If you get COVID-19, you probably won't die. Probably. But about a quarter of all people who come down with COVID-19 develop "long COVID," a series of symptoms that range from the annoying to the severe. These symptoms often last a year or longer and include:
- Loss of smell or taste
- Depression or anxiety
- Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
- Tiredness or fatigue
- Difficulty thinking or concentrating (sometimes referred to as “brain fog”)
- Chest or stomach pain
- Erectile dysfunction
- Headache
- Fast-beating or pounding heart (also known as heart palpitations)
- Joint or muscle pain
- Pins-and-needles feeling
- Diarrhea
- Sleep problems
- Dizziness on standing (lightheadedness)
- Change in smell or taste
- Changes in period cycles
- Blood clots
- Strokes, seizures and Guillain-Barre syndrome
- Multiorgan effects or autoimmune conditions
- Multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS)
If you don't get vaccinated, you run a substantial risk of contracting one or more of these problems for an unknown length of time. That's way more serious than the rare and generally mild side effects of the vaccine.
Note to vaccine skeptics: Is that worth it?
You cannot rationalize with the irrational.
Nor implore deplorables.
I tend to think of it as simple innumeracy. A 25% chance* of nasty long term symptoms (combined with perhaps a 1% probability of premature death by covid) vs. a one in 8-10 million chance of serious vaccine side effects.
*If you become infected. These numbers obviously drop if you consider the possibility you'll be very lucky and never contract the virus; on the other hand given the rate of global spread, it looks to me as though there's a strong possibility that virtually all unvaccinated human beings will eventually be exposed to the virus.
> If you get COVID-19, you probably won't die. Probably.
Are you kidding? About 1% of the people who catch covid die. If you get Covid-19, you almost certainly won't die. Although you can confidently adjust your odds depending on age and a variety of other health issues.
Would you get on that flight to Denver if you knew there's a 1% chance it was going to crash?
Nice! That is a argument that has visceral response...ain't got no answer to that one....lol Best Wishes, Traveller
Yeah! And FAR fewer than 1% of drivers get into accidents where they're killed or maimed, so there's NO reason to believe all that nanny-state stuff about so-called "seat belts." Why, they're not even belts at all, because they go over your shoulder, which just shows those "engineers" have no idea what they're talking about!
+1 campus glibertarian student newspaper columnist lost to a motor vehicle accident where a seatbelts would have saved his life
Eh, that list of symptoms don't worry me at all.
Wait, it includes "Erectile dysfunction"? Now you've got my attention!
I noticed that. All those "white" republicans who have to subscribe to Viagra.
I remember when teens were sniffing white-out (people of a certain age remember what that was). The company started a rumor that doing so caused acne, and use went down. Start with covid causing ED, and add the rumor that it doesn't respond to Viagra, and maybe some anti-vaxxer men will get the shot. Then again, maybe not.
The late Limbaugh relished a cigar. Mocked the idea it caused lung cancer.
Right-wingers will happily get COVID to own the libs.
Fine by me. And give it to their like-thinking families and friends too! Fewer of them around afterward.
The problem is that their soup of imbecility might breed a new and more dangerous variant, and of course their selfish and stupid behavior makes it more likely that other people NOT as stupid or selfish as they -- say, service workers -- will get it.
Being stupid, of course, they aren't capable of thinking about such things, and even if they were, being selfish, they wouldn't care.
Dick Cheney was a 3 packs of Lucky Strikes a day smoker got a large part of his life. Then he got a heart transplant. Moral hazard? That’s for other people.
Two. Hasnt he had 2 new hearts?
Dick Cheney had a heart? Who knew?
You're thinking of David Crosby's two donor livers.
About a quarter? Where does that statistic come from?
Kevin, you left-out dry, flaky scalp and chronic halitosis…snarcasm aside, there’s some fuzziness to the percentage of those who contract COVID-19 and become “long haulers”. For example:
https://health.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/covid-19-information/covid-19-long-haulers.html
Repeating myself. One of the financial advisors and his family, wife and four kids, I use came down with COVID June 2020. They all "recovered" however the wife now has random seizures (never experienced seizures before) resulting in the loss of her drivers license and their youngest has to look forward to a liver transplant in his future.
I don’t doubt the existence of “long Covid.” I do question Kevin’s 25% figure, your second hand anecdote notwithstanding. Kevin usually provides reference.
I suppose you would need a firm definition of what exactly “long covid” is. With the wide variety of lingering symptoms and length of lingering symptoms I suspect that’s not so easy and I doubt that doctors are in agreement on that.
Indeed, without a firm definition there’s no way to get good figures except for narratives.
You can google "long covid" and find a bunch of recent studies. Google "long covid in kids" if you really want to stress out. Many are pointing more toward the 25% number Kevin is talking about.
It also depends on how one counts infections. It depends on how many tests are being done and if corrections are made to account for asymptomatic cases, then numbers are lower.
FREEDUMB!!!
So, "progressive" racist, you're calling blacks (the least vaxxed group) dumb. Leave it to a rich Anglo "progressive" racist. LOL
While I do agree with the basic concept that the vaccine risk is likely low enough to make it fairly small in comparison to the risk of catching covid, at least for most, I think this clearly exaggerates the difference. Which is part of a pattern and tends to cause vaccine scepticism.
One factor that will lead some to believe that the side effects of both covid and the vaccine is greater than reality is the human tendency to attribute an issue to anything unusual or memorable that happened recently. When you are dealing with large numbers, you end up with a huge number of anecdotal cases where something happened right after getting the vaccine or getting covid and so causation is assumed.
And I see a clear tendency in the " experts" to rightly dismiss most such claims with respect to the vaccines but to not do so for the same with covid. Because they think that this will get more to take the vaccine and that is a good thing. But this sort of manipulation of the facts is what has made many not believe anything they hear.
While clearly there is going to be some subset of those who got covid who will have longer term side effects, that is always true for just about any virus. If you want an anecdote, the last time I got the flu years ago, I had a cough lasting a few years afterward. Clearly a long term side effect of the flu, right? Well no. Turns out I had developed acid reflux problems ( a case of gerd) that started just before the flu and caused the cough eventually. The flu hitting just before was coincidental.
And I expect some sizable %age of the "long covid" cases are also just things that happened after covid but were not caused by it. Or also maybe psychological. For some, watching for scary signs of long covid will cause the symptoms.
Especially when you look at Kevin's list. Things like headaches, that most people do get occassionally and it is not rare at all to develop them some year for various causes. So without any such thing as long covid, some %age of those who get covid will develop headaches in next year by coincidence.
So I suspect the true long covid risk is less than 10%. How much I do not know.
And the risk of dying from covid is less than 1% because that is only the rough %age of confirmed cases that die ( not including undiscovered cases) and the # of covid deaths among that group is exaggerated because we count any who die " with covid".
+1
And I appreciate your epistemic humility.
"Is that worth it?"
Are you kidding? Hey, this is a MAGA-head no-brainer since no action or personal sacrifice is too far to go if it makes a lib cry. To paraphrase a father of modern Republicanism: Extremism in the owning of the libs is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of idiocy is no virtue.”
Are you replying to me? Because I don't think I said anything questioning whether something was "worth it".
In fact, I think I did state that, in my opinion, looking at all facts, vaccination is " worth it " just about always looking at society as a whole. But questionable for young people if they are only considering their own selfish interst. A rational selfish young person might consider the risks of getting covid are so low for them that easier to let everyone else get the vaccine.
But it is not very moral to consider only yourself in this decision.
Marlowe's response was not indented relative to yours and was flush with the left margin. I don't think Marlowe was replying to you. I think Marlowe was responding directly to KD.
Yes I see that worth it phrase in Kevin's OP. I misinterpreted and thought he was replying to me.
I understand now how to see by whether it is flush. Thanks!
Don't forget Kevin - it turns you into a democrat. That will get us up to 100% vaccinations in a hurry
Once the FDA gives final, non-emergency approval for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines (hopefully in the next month or so), it seems clear that many more employers and colleges will mandate vaccine use. At the same time, I imagine some insurance companies will want to raise insurance premiums for those unvaccinated.
My questions are: can/should employees and insurance companies do these things? And, if they do, what will the right-wing nuts do in response - more armed insurrections?
Would having, or having had, covid not be a pre-existing condition?
Since the Moderna phase III trial is not over for another year, why would the FDA give final, non-emergency approval before then?
Meanwhile, @dougjballoon, the Sulzberger Advertiser Pitchbot ponders:
I don't know which is worse -- the conservatives who refuse to get vaccinated, leading to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, or the liberals who are so judgmental about the conservative choice.
& first reply, from Michael Berube:
Let's ask Kevin Drum.
The CalPundit is still justifiably getting roasted by the Ballion Nation.
If libs can't "get judgmental" about actions leading to "tens of thousands of unnecesary deaths", then when ARE we "permitted" to pass judgment?
When after years of the “libs” saying we shouldn’t be there in the first place, the US leaves without magically ensuring all the women left behind will be well treated by the Taliban: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/11/forget-the-geopolitics-lets-focus-on-the-human-cost-of-the-exit-from-afghanistan
Oh dear lord, is Berube still even a thing? His schtick -- 'Pointing out what were obviously intentional errors of fact in my post shows just how far above your head I operate' -- got real old real quick. No thank you, I think your self-identified 'post-modernist' core readership are just so many ridiculous and self-important buffoons.
One thing I am still curious about.
Last year it seemed like we spent months learning about, and talking about, "herd immunity". Boris Johnson was going to let it "wash over" the UK, then Trump liked that idea, then Trump hired a loony toons doc, Scott Atlas, who loved the idea too.
But why didn't anyone warn us at the time that "herd immunity" also included "allowing the virus to mutate freely into something much more contagious and troublesome".
This is all Scott Atlas' fault. Over to you, Hoover Institution.
There was some discussion and concern re mutations from the start. But, based on best evidence at that time, the risk from that appeared to be lower than it turned out to be.
First, similar coronaviruses tend to mutate much slower than the flu. And second virus mutations have a tendency to be more contagious but less deadly. Which, if the only way out is natural hard immunity, is more of a good thing.
That you got mutations that are more contagious no surprise at all. But mutating to be this more contagious is a bit of a surprise. And you would think it should also be somewhat less deadly. For alpha, looks like not true. For delta, have some hope it is the case.
Hindsight is always 20/20. At the beginning the best guess was that mutations were somewhat less of a threat than they turned out to be.
And consider something else. Last year, trump was saying that we should have a vaccine ready in less than a year. And he was generally laughed at by the " experts" but he turned out to be right.
And the funny thing is that expecting a vaccine that soon tends to justify more restrictions. While not expecting it for years would make it more likely the restrictions are more costly than they are worth.
But those who thought trump was right on vaccines usually leaned more to less restrictions and vice versa. Exactly the opposite of what it should have been logically.
This might be an appealing logic, but it is not necessarily so. The basis of R0 is a trade-off between a virus' lethality and transmissibility. A virus is free to mutate in either direction, so long as it fits within a curve that balances the two. See: Influenza.
With sufficient antigenic shift, the immune system won't recognize a previous infection. It may appear that constant mutations towards greater transmissibility and lower lethality will get a community towards herd immunity, but it is illusory. You can get Influenza more than once in a "season".
Well, if you're saying that the "herd immunity" discussion included a discussion of using the world's population to incubate new versions of the virus (I never heard such a thing) I guess you've got your "lab leak" theory right there... their plan was to use the world as their lab... Efficient method, certainly, as we are seeing now.
The real argument is that everyone should get vaccinated so that there is little danger to anyone. The risks are very low for the young but much higher as age goes up. But belonging to the group - mostly white Christians but some other groups are involved - certainly is more important than not only the overall common interest (even when it affects the partisan group) but also one's own well-being. People will do almost anything, including murder and suicide, if it is demanded by their group.
I do agree that best evidence would indicate that the large majority should be vaccinated for the overall benefit of society. Maybe not quite all. Just in case of the very unlikely event there actually are some horrible side effects of the vaccine that could pop up in years, having a few young people unvaccinated is ok to ensure survival of the species.
And I do think this focuses on the right argument i.e. the overall societal benefit rather than just an individual selfish choice.
But the extent to which people here ascribe it all or mostly to white conservatives is exaggerated. Where I am, clearly the bigger issue now is reluctance from African Americans ( and no not because they do not have access).
I do know some white conservatives who got the vaccine ( including two I talked into it), but who would only tell a pollster that they will never get it.
Now will "progressives" call blacks stupid and wish for their deaths like you do with unvaxxed whites? LOL
I am not racist. I will call anyone who refuses the vaccine stupid, and while I do not wish for anyone's death I have very little sympathy for those who die of covid after having refused the vaccine, regardless of their skin color.
Of course you're a racist.
Cordially,
The Latinx
(You and your kind think that my first language, Spanish, is inferior and in need of a word that has no Spanish content. Word to the wise, racist: Save someone else. LOL)
It does seem like total malpractice that Fauci, et al, haven't been banging the gong on the risk of long covid. You literally never hear this discussed... only hospitalizations and deaths... and young people think they have nothing to worry about.
Talking nonstop about the real risk of a possibly permanent disability would certainly motivate more vaccinations in young people.
I disagree. Fauci has already been stung by his changing positions on masks, with some real suggestion that his initial position was not based on the science in the first place. He needs to watch his credibility.
Long covid is poorly understood at this point. We don't really know the incidence of it, nor are we really sure which symptoms are part of the syndrome and which are not. Several of the posts above have outlined the large uncertainties. Nobody, repeat nobody, is in a position to make authoritative pronouncements about long covid at this point. I think Fauci is keeping his powder dry. I would to if I were in his shoes.
There's a wide gulf between "authoritative pronouncements about long Covid" and making it clear that something is clearly going on with a LOT of people, and everyone should be a little more cautious about Covid until we understand it better.
Instead we've burned this narrative into society that for anyone under 40 Covid is basically a sniffle at worst. Maybe it has to do with REEEEALLY wanting kids back in school, I don't know. Definitely kinda nuts, and like I said, a missed opportunity to create a stampede for the vaccine.
Long COVID appears to be the expression of brain damage caused by inflammation re encephalitis, by an out of control immune system.
Some studies have pointed to SARS-CoV-2 virus in the brain itself, but others could not find any virus in the brains of dead COVID-19 patients. Instead, they found markers that looked a lot like that of people with ALZ and other neurological diseases.
The case literature also points to encephalitis in asymptomatic infections. I know this is an oxymoron, but if you don't present with traditional COVID-19 symptoms, you're thought to be asymptomatic even if your immune system's been triggered to attack your brain.
And finally, one study suggested that as many as 70% of infected persons have long COVID.
So you see, if you get COVID-19, chances are high that your brain will be damaged, at least temporarily.
You forgot hearing loss. One of my staff had temporary deafness. Not real common but happens.
Steve
The truly fun part of this is seeing "progressives" tiptoe around the fact that blacks are avoiding the vaxxes in numbers just as high, if not higher, than the flyover whites whose guts you hate.
Hmm, maybe it has something to do with a certain black California politician who slept her way up the ladder and, last year, so much as told black people to avoid the shots? Nah, those would be facts, and you would be "progressives." LOL
You don't even know what variance is, let alone skew, kurtosis, or Heteroskedasticity. So tell me, I'm curious: Why should I care what you think?
Thanks for your concern. Please fuck off now with your racism and sexism.
Thanks, "progressive" racist.
Yours truly,
The Latinx
Oh and by the way, rich racist "progressive" Anglo maricon, thanks for the F word. We all need the laughs. LOL
I have discussed this with a few African American neighbors who have not gotten vaccinated. You are correct that the idea that it is all just a racist society and they do not have access to vaccines is mostly bunk. And does that community a disservice as it makes it easier to justify them not getting vaccinated and thereby discouraged vaccination.
But I doubt it has much if anything re what Kamala thinks. For those politically active enough to care and know what she thinks, most of them will likely have gotten vaccinated already as " good liberal Democrats".
The ones that are reluctant are those that are less political and do not follow everything so closely. You know like average people who have busy real lives and do not sit here posting on message boards like us. And they might not actually know even who Kamala Harris is.
What I experienced is that the African Americans who I talked to just have not thought it through all that much, and are more persuadable because of that. And were more open to discussion if you are polite and not arrogant about it.
And one interesting thing I heard a few times is that none of their friends and family have gotten vaccinated so why should they? Even though logically that should make you want to get vaccinated more. I think there could be a domino effect where if you get a good number to get vaccinated, others will just follow their example. This is not the same in those who I have discussed it with who are more right wing resistors.
And I was not quite expecting that, in the African American vaccine resisters who I have talked to, the distrust of the scientific authorities especially fauci was as strong as it was in conservatives.
If the Biden administration wants to encourage vaccination, get fauci off the air if you do not fire him. He is the worst possible person to try to persuade vaccine resistors.
So far I think I have definitely gotten two persons to get vaccinated who otherwise would not ( family members from conservative perspective) and was at least part of what got two more. Among African American neighbors, I think I have made headway with two of them.
But there are others in both groups I have hlt a brick wall. Including a 62 y.o family member with other risk factors that I really worry about.
What do they have against Fauci?
Some people love to hate people who actually know stuff. Fauci clearly annoys or turns off some people simply because they don’t like anybody being smarter than themselves. (Except of course when they’re at risk of immediate death or in intense pain. Then they want the smartest medical personnel they can find.)
The "progressive" racist asks about "they." You really couldn't make this shit up. It's a scene from a Tom Wolfe novel. LOL
Telling lies and misleading to try to push people to do what he thinks is best for them instead of just saying the facts as best he knows and letting them decide for themselves.
And it is the mask position switcheroo which was the big factor there ( although there were other examples of the same sort of thing).
And what I do not get is then he admits and almost brags about doing so, when he could have possibly pretended that he just changed his position based on new facts or even just got it wrong at first.
The mask thing sunk through because it was just too obvious even to those not as scientifically literate that his initial position made no sense.
What color is the sky in your world? For someone who style themselves 'rational', you have some highly irrational expectations of how people will take words, that is to say, seriously.
I am not sure it is even productive anymore to try to respond to your posts because I just do not even understand what point you are trying to make. I do not appreciate the unnecessarily insulting tone which I try to avoid ( although it just seems now unavoidable here a bit with you) and really could ignore that if what you state made any sense to me as a reply to what I said.
But will try one last time.
I was relating what I got when I was trying to convince some African Americans to get vaccinated. I would expect to hear they distrusted fauci from conservatives but more of a surprise from African Americans ( and they clearly were Democrats although not far left).
And does seem distrust of the experts and specifically fauci was a factor.
I fail to see how the confusing comment re being irrational as to how people take words is relevant to that. Were you trying to say that I should have thought they were lying to me? I don't get it. And would add they brought up fauci not me.
Of course this is just anecdotal for a few and might just be I happened to talk to unusual people. And i live in a condo complex with almost all ranging solidly around middle class including African Americans and I could see reasons why maybe both lower and upper class African Americans might stick with the more partisan democratic views.
And I was responding to YOU who asked why, which I thought sounded like maybe leading to a civil discussion.
I do see why they distrust fauci and agree to some extent but maybe not all. But one thing I think for sure, even if you think fauci is the greatest, if you are trying to convince a vaccine sceptic to get vaccinated, and they distrust fauci, the worst thing to do is to try to convince them that they should trust Fauci. Will not work.
And the mask thing is what I heard from all who distrust Fauci. Conservatives bring up other examples of manipulative statements. Such as moving the estimate for herd immunity based on how much he thought he could get people to go, rather than based on new facts. And fauci himself stated that effectively which was dumb as there were solid factual reasons to move the goal posts on here immunity based on new facts. Even if he was really doing it for manipulative reasons, why say that if you could say it was based on reality.
I am surprised and maybe not surprised you do not remember the mask issue because this is well known. Fauci at first said no reason to wear masks and they are almost useless to prevent virus spread, but needed to be preserved for medical use where they help a lot. Then later said he was fibbing because he did not want a run on masks so hospitals could not get them.
If he was fibbing, it did not even work as that just obviously made little sense to most. And a bad idea to blow your credibility on a fib that does not work so now it is gone when you need it.
And I have some suspicion that maybe he is lying about lying. I.e. he was actually not fibbing at first and really did believe initially that masks were useless generally. And then changed his mind as more facts came out. And that actually would be more understandable as there were new facts that made masks more likely to help ( one being that we came to a greater understanding that is spread largely as an aerosol.
I did here his first statements and they did seem more sincere and logical than later statements. If he was fibbing then he was pretty good at it then.
People will understand and forgive someone being wrong at first because of incomplete info and later just admitting they were and changing their mind. Realizing they were misled " for their own good" as you think you know what is best for them is unforgivable to many.
And never answered your first question.
What color is my sky? Since I live in los angeles, too often grey or brown ( actually not so true anymore).
I do not appreciate the unnecessarily insulting tone which I try to avoid ...
Right back at ya and twice as hard. Your post -- the post I was responding to -- was _extremely_ insulting. Did you really think you could go on as if the default assumption of your characterization of Fauci's statements was that it was true, in fact, objectively undisputable? What a slimy debate tactic.
No, I reject your interpretation and reject it with the prejudice and contempt it deserves. What you want to get us to implicitly accept is that your version of events is 'just the facts' when actually it is just opinion, and a poison-pen opinion at that.
You owe me and everyone else here an apology, along with a public statement that you won't try to pull that kind of gaslighting crap again. Otherwise, you're just another lame troll trying to sea lion his abuse.
Thanks, Anglo "progressive" racist. LOL
Signed,
The Latinx
I've heard people say this about an early point where there was equivocating over when or where you should wear a mask and this seems to be the one and only thing they remember about the subject.
But I follow current events pretty closely and I don't even remember it happening. All I ever heard was wear a mask when around others, and that was about it.
I think this is an urban legend.
Sure you may either die or suffer long-term health complications if you catch Covid, but you can't put a price on what it feels like to pwn the libs by refusing the vaccine.
Do you really believe what you wrote or are you joking?
If you really think that some conservatives are vaccine resistant because they just want to " own the libs" even though they really do know the vaccines are effective, so they are risking their own life knowingly to get that satisfaction, you are totally ignorant as to others think. And even if a really small number might be willing to take a small risk for that ( really stupid) they would also then be knowingly risking their friends and family too and not doing that.
Is not the real thing at stake here, from your perspective, the idea that more people getting vaccinated is a good thing for all. So you would want to actually understand others vaccine hesitancy so maybe just maybe you could persuade them?
Whether or not you or i think it is based on correct facts or logic, the vaccine resistant truly do believe that the vaccines are more risky than taking chance of getting covid.
Some reasons are grounded in actual decent scientific arguments even if I think the other side has the better case. Others really are just nonsense ( the magnetization) but are still believed by some). And a big issue I find is that too many are just missing the issue of the benefit to others like family and friends to getting thr vaccine even if it is " not worth it" to them personally. Those who are younger or who already had covid might be this category. And they just did not consider that so when you gently point that out, it can change minds.
But biggest issue I see is that most just are those who have busy lives and do not have graduate degrees. They do not spend a lot of time reading studies and analyzing them. They would have largely depended on the " experts" they trust to tell them the facts and reccomend what to do. And those experts like fauci just destroyed their credibility with too many by playing political games and trying to manipulate and, with the right, clearly being politically partisan.
And that hurts when it is something like vaccination when you need to convince.
It might be interesting to see a Kevin Drum Special chart on the 20-some symptoms for long-haulers by percentage of those 25% of COVID-19 victims experiencing them. (Obviously there will be overlaps due to some victims experiencing more than one of the symptoms on this list.)
Is it the case that a large percent are having the more serious symptoms like brain fog (S1 BBB crossing-related?), seizure, stroke, MIS, SOB?
Or is it that a large company, or even majority, of this 25% of C19 victims experience primarily the other, less serious symptoms such as insomnia, head-, stomach-, or muscle ache, postural hypotension? (Items the recognition of often suffer from recency effects.)
The answer here matters for the purpose for which that 25% number is put forth. If you tell people already untrusting of the government that they "have a 25% chance of having long term ill effects including... stroke, seizure, multi-organ autoimmune disorders, MIS" and it turns out these more dangerous complications effect a cohort more on the order of 2 or 3 percent (or even fewer?), you're just going to push them away.
And while I recognize the plural of anecdote is not data, the commentariat here seems to think anecdotes matter, so I'll offer one of my own. Among the people I know who've had C-19, there are some 40 I know well enough to inquire about recovery and ongoing symptoms, ranging in age from young 30s to just turned 80. Only one of the 40+ has a lingering symptom presented on this list (anosmia) - and she's had that for 25 years pre-Covid.
Look at the 3:27 response by cold in the july 10 update above. He cites the actual study which his earlier news article was talking about ( although I do not think he actually read it as it disproved the point he was trying to make).
It is a swiss study conducting from those who had covid real early in the pandemic and followed up at two times later. And in the tables it shows the reported symptoms and severity. Fatigue was most common and mostly not severe. Clearly the reported follow up symptoms are skewed toward common things like fatigue and headaches and also towards mild symptoms.
I think the study is flawed ( as somewhat honestly admitted), as the symptoms are self reported and they had a significant number drop out. Plus I would say that asking people to think about follow up symptoms is going to make them tend to feel they had them.
Also it seemed to largely exclude those fully asymptomatic ( only 4% reported nothing) so mostly a study on those with symptomatic covid.
But even ignoring those flaws and taking it as face value ther these are correct %ages of those having the symptoms after having covid, the types of symptoms and severity reported do not seem that much different than what you would expect for the general population at any time. Do not most people have at least one of the symptoms at some time at least mildly every month or so?