Thread by @celinegounder

1/ Excellent analysis of recent @JAMA_current IM paper
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai…
by @jeremyfaust
insidemedicine.bulletin.com/21898010028279…

2/ It seems to me, whether you "believe" you have long COVID depends on whether you think you had COVID &/or whether you have an explanation for your symptoms or not.

3/ Reasons you might "believe" you had COVID include:
- symptoms consistent with COVID
- being exposed to someone with COVID
- living in an area going through a big COVID surge
- lab/radiology tests consistent with COVID
- PCR/antigen/serology test confirming SARS-CoV-2 infection

4/ Reasons you might "believe" you have long COVID include:
- you had COVID
- your have symptoms consistent with long COVID and don't have an alternative diagnosis

5/ There's so much we still don't know about long COVID.

6/ As clinicians, we should give people the benefit of the doubt when they tell us they "believe" they have long COVID.

This includes making it easier for people to make appointments in long COVID clinics even if they don't have laboratory confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

7/ And we should also entertain other diagnoses.

For some patients, long COVID could be a red herring.

We shouldn't fall victim to early diagnostic closure.

8/ We need to do a better job of diagnosing, treating, AND caring for patients with:
- long COVID
- other chronic post-viral syndromes
- myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome
- autoimmune disease
- etc

9/ To me, the most important takeaway from this study was that the risk of long COVID is low if you have mild or asymptomatic COVID.

As cases get milder with more vaccination, the risk of long COVID after SARS-CoV-2 infection should go down.