cmv: many people online, especially on Reddit are unreasonable about COVID

I would like to preface this by saying I was never a covid denier or anything like that. I got vaccinated and the booster, and when it was required I always wore a mask. Even after requirements dropped I still wore it in hospitals and when I was sick. I do also know people who got COVID and some who died, so I take the virus seriously.

Therefore, I think I should be allowed to call out the number of people on reddit who still fear monger about covid and its honestly worrying. What spurred this was recently a saw a post about some of the long term issues that can be caused by covid, such as difficulty concentrating and exhaustion, and the precautions people can take to avoid this. They used the umbrella term long covid which I have heard floating around before but never did much research into.

I originally thought long covid was a disease, Its not, wikipedia describes it as a syndrome and states that the cause is not really known. More importantly, many of the symptoms of "long covid" to me have nothing to do with covid. They state things like difficulty concentrating, fatigue, lack of motivation, mental health issues like anxiety/ depression and some other things. Like guys, I am not a medical professional but seeing as long COVID is not a disease, I think you have it wrong. The reason you could see yourself feeling more sick and tired after covid is because you were not able to exercise and had to quarantine while in covid, therefore making you feel worse, especially as you were likely not eating well during this time. If you then get into a cycle and continue to eat poorly and be sedentary you will not feel well even after recovering.

Things like lack of attention span and mental health issues can also be because you had to quarantine and had to be locked in your room by yourself and spent all day doom scrolling and stuff. Obviously i am not talking about auto immune disease which is an actual problem.

The reason this post and discussion as a whole especially annoyed me is because of how they said it should be handled. They said the solution to this is for people to start wearing masks and social distancing again, or even quarantining. Again, I wore masks during covid and recommend sick people still do, but the fact that Long COVID is not well understood and people are suggesting such drastic measures is borderline psuedo science in my opinion COVID was a major pandemic, yet it is no longer classified as a pandemic and we need to learn to adapt as a society. We did not live in a permanent state of lockdown due to any other pandemic, yet this is what these long COVID fear mongers are suggesting.

Not to get personal but I was in highschool when COVID started, and of course had to deal with lockdowns for about 2 years. It was an incredibly difficult period for me and even after lockdowns passed I had many issues both health and mentally due to being locked down for so long, I noticed people around me and society also being affected. Which is part of the reason why I think discussion around long COVID is not based on the actual virus, especially as doctors don't know much about it yet. Many long COVID fearmongers say stuff like i'm going to start quarantining myself and going out less. This is why I think this discussion is downright dangerous, you not being able to go out while sick is part of the reason for your fatigue.

COVID had a major impact on society, it killed millions, and effected billions mentally and physically, not to mention drastically effecting the economy which has ramifications to this day. So please, do not suggest people start locking down again due to "long covid", which is a syndrome doctors know little about. Especially as many of the symptoms are likely not caused by covid, but rather due to people not being able to live healthily while sick.