Reply to NIH Long Covid study

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]CDC also released report on long covid today

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7121e1.htm
[/quote]

That's another high-quality study.  Though, it has a rather significant limitation, briefly discussed near the end of the paper:
[i]"Finally, the study only assessed conditions thought to be attributable to COVID-19 or post-COVID illness, which might have biased RRs away from the null. For example, clinicians might have been more likely to document possible post-COVID conditions among case-patients. In addition, because several conditions examined are also risk factors for moderate to severe COVID-19, it is possible that case-patients were more likely to have had an existing condition that was not documented in their EHR during the year preceding their COVID-19 diagnosis, resulting in overestimated risk for this group."[/i]

That is, the study targeted conditions that doctors would be more likely to look for in post-COVID patients.  And while the paper didn't quite come out and say it, the same thing could be said for the patients themselves. Given the media coverage of long COVID, post-COVID patients may be more inclined to notice and seek care for both conditions.  Both of these would lead to an overestimated risk associated with COVID infections.

The second half of the above quote is equally important.  It's acknowledging that many of the conditions they were looking for as possible "long COVID" complications also happen to be substantial risk factors for severe illness from COVID infections.  So, were those previously-unknown preexisting conditions that may have contributed to a more severe COVID illness?  Or did a COVID infection actually lead to those conditions?  They can't really tell from the data they had.

Or, letting XKCD illustrate the concept: 
[img]https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/correlation.png[/img][/quote]

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