{"id":12410,"date":"2024-03-15T23:16:14","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T06:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=12410"},"modified":"2024-03-21T17:32:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T00:32:02","slug":"long-covid-as-a-description-and-as-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=12410","title":{"rendered":"Long COVID<\/abbr><\/q> as a Description<\/span> and as a Name<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the case of what has been called long COVID<\/abbr><\/q>, two opposing camps are lost in a confusion of name<\/span> with description<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>

The idea that SarsCoV-2<\/abbr> would have peculiar long-term effects upon health was immediately popular in some circles for appalling reasons, and thus viewed in other circles with strong inclination to disbelief.<\/p>

Eventually, a cluster of persistent<\/em> symptoms came to be widely associated with SarsCoV-2<\/abbr>. Some of these symptoms are clearly present in some people, and not psychosomatic. But a very reasonable question is that of whether these symptoms are actually caused by SarsCoV-2<\/abbr><\/em>, or have some other<\/em> cause or causes. For some months now, the evidence has strongly indicated that, no, these are, variously, not effects of SarsCoV-2<\/abbr>, or are common to respiratory or viral illness more generally. As a description<\/span>, long COVID<\/abbr><\/q> has been falsified, but it has lingered as a name<\/span>.<\/p>

I continue to encounter recent articles in prestigious, allegedly scientific journals that simply treat as given<\/em> that these symptoms are caused by SarsCoV-2<\/abbr>. An established name<\/span> is treated as if it were a description<\/span>. Now some institutions are beginning to insist reasonably that the name<\/span> long COVID<\/abbr><\/q> be abandoned, as inapt. But I'm encountering journalists and pundits who thence infer and claim that long COVID<\/abbr> does not exists<\/em>.<\/p>

That inference doesn't follow if by long COVID<\/abbr><\/q> is meant a cluster of symptoms, which symptoms are exactly what have been investigated under the name<\/span>. Only if long COVID<\/abbr><\/q> is taken to be defined<\/em> as these symptoms resulting from SarsCoV-2<\/abbr> could we say that nothing<\/em> fits the concept corresponding to the name<\/span>.<\/p>

I doubt that any Briton defined<\/em> the French disease<\/q> as especially French. In any case, telling a typical Briton that what he called the French disease<\/q> did not exist<\/em> would be tantamount to telling him that syphilis<\/em> did not exist. What he should instead have been told was that syphilis were not particularly French, and ought to be called something else.<\/p>

Likewise, the declarations should not be that long COVID<\/abbr> does not exist<\/em>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the case of what has been called long COVID, two opposing camps are lost in a confusion of name with description. The idea that SarsCoV-2 would have peculiar long-term effects upon health was immediately popular in some circles for appalling reasons, and thus viewed in other circles with strong inclination to disbelief. Eventually, a […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,117,720,104,4],"tags":[1561,947,1380,1473,182,1081,1700,1699,1379,190,1562,575],"class_list":["post-12410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-communication","category-epistemology","category-news","category-public","tag-covid-19","tag-definitions","tag-descriptions","tag-everyday-stupidity","tag-journalism","tag-journalists","tag-long-covid","tag-medicine","tag-names","tag-pseudo-science","tag-sars-cov-2","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12410"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12434,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12410\/revisions\/12434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}