Researchers must begin to speak with greater humility about what’s being called “long covid.”

Fatigue, “brain fog”, dizziness, and hair loss are very non-specific symptoms. Millions develop such symptoms every year — and yes, sometimes depression & anxiety are drivers.

The symptoms, and the suffering, are real. But proclaiming that the novel coronavirus is the definitive cause etiology of such common symptoms must not be done lightly.

This is the link to the screened paragraph at the beginning of the thread https://www.wsj.com/articles/doctors-begin-to-crack-covids-mysterious-long-term-effects-11604252961

*screencapped

The novel coronavirus is first and foremost a respiratory virus that sometimes causes severe pneumonia, which is how and why it kills. Patients critically ill with severe pneumonia also develop all sorts of problems in other organs, sadly. Critical illness does this.

This virus can cause problems in the heart or brain *in the absence of* severe pneumonia, but this is very rare, and is also true of other respiratory viruses including influenza...

But I feel that we are making claims that go beyond the evidence by suggesting that this respiratory virus causes a mysterious, chronic, possibly permanent disabling multi-system disease among those with mild COVID, defined as URI/flu-like symptoms with recovery at home.