Who's most likely to get so called 'Long Covid', a lengthy lingering illness that some people report themselves as having gotten after the initial bout of Covid itself had passed. One difficulty of determining the answer to this question is the difficulty in determining what exactly Long Covid is, because the list of possible symptoms are all over the place and include (as noted last year by the Journal of the American Medical Association last year)
fatigue, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, persistent cough, muscle/joint/chest pain, smell/taste problems, confusion/disorientation/brain fog, memory issues, depression/anxiety/changes in mood, headache, intermittent fever, heart palpitations, rash/blisters/welts, mouth or tongue ulcers, or other symptoms
That's... that's a long list, and if you have any one of those or a combination of those symptoms after having had Covid you may be considered to have Long Covid yourself.
But another issue with many of those symptoms is that they're difficult to medically diagnose, requiring the person suffering the symptoms to be able to accurately self-report differences between how they felt before having Covid and after. So are the people who are most likely to claim to suffer from Long Covid the sort of people we can assume to have a good sense of self-identity to be able to accurately asses themselves? You be the judge:
Among those who have had COVID, self-reporting having "long COVID" is 45% more common in women than in men, and it's 109% more common among transgender people than among men.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 26, 2023
Long COVID is reported as being more severe on the same axis.
Source: https://t.co/2Cgsl1zDCa pic.twitter.com/OfzSzTk85l
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109% more likely among transgender people seems like a lot!
Or it could simply by psychosomatic, and those less neurotic are less likely to have long covid.
— Sean Dunn (@seanldunn) November 26, 2023
That seems like a better explanation for 'Long Covid' than that Covid somehow acts differently in trans people, yeah.
Very interesting. It appears that what some would argue as the most suggestible segments of the population (aka women), are more prone to the "long COVID".
— Philippe (@TheSph3ricalCow) November 27, 2023
On the same line or argument, this would also suggest that transgender people are even more suggestible. (which may be why…
Trans people? Being people who are more susceptible to Social Contagion? Who'd have though?!
Long COVID: AKA "I Really Like Telecommuting's Disease"
— D.C. Pennington (@DCPenningtonArt) November 27, 2023
Seems there's positive correlation with attention seeking behavior.
— F8ALDZZ (@F8Aldzz) November 26, 2023
"Neurasthenia" gets a new name every generation.
— Darkage Possum (@DarkagePossum) November 26, 2023
It's fun because if you look at the major hallmarks of the classical diagnosis of Neurasthenia it does look an awful lot like what people describe as 'Long Covid', doesn't it?
Ahh finally a research topic I can study and get funded by the Federal Government
— ~~datahazard~~ (@fentasyl) November 27, 2023
"On the increased burden Transgender Folks experience from Long COVID" https://t.co/r9a3KCDR1f
As I said back in 2021, long covid is the diagnosis of people high in neuroticism, aka chronic cranks.
— Binx (@clakklaa) November 27, 2023
Of course, they didn't like to hear this at the time, but it's true. And I will say it again
Long covid is crankeryhttps://t.co/1iJiMQ1zxYhttps://t.co/qsy7GwAKqJ https://t.co/xVKCRYnOSf
Of course there are some with a different take...
There's a simple and obvious explanation: the patriarchy protects us men from Long Covid. This is how the lads stay winning 💪. https://t.co/CFbe6swZMz
— Johnny Christian Bishop (@Johnnybeesknees) November 26, 2023
The Patriarchy wins again! Sometimes the most tongue in cheek take is the best take.
None of this is to say that Long Covid doesn't exist in some form, of course. Research into the perceived phenomenon is ongoing and there may well be some who, for whatever reason, do indeed see lingering effects on their overall health after having contracted Covid. But when your pool of people who claim to be suffering from a disorder is made up largely of people with preexisting mental issues... Well, Occam's Razor tends to bend towards it being part of that preexisting mental issue rather than a newly developed illness.
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