Just Looking

This "study" is dangerous and misleading. Here's why: They compared people who tested positive for COVID early in the pandemic (2020–21) with people who tested negative, then followed both groups for two years. The problem: the people who tested negative didn't stay uninfected. Follow-up ran through Delta and Omicron. The authors themselves report 20% of controls had a positive PCR within two years, and that only counts recorded tests. By Feb 2022, CDC blood surveys estimated ~58% of Americans had been infected. So by year two, they're comparing people infected early with people infected later. Of course the difference shrinks toward zero. That's control group catching up, not long COVID resolving. The obvious check is to compare against similar people in the years before the pandemic. They had the data: everyone in the study needed claims from 2019, and they used four years of prior medical history. They didn't run it. Not sure if this guy is just really stupid, or actively evil.

The NBA injury thing speaks to a larger issue around now Long COVID is defined and talked about. You have a player - Porzingis - who is clearly suffering from some sort of severe manifestation of Long COVID. His career appears to have been ended by it, and his health has impacted the teams depending on him. But then, at the same time, you can see other players across the league who don't seem to have the same symptoms, aren't maybe stuck in bed, but nevertheless are removed from play by ruptured Achilles and other injuries which may not have happened had they not been infected with COVID. This is the bigger, more sinister version of Long COVID - the gradual destruction of people's bodies from repeat infections. The power in society has defined the language of Long COVID in such a way as to effectively make the second group invisible, even though it may be as impactful or more so than the first group.