CiteXieAlAlyEtc
Joined 3 years ago
Karma
26
Submissions
10
Member since
Aug 30
Recent submissions
Comment · 2 years ago
Seconding the sentiment here. Quibbling about "causal" being used in the title aside, we're building more observational evidence that there's negative cognitive effects associated with covid and long covid.
Zhao et al '24 [0] comes immediately to mind; operating on a radically different set of people and data sets from Al-Aly and the gang, they find substantial differences in simple reaction time between covid and no-covid groups.
It seems we're in a phase of the pandemic where denying long tail effects is going to become more prominent as concerning evidence continues to pile up. The name of the game is still to reduce your infection count as much as possible. Stay safe out there, share aerosols unprotected at your own peril.
[0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5... "Long COVID is associated with severe cognitive slowing: a multicentre cross-sectional study"
Comment · 2 years ago
the most underrated comment on this thread; i cackled out loud, thank you.
Shaviro's "Without Criteria" which discusses this connection was an absolute delight.
Comment · 3 years ago
(threading along for a minor nitpick on above post)
Ya, correct enough.
> > Higher mushroom consumption was associated with lower risk of total cancer (pooled RR for the highest compared with the lowest consumption groups: 0.66; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.78; n = 17)
> Specifically the “0.66; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.78; n = 17” line?
For a given study with a cohort of A entities, and a count of events A_event, and a cohort of B entities, with count of events B_event; the A_risk will be A_event/A, B_risk will be B_event/B; and the risk ratio (RR) between the cohorts will be RR = A_risk/B_risk. [wiki gives a cursory math explainer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_risk#Numerical_exampl...] If the RR here is lower than 1, whatever distinguishes cohort A from B is interpreted as reducing the risk.
The linked study does a systematic review of the literature. From that review, they ultimately find 17 studies which are suitably comparable under their criteria. Each of these 17 studies are observational studies over different sizes of cohorts (table 1 in linked paper characterizes the n for each study) that report their own risk ratios (figure 3 in the paper plots each of those RR), then they pooled those risk ratios with a random effects model to synthesize each of the different risk ratios between those studies into the single pooled RR within some confidence interval quoted above. ("pooled" because it's pooling the results from multiple studies.)
>sample size n = only 17 after all
The nitpick is that n=17 is referring to the number of papers pooled, not the population sampled in the underlying observational studies. (that number is higher than 17; lee et al in table 1/ fig 3 is n=112,991).
This chapter in "Doing Meta-analysis in R" gives a rundown on the mechanics of pooling effect sizes with random-effects models (as done in this paper): https://bookdown.org/MathiasHarrer/Doing_Meta_Analysis_in_R/...
Odds Ratios and Risk Ratios pop up in a lot of medical studies, there's a number of papers that can help clarify their differences and pitfalls (Viera here is a reasonable entry point: https://sma.org/southern-medical-journal/article/odds-ratios...)
Hope that helps ^_^
Comment · 3 years ago
> The COVID devastation is also about long COVID, and even people who had COVID but either recovered “fully” or never displayed symptoms. None of this is over, and we are so, so fucked
You're right by way of the literature available to evaluate this claim. (Even jobs numbers are starting to note that some amount of the worker shortage is likely related to long COVID) Most of the "oh i got it [a few times] and i'm fine" posts are ignoring the long tail risks here.
Unfortunately, it will take 5-20 years for many of the worst long tail consequences of mass spread of sars-cov-2 to become imminently clear. (Enjoy access to your medical specialists while you can! There's not enough slack in the system for doubled-or-worse hazard ratios for most serious conditions, lol!) Decision makers broadly prioritized public dining over prudence. For this choice, we get at least an entire generation picking up sars-cov-2, likely yearly, and our reward will be a horrifying number of early deaths and disability.
This tragedy is so senseless and so avoidable. Zero COVID was and still is the rational strategy; "Let-er-rip" (and the GBD by extension) is anything but rational.
Poz rates in NY state have been sitting near 60ish percent, don't forget your well fitted respirator, usps is doing another round of free test distribution (RATs but better than nothing), and good luck out there. solidarity.
Comment · 3 years ago
To be sort of nitpicky: the underlying study [0] does not argue a direct causal connection. This is one of many current observational studies reporting on population level trends and measuring associated incidence ratios/risk ratios/hazard ratios.
That said, dismissing the COVID correlation entirely out of hand also feels wrong here; in part because there are meta analysis in the literature [1] that show risk ratios very comparable to increases here.
To compare from the quote in the article:
> Rates of type 2 diabetes were 62% higher (IRR, 1.62) in 2020 to 2021 than in 2016 to 2019. The incidence of type 2 diabetes rose from 14.8 to 24.7 per 100,000 person-years over that time.
To this in Ssentongo et al:
> Of the 8 studies that characterized the risk of incident diabetes among survivors of COVID-19, the pooled point estimates was 1.66 (95% CI 1.38; 2.00, Fig. 2), implying a 66% higher risk of diabetes.
covid-19 is a complex disease that is correlated to problems with almost every major system in the body (See any of the cites implied by my handle), to suggest it's not a factor at all is very likely incorrect.
[0] Mefford et al, "Incidence of Diabetes Among Youth Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic" https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... [1] Ssentongo et al, "Association of COVID-19 with diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-24185-7
Comment · 3 years ago
> However, I understand that not everyone can afford to keep buying good masks
As a tip for fellow price-constrained folks out there: upgrading to an elastomeric respirator can help substantially with costs. Dentec's marketing copy suggests about a 90% reduction in costs compared to using disposable respirators [0]; given a pack of 50 duckbills on projectn95 [1] is roughly the same price as a new elastomeric w/ filters [2], seems to check out.
As an added benefit, going in on an elastomeric can help a bit with both mask fit and comfort.
[0] https://dentecsafety.com/usa/products/respiratory-protection... [1] https://www.projectn95.org/products/aci-surgical-n95-respira... [2] https://www.criticaltool.com/style/dentec-400nx-black-half-m...
Comment · 3 years ago
I appreciate that these conversations have the same futility as trying to push for condom use during the aids/hiv crisis. The next 5-20 years hold a lot of unneeded suffering that will be difficult to witness and experience. :( It doesn't have to be this way, and we can make far better choices.
The rational, self-interested strategy right now is to minimize viral load, minimize exposure, and minimize infection count. well fitted, high quality masks and respirators are a component of that strategy. if empirical appeals to the literature do not motivate adopting that strategy, nor do emotional appeals to those currently suffering with long covid; that's fine. at some level i'd hoped the detailed vlogs about physics girl's suffering with pasc would have helped people stay safe, this has obviously not happened. it's perhaps Tragic, but it's certainly A Choice One Can Make.
As for myself, i'm not looking to rawdog with people i'm not fluid bonded with. I'm certainly not looking to swap aerosols unprotected with people i don't know. The costs are far too high for a payoff that is far too low. solidarity and may the odds remain ever in your favor.
Comment · 3 years ago
> Personally I think the quality of life loss of wearing masks is heavier than that of getting COVID.
You will lose way more DALYs catching COVID (especially multiple times) than you will wearing a mask. We are already seeing the emerging auto-immune effects at a population level as well (rising fungal infections, etc) :\
Comment · 3 years ago
Long COVID/PASC is absolutely a ticking time bomb for the return to office crowd. A previous story on here discussed the "echo chamber of CEO feelings" around the decision to force RTO (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37408985), prominently missing from that article was any grappling with the tradeoff for RTO during substantial community covid spread (disabling anywhere from 16-30% of your employees sharing aerosols.)
Good luck out there, don't forget to mask up!
Comment · 3 years ago
The primary thing I don't understand about lab leak and bioweapon theories surrounding SARS-Cov-2 (And if you're an advocate of ideas in this vicinity I'd love a deeper explanation) is this:
If this disease has human origins, accidental or otherwise, why allow it to spread unrestrained?
We know the disease spreads through aerosol transmission. We know that it presents serious long term risks for people who catch it, even those who only have a mild asymptomatic case. Hazard ratios for most "scary" health impacts (strokes, heart attack, diabetes, etc) sit anywhere from 1.75 to near 3, even in broader meta analyses. We know that reinfection can magnify the risk profile of the disease. Estimates for pasc/long covid sit any where between 10 and 30% of all cases for at least 6 months after infection.
Community transmission, as measured by waste water numbers, has been at or above the levels observed during the delta wave for more than half of the months since the omicron wave. We've abandoned masking, destroyed testing infrastructure, indoor air quality is still not substantially better than it was pre 2019, and we have done nothing to bring ANY interventions back.
Isn't all of this just a failure? Or at least a contradiction? If you believe that this disease originated in a lab, why does it make sense to welcome it into your body without any protective measures? Every person on this subcomittee is talking about this lab leak while making sure that they take no visible measures to protect themselves from it, at a time when there's still nonzero community transmission. And now, of course, wastewater numbers are increasing and we are on the precipice of another period of delta-wave-level community transmission.
If this was some nefarious bioweapons play, isn't the response to let it spread and to give up on the disease a confirmation that that such bioweapons are a viable strategy? Why aren't rational actors that believe in these theories of covid's origins doing everything to ensure that they do not get the disease and in turn everything to bring transmission of the disease down to 0?
Someone, please, make it make sense to me.
may your mask fit well
may your air be clean
and may your competitors return-to-office
so your fully remote business can reap the rewards
of a sort of necropolitical human capital arbitrage.
solidarity, survive another week.