Comment by logicalmonster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by logicalmonster | Hacker News Reader

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This article had some interesting comments about steroids, which I think are underrated for solving a whole bunch of medical problems.

But I think something is missing here in the discussion of "Long Covid". If anybody knows, I'm curious about what prior research into post-viral syndrome exists for previous colds, flus, and illnesses? Ideally, this research would be pre-2020 so it's not tainted by current biases.

I hypothesize that "Long Covid" symptoms are mostly the kinds of symptoms that have existed for all of human history following bad colds and flus, the only difference now is that society is looking for and fixated on this far more closely. My reason for believing this is my own experience. In past years, I've had bad flus that made me feel like crap and fatigued for months afterward to the point I could barely function. If I was concerned about Long Covid back then, I'm sure I'd have been panicked and making far more of a deal about it than I did back then.

Isn't this then good that this kind of condition gets more attention?

I think it is because there is then hope that some remedies are actually looked for.

One interesting finding shows that virus replication in various tissues was detected months after initial replication. Perhaps it is common for other viruses too and this could be one reason behind prolonged difficulties. Perhaps there is something else in play but with such attention, maybe something finally settles.

> Isn't this then good that this kind of condition gets more attention?

Of course. Helping people and easing the symptoms of illness is a great thing.

I don't know where you live, but some areas are more scared of Covid than others. My primary concern is getting back to normal, and I think some peoples' overblown concerns around things like Long Covid is leaving some people to have an inability ever let go of their Covid security blankets. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if anybody wants to go around wearing a mask or getting weekly or daily booster shots for the rest of their lives. I care that their fear is leading them to force their choices on all of society with no end in sight.

I live in EU but not in the country of origin. But I keep close eye on it. People are tired of some regulations (I could not call mask requirement a restriction, it is mostly common sense to wear it currently) but the overblown optimism about mildness of omicron makes me worry because of older people who are still not vaccinated (an there are plenty of them) have similar risk to end up in hospital than before but it is completely not discussed at all. If they were vaccinated, it would be really possible to leave this damn thing behind at the moment regardless of high infection rates (it will still hurt economy when too many people are on the sick leave but it would be a different problem then).

> I could not call mask requirement a restriction

This comment is a real head-scratcher for me.

Government forcing somebody to wear a mask against their will is not some kind of restriction?

In principle, it is not more a restriction that government forcing you to wear pants in public (and they will force you if you try to challenge this).

Not allowing you at all to somewhere or not after some time is a real restriction.

Just my subjective opinion, but I think comparing requiring masks to requiring pants is a pretty awful analogy.

Whatever you want to say about the ethics and experience of wearing some kind of pants in public, that custom has been part of humanity for at least hundreds of years, if not many thousands of years. (I don't know the entire history of humans wearing pants)

There is no human on Earth who grew up and didn't experience some kind of pants as a normal thing. We didn't all wake up one morning and suddenly get forced to wear pants. Pants-wearing is all we've ever experienced. Whereas unless you're from some parts of Asia (I believe), wearing masks has never been an ordinary part of your life experience. And even there, it was always a courtesy and not a requirement. Being forced to wear a mask to buy food is a new thing, and certainly a restriction on human freedom.

And as a further disagreement with your analogy, pants play no role in restricting many useful things like human communication and childhood development, whereas masks do negatively impact many aspects of life. I live in an immigrant neighborhood and I can't understand many shopkeepers garbled English through masks. And what about people who are hard of hearing and need to read lips? And how are kids expected to learn normal communication skills if they can't see body language like smiles and frowns and learn to interact with other humans? The cost of masks, unlike the costs of pants, is considerable.

And? Pants clearly restricts many important functions in human life. Do you feel somehow restricted that you have to take them off to perform them? Does this somehow restrict you that you can't go nearly anywhere without pants? No, because you are used to them, as you are correctly stating.

Yes, masks are new and I completely understand that wearing a mask in public is a nuisance. But that is all. There is no need to have complete mental meltdown because of it like too many people appear to have. It is all in heads. There is no need to stress about it. People in Japan have mask wearing custom for long time and they do just fine and we would also survive this. Eventually it will be over. Very likely soon because the cases are going down almost everywhere by now.

> There is no need to have complete mental meltdown because of it like too many people appear to have. It is all in heads. There is no need to stress about it.

One difference between humans and animals is that we have the capability to understand abstract concepts, and we can make value judgements that there are some things that are more important than satisfying the basic necessities for survival.

I'd say that we should be glad that there are always some people who find human freedom to be one of those values worth stressing out and pushing for. The world would be a far worse place if there was never any pushback against blindly following bad orders.

That's about it. You've chosen your place and I've chosen mine.

Right. I do not see any contradiction between using masks and freedom. During difficult times some changes are necessary so we could return back to normal faster and with less impact.

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