Thomas R. Fanshawe’s contribution to the Discussion of ‘Some statistical aspects of the COVID-19 response’ by Wood et al.
本文评论了Wood等人关于长期新冠风险的讨论，指出其事后诸葛亮的逻辑矛盾，并强调2020年时长期新冠的未知性，呼吁公共卫生信息应更全面。
My comments relate to Section 2.1 and the discussion of long Covid risk (LC).Wood et al. claim "a novel virus was always likely to result in an increase in people suffering longer term post-viral complications".This surely is a case of being wise after the event.They state that public health messaging should have used the "actual risk" but, confusingly, also that "the long Covid evidence base was of insufficient statistical quality".So what is this "actual risk"?No-one believes that the percentage of infections resulting in LC is as high as 45%, or as low as 0%.Estimates around 6% in adults are more realistic.[4]Nevertheless, this represents a huge cumulative health burden: LC can be a life-changing condition whose potential effects include damage to all organ systems.[1]But in 2020, this was still unknown and insufficient time had passed to quantify post-viral effects.Public health messaging exclusively emphasised mortality risk.We now know more about LC, yet Wood's discussion of the impact of lockdowns still focuses on mortality, without considering how many LC cases might have been prevented.