), and spleen (6%). Single (66%) and multi-organ (25%) impairment was observed, and was significantly associated with risk of prior COVID-19 hospitalisation (p<0.05).

Interpretation: In a young, low-risk population with ongoing symptoms, almost 70% of individuals have impairment in one or more organs four months after initial symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection. There are implications not only for burden of long COVID but also public health approaches which have assumed low risk in young people with no comorbidities.

Conclusions: Long COVID has a physiological basis, with measurable patient-reported outcomes and organ impairment. Medium- and long-term evaluation and monitoring of multi-organ function beyond symptoms and blood investigations is likely to be required, even in lower risk individuals. Health system responses should emphasise suppression of population infection rates, as well as management of pre- and post-COVID-19 risk factors and chronic diseases.
 
The only query I would have is whether the subjects in the study were randomly selected from the population at large or from a cohort who were already under investigation for reporting lasting symptoms.

If they were randomly selected from anybody who met the selection criteria, then it gives real food for thought.
 
Docb said:
The only query I would have is whether the subjects in the study were randomly selected from the population at large or from a cohort who were already under investigation for reporting lasting symptoms.

If they were randomly selected from anybody who met the selection criteria, then it gives real food for thought.
Click to expand...

From the Methods section, eligibility was basically just having a COVID-19 diagnosis:

In an ongoing, prospective study, 201 participants were enrolled at two UK sites (Perspectum, Oxford and Mayo Clinic Healthcare, London) between April 2020 and August 2020 and completed baseline assessment by 14 September 2020 (Figure 1). Participants 1 were eligible for enrolment if they tested positive by the oro/nasopharyngeal throat swab for SARS-CoV-2 by reverse-transcriptase-polymerase-chain reaction (n=62), a positive antibody test (n=63), or had typical symptoms and were determined to have COVID-19 by two independent clinicians (n=73). Exclusion criteria were symptoms of active respiratory viral infection (temperature >37.8°C or three or more episodes of coughing in 24 hours); discharged from hospital in the last 7 days; and contraindications to MRI, including implanted pacemakers, defibrillators, other metallic implanted devices; claustrophobia.

They call the selection "pragmatic", meaning that there were different diagnostic methods, partly due to test availability etc limitations at some points during the study. So maybe a bit loose.

And from what I can find in the pre-print it's not clear whether or how there was a sub-selection from amongst the "eligible" group. You'd hope to see that made clearer in updates to this pre-print.
 
I'll also just drop this stuff here as food for though for any anti-lockdowners:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1317302087860932610


Victoria, coming to the end of 100+ days of a brutally strict lockdown:

1603006359808.png

700 cases per day at peak, down to 1 or 2 now.

Caused by a badly designed, underfunded, crappy bureaucrat-infested, centralised public health system with weak poliitcal oversight. Fixed by a brutally simple everybody-shares-the-pain lockdown supported by the Premier standing up and repeating the same message over & over & over and answering every media question, every day for 100+ days.
 
Eddy Edson said:
I'll also just drop this stuff here as food for though for any anti-lockdowners:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1317302087860932610


Victoria, coming to the end of 100+ days of a brutally strict lockdown:

View attachment 15419

700 cases per day at peak, down to 1 or 2 now.

Caused by a badly designed, underfunded, crappy bureaucrat-infested, centralised public health system with weak poliitcal oversight. Fixed by a brutally simple everybody-shares-the-pain lockdown supported by the Premier standing up and repeating the same message over & over & over and answering every media question, every day for 100+ days.
Click to expand...
Is this your health system or ours you are on about?
 
Coming back to the reference you put up @Eddy Edson. I think we picked up on the same point. Are they reporting that they have found underlying physiological changes in people who were reporting lasting after effects from a COVID infection or are they reporting underlying physiological changes in a random bunch of people who they were quite sure had had COVID. Difficult to decide from the wording of the preprint and there are very different implications depending on the answer to that question.
 
Docb said:
Coming back to the reference you put up @Eddy Edson. I think we picked up on the same point. Are they reporting that they have found underlying physiological changes in people who were reporting lasting after effects from a COVID infection or are they reporting underlying physiological changes in a random bunch of people who they were quite sure had had COVID. Difficult to decide from the wording of the preprint and there are very different implications depending on the answer to that question.
Click to expand...
Also, if they asked for volunteers, more people who have lasting problems would normally volunteer, than people who had it, got over it and went on their merry way, wouldn’t you think?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top