Hypochondriacs are a thing: they are out there. Some of them have gotten Covid-19, and that of course turns into their new obsession.
Lung scarring is certainly real and can take a long time (up to a year) to fully heal. This isn't imaginary: lung function and capacity can be quantified and measured.
I don't doubt that tissue damage from Covid isn't real; like people having loss of smell or heart trouble.
But there is considerable scaremongering around it which plays into the psychology of hypochondria.
A healthy dose of skepticism is needed here, and remembering where the burden of proof lies.
Simply, too many people have had Covid to be able to squarely blame prior Covid infection for everything weird that's happening to everyone health-wise.
Maybe those people would have developed those symptoms anyway. A pandemic broke out and so, like millions of others, they got it, and now their inevitable predicament (those weird symptoms) get blamed on that, which may be wrong.
All sorts of people had all sorts of weird health issues; and now all sorts of people with weird health issues also have a Covid-19 history, because it's common to have one.
If Covid were a rare disease, it would be different. Say that only 100 people in the United States got Covid-19 in a particular year, and then 79 of them had weird symptoms months and months later. That would strongly indicate there is something there.
Look, we all have to die. From now on, whenever someone dies (spontaneously, not accidentally), do we blame it on Covid-19, if they ever had it?
A: Did you hear? Bob died last week. Heart attack. Just turned 69.
B: Yikes, I just remembered something: didn't he have Covid-19 back in 2021 when he was, what, ... 43?
A and B, in unison: OMG, long Covid!
B: Caught up with him.
A: Got him in the end, wow.
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