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A third of COVID survivors suffer neurological or mental disorders… really?

How many people do you know who have had covid-19? I know eleven in total (including myself and three relatives), all ‘survivors’. Eleven is a very small statistical sample, but if one third of covid-19 ‘survivors’ suffer neurological or mental disorders, I would expect to know at least one person thus afflicted, which I do not. One third is really a lot of people.

What are the experiences of others?

Is this just yet another contrived pile of steaming bullshit produced by one of the ‘nudge’ units (to add to all the others that quickly vanish down the memory hole when falsified), or is my sample just too small to see the wider picture?

32 comments to A third of COVID survivors suffer neurological or mental disorders… really?

  • Gene

    From a quick scan of the article, it looks like the “disorders” they refer to include “anxiety and depression.” Which of course afflict vast numbers of people just due to lockdowns, stress, and destroyed careers, which are the direct results of government policy.

    Pull those cases out of the mix and I’ll bet we’re talking about not much.

  • William O. B'Livion

    To use a Trumpism, “fake news”.

    Also “Panic Porn”.

  • No mention of how these numbers do in the general, non-vaccinated population. As far as attempts to mislead go, this is pretty weak by Reuters…

  • Snorri Godhi

    You know what i think: the probability of a person suffering from mental disorders is much higher than 1/3, irrespective of catching covid … in fact, it is close to 1. And incidentally, that means that we are not reliable detectors of mental disorders in others 🙂

    But for the record, i have calculated the probability P11 of 11 people NOT getting neuro/mental disorders, conditional of the probability P1 that one person does NOT get such disorder being 1/3.
    P11 is 1.16%.

  • William O. B'Livion

    You know what i think: the probability of a person suffering from mental disorders is much higher than 1/3, irrespective of catching covid … in fact, it is close to 1

    According to at least one popular psychologist the average person today has levels of anxiety that would have been considered “clinical” 60 years ago.

    And this was before the Covidiocy.

    You add to that the pathologizing of perfectly normal feelings–when a loved one dies you SHOULD be a little depressed. When you lose your job (or you industry is going away) you SHOULD feel a little anxious[1], and almost everyone in a developed or developing nation is going to have enough diagnostic criteria to to SOMETHING in the DSM IV, much less the broader V. If you’re not quite a bit anxious and/or depressed right now you’re either living in a undeveloped country or you’re a fookin’ sociopath.

    [1] There are people who have structural issues that make them predisposed to “real” depression, and who need some form of psychiatric intervention. There are others who have COMPLETELY screwed up families/lives and need other interventions. I’m not writing about that. I’m writing about those things that happen to otherwise functional adults and trigger emotional states that are short term and *normal*.

  • Tim the Coder

    After a year of lockdown-induced mental disorders, how would you tell what was specific to a Covid-19 infection?
    I’ve had the thing, so have others in my family, and their friends. I’ve also had the PVS.

    Nobody I know/knew has died of Covid, but 2 have killed themselves because of lockdown.
    So that makes Boris a far greater cause of death than the WuFlu. For generations into the future, his name, and that of his hopeless flunkeys and “modellers” will be cursed.

    The religious atleast will have the consolation of hoping in their eternal hellfire to give them time to reflect on the ruin they have caused this country. And hellfire of a different sort should be visited upon WIV who made the damn thing.

  • PJH

    It’ll be an overly encompassing definition of “neurological/mental disorder.”

    Akin to “saying no to someone asking you out” equating to “sexual assault” in some of the more fanciful media articles telling us all our mothers and daughters are getting raped daily at universities et alia.

    See also: what’s the proportion of those who haven’t caught CV19 likewise suffering said conditions, using the same metrics?

  • Lee Moore

    Snorri : You know what i think: the probability of a person suffering from mental disorders is much higher than 1/3, irrespective of catching covid … in fact, it is close to 1.

    I think Snorri has it. In my experience, pretty much everyone is totally bonkers, but fortunately not homicidally so. I regard this – the realisation – as part of growing up. At school there were kids who seemed weird. The rest seemed normal. But it was just camouflage.

    After a while you realise everyone’s weird, but in most cases, none the worse for being so.

  • John Lewis

    “The new findings, published in the Lancet Psychiatry journal”.

    Despite being a complete layman I view the Lancets highly subjective pronouncements as having contributed significantly to the worldwide overreaction over the past year.

  • djm

    Is this just yet another contrived pile of steaming bullshit produced by one of the ‘nudge’ units

    Yes

    Change my mind

  • Sam Duncan

    How many people do you know who have had covid-19?

    None. Or, rather, I had three fairly distant acquaintances, all in care homes, who were said to have died of it. I know people who know people who’ve apparently had it; they’ve had time off work because someone tested positive, and so forth. A neighbour thought he had it a year ago, and has since decided it probably wasn’t after all. But people in my immediate circle, friends and family, people I’ve actually spoken to in the last 18 months or so? Not one.

    Does that mean I’m a “denier”? Dunno. I mean, it seems to be out there. Somewhere. But it sure as hell isn’t the Great Plague.

  • bobby b

    “How many people do you know who have had covid-19?”

    My sibling is admin for a small chain of care homes. She lost ten residents to it. Another ten hospitalized but recovered – none of this “long-term Covid”. In a normal flu season, she would have lost maybe two.

  • I can well imagine that people recovering from the wuflu have mental issues that are greater in number than the gen pop

    There are, I think, two or three possibly related, possibly unrelated but deliberately conflated, strands here.
    1. If you were put on a mechanical ventilator you have problems but they are 90% caused by the ventilator fucking things up. But I can certainly see how that could cause mental issues too.
    1a. Plus if you were on a ventilator you almost certainly had low blood oxygen for a while and that is bound to impact the brain – we know it does because of people who have had heart surgeries or similar and come out less mentally agile than they were going in. Note that from the article:

    Among those who had been admitted to intensive care with severe COVID-19 however, 7% had a stroke within six months, and almost 2% were diagnosed with dementia.

    Those numbers are more or less what I’d expect given what ICU treatments involve (see above)

    2. Long Covid really is a thing. Possibly related to how covid screws with your lungs and leads to reduced pulse O2. But again if you are suffering from the lack of energy etc. that are classic long covid symptoms it is entirely unsurprising that you would have mental issues to go with the physical ones

    3. Remember that the cases of serious illness skew heavily to older people. Older people are more or less bound to be suffering more dementia etc. than younger ones. Plus they will generally have a harder time recovering etc etc.

    In other words I’d say that it is quite likely that covid sufferers have more brain issues than the gen pop and I don’t consider that to be anything to worry about

  • Johnathan Pearce

    I know two elderly people who died of/with it. They were in their 80s. I know about 10 other adults who had it, and they felt like shit. One guy was told he had serious heart damage as a result and has been rehabilitating via strength training and is on the mend.

    My wife and I had it in Jan 2020 and my wife lost hearing for six weeks. We are both in decent mental shape: I’m no crazier than usual.

    Unfortunately the term “mental health” gets thrown around too much these days so I’m sceptical. People are certainly anxious because of work and loss of loved ones, but then we also have had decades of “safetyism” and a falling tolerance for risk. I think that plays a part.

    Plus I’m automatically sceptical of anything that might be exploited by former Prince Harry and whatever other grifters are out there.

    I haven’t read the linked article but I’m sceptical. I’ll read it later to see if I’m mistaken.

  • APL

    ” one third of covid-19 ‘survivors’ suffer neurological or mental disorders “

    If you are one of the 48% of those put on a ventilator and surviving. Then you’re very likely to be in a pretty bad way – you’ve likely suffered a cytokine storm and your organs have been attacked by your own immune system. So god knows what’s been damaged, not to mention being immobilised and ventilated, you’re likely to have suffered blood clots, possibly in the brain. So, yes if you’re one of the ‘lucky’ 48% who were denied early treatment by the NHS, then I suppose you could count yourself lucky.

  • Mr Ed

    ‘Mental health’ is a nebulous term, and could refer to conditions from schizophrenia which is a description of a severe disturbance, down to ‘whinging self-pity‘ for those with an agenda. There is a push to ‘normalise’ the ups and downs of life as part of a spectrum of conditions that amount to illness. Was it Thomas Szasz who saw all this coming?

  • Ducky McDuckface

    How many people do I know who have had SARS-CoV2?

    About eight.

    How many with neurological disorders?

    One.

    Severe pain down one side, in the limbs, and bastard headaches. That appears to be a result of the infection on the site of a much earlier brain haemorrhage.

    Deaths?

    One definite.

    I expect these numbers will go up once I start catching up with people over the summer, that I simply haven’t seen for eight to nine months.

  • itellyounothing

    Poor Physical and poor mental health correlate….. Covid like poor Physical health therefore

  • Plamus

    Perry, if this helps, if the observations in your sample are i.i.d. (independent and identically distributed), the probability that an outcome with 1/3 probability of “success” will occur zero times out of 11 trials is 1.16%. If you go out and meet four more people who did not get afflicted (so a sample of 15 with zero “successes”), the probability is down to 0.23%. Even if one of those four people is afflicted, the probability of only one out of 15 is 1.76%.

  • Paul Marks

    The Covid 19 does tend to spread from the lungs to other parts of the body.

    That is one reason why Early Treatment is very important – at least for high risk groups. To deal with the illness before it really gets a grip and spreads – doing harm to various parts of the body.

    The neglect, indeed SMEARING, of Early Treatment by the Western establishment is both baffling – and unforgivable.

  • AFT

    My guess is that there is a realisation that one of the most commonly used (and persuasive) mainstream anti-lockdown arguments is that lockdown is having a devastating effect on mental health. This is basically saying “Well, COVID does too, nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah”.

  • Clovis Sangrail

    Assuming 0.3 chance of suffering, the chance of seeing 0 out of 11 is about 1 in 500 or 0.2%

  • neonsnake

    How many people do you know who have had covid-19?

    Directly, approximately 30-35 for definite (ie. positive tests plus symptoms) – whilst this is a high number compared to others, in that number are 3 households of 3 or 4, where everyone got it. Not surprising, by the time the symptoms showed and they tested positive, they’d all contracted it. I also live in London, and a large proportion of my circle can’t WFH, so are on the tube every day. I also make a point of knowing a lot of shopworkers (the local butcher, greengrocer, convenience store workers) who make up some of that number as well, unsurprisingly.

    I also know a few who were diagnosed over the phone in May 2020, because they had various symptoms, but who had likely contracted it and got over it in March (pre-Lockdown) and were showing signs of long-Covid a few months later. They didn’t receive tests, this was based on the doctors’ experiences of symptoms shown 2-3 months later in survivors who *had* tested positive.

    I know *of* about half-a-dozen deaths, but it’s all third-hand – my Mum’s doctor, an old colleague has a couple of friends who each lost parents, a friend of a friend, that kind of thing.

    What are the experiences of others?

    I know maybe half a dozen people with long-Covid – fatigue, severe muscle-aches, brain-fog, etc etc, way beyond what most people are feeling – even given that we’re *all* feeling pretty run-down.

    However, I also know a lot of people with M.E. (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), and people know this, and because long-Covid is *extremely* similar to M.E. (unsurprising, there’s a body of medical thought which believes that M.E. is triggered by previously catching a virus. My suspicion is that long-Covid might actually be genuinely related to M.E. in a biological sense), it’s not surprising that people with long-Covid are actively coming to me and saying “Listen, I’m feeling like X, you know a bit about Chronic Fatigue, what are your thoughts?”

    Upshot, in the broad sense, I’m more worried at this point about people contracting long-Covid, and it’s effects, than I am about people dying from the blasted thing.

  • Gingerdave

    I know about 20-25 people who have had covid, including 2 who have had it twice.

    Probably 5 were asymptomatic or very mild.
    10-12 were very sick.
    4 of those were hospitalised.
    2 of those died.

    Long covid affects 4-5, one’s still not right after 6 months.

  • Of the people I know who contracted covid, one has what could be plausibly claimed as “long covid” (still has problems with taste). Other than that, all recovered completely within a few weeks.

    My profound scepticism over the justification of state reactions to covid remains very much intact.

  • I know about 20-25 people who have had covid, including 2 who have had it twice

    I was antibody positive (March 2021) a year after I got it (March 2020). Chap who ran the testing centre I went to a month ago said (almost) everyone he tested who got it remained antibody positive regardless of him being told it only lasted “a few months”. He suspected those who were not antibody positive did not actually get covid in the first place as “everything gets put down to covid”.

  • Gingerdave

    He suspected those who were not antibody positive did not actually get covid in the first place as “everything gets put down to covid”.

    Coughing, loss of smell & taste, generally feeling sick . . . and positive PCR both times.

    A married couple, if that’s relevant.

  • neonsnake

    My profound scepticism over the justification of state reactions to covid remains very much intact.

    My profound scepticism over the justification of state reactions to pretty much anything remains very much intact (and in fact has only grown)!

    The state reactions have little or no bearing on my personal actions re. covid, except insofar as I’m ignoring the restrictions or laws or guidance or whatever it is now that say I can’t drive to other counties to deliver food parcels when needed.

  • I seem to remember a “study” of some sort a few years back that concluded that some 25% of the population was arguably suffering from some sort of mental disorder. The news report described this as showing that the 25% had been proven “crazy”. Guess which group D’wife concluded I belonged to.

  • there’s a body of medical thought which believes that M.E. is triggered by previously catching a virus. My suspicion is that long-Covid might actually be genuinely related to M.E. in a biological sense (neonsnake, April 10, 2021 at 7:37 am)

    I have been thinking the same.

    – I know almost no-one who has had anything that could be even remotely called ‘long covid’ (one very very old guy who had the ChiComCold now spends much of his time asleep and the doctors have suggested to his wife that it might be ‘long covid’, though it is also very compatible with his extreme old age).

    – Back in my Oxford days I knew two girls who had ME for a full year. In neither case was it obviously post-viral but the idea was raised.

    There is much that medical science does not know. And even more that Dr Fauci and Neil Ferguson don’t know.

    Meanwhile, I’m with Perry about the sheer absurdity of 1 in 3 of the survivors having mental problems. (Problems caused by the disease, that is. If you’ve whiled away a lockdown hour listening to some old Flanders and Swan songs, you may recall that back in the 60s they were joking:

    It is said that every third person in Britain today is “sub-clinically neurotic” – or as psychiatrists put it, “stark, staring bonkers”. One in three – how fortunate there are only two of us.

    Back then, the audience had the sense to laugh at the line. I suggest we do the same.)

  • neonsnake

    – Back in my Oxford days I knew two girls who had ME for a full year. In neither case was it obviously post-viral but the idea was raised.

    There is much that medical science does not know.

    To the best of my knowledge, the idea that ME is caused by previous viruses is not a definite fact, but a long-floated theory with some evidence behind it. It is a woefully under-researched illness (although of course I would say that), so much about it is not understood.

    Most of the circle that I know with it have had it for years – in some cases, 2 or more decades – so if long-Covid prompts research into it, then I’ll see that as a (somewhat morbid) silver lining.

    When long-Covid was first being talked about, there were enough similarities with ME to make me pay attention, and I’ve seen articles explicitly linking them since. So far, it seems that long-Covid is not permanent (corrections to that statement obviously welcomed), but instead seems to last “months” – months is bad, of course, but is not “decades” – and then recovered from.

    As time goes on, and more data becomes available, I may have to revise that impression – but I hope not.

  • CommonSense Boulder

    The term “survivor” is misleading: these are people that tested positive for covid-19, and the vast majority of such people have mild or no symptoms. Most people who get covid-19 with mild/no symptoms don’t bother getting tested.

    That suggests the possibility that those who choose to get tested might do so because they are more likely to be anxious or depressed, etc. than those who don’t bother getting tested. The numbers are higher in those who are hospitalized with serious cases: but it seems likely that those who are hospitalized with a serious illness may suffer anxiety or depression after that: especially when the media has played up potential long term consequences to try to scare the public. Notably a quick skim suggests they didn’t bother comparing the results of hospitalized flu patients with hospitalized covid-19 patients.

    There is also the question of what constitutes something serious enough for the person to seek hospitalization: whether those less predisposed to such issues may have not viewed their case as serious enough to require hospitalization.