> I understand, I just disagree that this is a disproportionate threat to our society that requires disproportionate response.
That has absolutely nothing to do with what was just being discussed. There is hard data which says COVID has a huge range of long term side effects, that’s simply a fact you can personally feel it’s an acceptable risk but nothing about your personal beliefs change the reality of long term impacts of severe viral infections.
I personally feel that the US has given people long enough to get vaccinated it’s time to open the floodgates of infection and open things up. Yes, the unvaccinated and many vaccinated will simply get very sick and die in large large numbers based on their personal choices, but such is life.
I expect most people will disagree with my personal options and that’s fine, but don’t argue about objective facts.
OPs point is that many of these long term symptoms can be observed after other infections too. Influenza is also known to have longer term side effects especially in children (sound similar?)
Unrelated but important: I think a lot of people miss that this pandemic has infected millions of people, so all of the one in a million events happen with enough frequency to where you will find significant proportions of the population displaying ever symptom you could imagine "due to COVID".
We had a woman who started hemorrhaging a week into her infection. Do you think that was caused by COVID? Probably not, but I'd bet you could find a thousand people where that happened just because of the sheer size of infections.
Many long term systems are common with viral infections, however it’s important to realize their normally a function of infection severity. As such the reality that COVID causes a disproportionate number of hospitalizations means it also disproportionately increases the risk of these side effects.
> There is hard data which says COVID has a huge range of long term side effects
If you can cite this "hard data", it'll be amongst the first I've ever seen.
So far, all I've seen are anecdotes and poorly controlled surveys of self-reported symptoms, the vast majority of which are mild. Reports of "cough" and "fatigue", three weeks after a respiratory illness are not exceptional, they're the expected case.
Just today, this paper was published in a Lancet journal, looking at symptom duration in a large cohort (259k) of children under 17. The most enduring symptoms? Loss of smell, headache, sore throat and fatigue. Virtually everything else fell to background in a week.
If you’re happy with literally any longer term impacts here’s one documented though very rare one: “Most patients were treated with a single course of intravenous immunoglobulin, and improvement was noted within 8 weeks in most cases. GBS-associated COVID-19 appears to be an uncommon condition with similar clinical and EDx patterns to GBS before the pandemic.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32678460/
I bring it up not because it’s a significant risk, but as a demonstration that immune responses themselves are one of the risk factors associated with viral infections. Critically though there are a lot of rare conditions that individually may not be a factor but collectively are.
Hospital-acquired infections for example aren’t directly caused by covid, but start talking about 100’s of thousands of people being hospitalized and it’s a common risk.
As to that study, people under 17 aren’t even close to representative of the larger population when it comes to viral infections. It’s an important consideration but people 35-44 while generally considered low risk are literally at 100 times the risk of death as 4-14 year olds. Youthful immune systems are simply vastly better.
If we're down to talking about Guillain-Barré, then I'm definitely not concerned.
37 cases of "covid-associated" GBS falls in the category of "lighting strike risks" in life. Yeah, it can happen, but it's pretty damned rare. I'm not changing my life for it.
Also, of course...GBS is associated with at least one of the covid vaccines, itself:
Great, you just made the first step and admitted yes there is at least one long term risk from covid infections. I picked a tiny one specifically because it was so easy.
Next, what about hospital born infections? Clearly people who aren’t in hospitals are at lower risk and clearly people are hospitalized in large numbers from Covid-19. So is that another slightly larger step you’re willing to take?
> Great, you just made the first step and admitted yes there is at least one long term risk from covid infections. I picked a tiny one specifically because it was so easy.
I've never said anything different. I'm not sure what victory you think you've won.
Some people will have long-term symptoms of Covid. Just like pretty much every other virus.
Until I see some serious, well-controlled, high-quality data that shows me that there's an unprecedented risk for a lot of people, I'm not on board with taking unprecedented actions that affect everyone.
> I've never said anything different. I'm not sure what victory you think you've won.
You just said so in this thread:
“ > A virus doesn't just enter your body, and quietly go away.
Some do not. This one does.”
No qualifications just absolute dismissal of all long term symptoms.
> Until I see some serious, well-controlled, high-quality data that shows me there’s an unprecedented risk for a lot of people
Sure, because the only evidence you can infer is that which you already agree with. Raising the bar arbitrarily isn’t science it’s a logical fallacy.
However, the exact data you’re asking for is quite simply hospitalization rates. Severe cases of covid include the normal risks of severe viral infections, but it causes severe infections at significantly higher rates thus it also causes those normal complications at much higher rates. Along with it’s own unusual risks from blood clots causing all the things blood clots cause.
> Until I see some serious, well-controlled, high-quality data that shows me that there's an unprecedented risk for a lot of people, I'm not on board with taking unprecedented actions that affect everyone.
What kind of evidence would convince you?
Bear in mind (as I'm sure you know), it's gonna be very difficult to get accurate before and afters while in the midst of a pandemic, and it's likely that this evidence will only exist if enough people don't get one of the vaccines.
I haven’t read a definitive answer to how much that blood vessel damage sticks around. Of course secondary effects of that damage such as strokes have their own long term progression.
How many of those children do you think had healthy immune systems?
Kids with compromised immune systems are at risk, and there at increased risk the longer this goes on. Are you willing to talk at the funerals of all those kids?
Also, your link is: At least 172 children had died as of Dec. not 2,000.
That has absolutely nothing to do with what was just being discussed. There is hard data which says COVID has a huge range of long term side effects, that’s simply a fact you can personally feel it’s an acceptable risk but nothing about your personal beliefs change the reality of long term impacts of severe viral infections.
I personally feel that the US has given people long enough to get vaccinated it’s time to open the floodgates of infection and open things up. Yes, the unvaccinated and many vaccinated will simply get very sick and die in large large numbers based on their personal choices, but such is life.
I expect most people will disagree with my personal options and that’s fine, but don’t argue about objective facts.