The long and short of it

It wasn't so incredibly clear to me, but there does seem to be a lot of long COVID about and it does seem to be a bad thing, best avoided. This prompted by speed reading reference 1, followed up with a peek at reference 2. With the result that I checked with the FT, to find that they are still producing their death graphic, the current version of which is reproduced above.

Reference 2, itself six months old, was a meta-analysis which pooled data from 18 studies, covering around 10,000 patients, which reported between January 2020 and August 2021. The story here seems to be that getting mild COVID as opposed to severe COVID does not mean that you will not get long COVID. That around a third of people who get COVID will go on to get long COVID. And lastly that 'fatigue, cognitive dysfunction (brain fog, memory issues, attention disorder) and sleep disturbances appear to be key features of post-COVID-19 syndrome. Psychiatric manifestations (sleep disturbances, anxiety, and depression) are common and increase significantly in prevalence over time'.

Some methodological issues with meta-studies of this sort are addressed at references 3 and 4.

Another part of the story seems to be that now people are not dying in such large numbers - although deaths are still running at around 400 a day in the US - we have taken our eye off this ball and our governments have moved onto other matters.

So some people believe that we have become far too relaxed about all the COVID circulating in our communities. People who are perhaps closer to the Chinese position in these matters than to that of our former fat leader, very much a 'let it all rip' merchant.

I suppose that here at Epsom, we shall continue with our somewhat isolated, pensioner lifestyle. We will do some communal activities, will do some concerts and such like, but otherwise largely avoid busy places. Not so easy for people who still have to earn their living.

References

Reference 1: Long COVID Experts: So Incredibly Clear What's at Stake - Claire Sibonney, Medscape - 2022

Reference 2: Mid and long-term neurological and neuropsychiatric manifestations of post-COVID-19 syndrome: A meta-analysis - Lavienraj Premraj, Nivedha V Kannapadi, Jack Briggs, Stella M Seal, Denise Battaglini, Jonathon Fanning, Jacky Suen, Chiara Robba, John Fraser, Sung-Min Cho - 2022. An international effort, but maybe with John Hopkins in the lead.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_Reporting_Items_for_Systematic_Reviews_and_Meta-Analyses. PRISMA was used by the authors of reference 2 to guide their work.

Reference 4: Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement - David Moher, Alessandro Liberati, Jennifer Tetzlaff, Douglas G Altman - 2009. More on PRISMA.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/07/out-of-first-wood.html. My last thoughts on this subject.

Group search keys: FT, graphic.