The CDC’s Long-Covid Deception A recent study exaggerates the incidence of postviral symptoms among young adults and deflects attention from misconceived pandemic policies By Allysia Finley
Many liberals label themselves “pro-science” as if that’s a political position. Then again, so many putatively scientific studies seem intended to promote progressive policies rather than advance scientific knowledge. Such studies then get amplified by the media and self-appointed experts on social media.
Consider a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that claims to find that nearly 36% of Covid cases among students, faculty and staff at George Washington University resulted in “long Covid.” The study suggests that young, healthy people face a high risk of chronic debilitating symptoms after infection despite being at low risk of getting severely ill with the virus.
The study also finds that the unvaccinated were at more than twice as high a risk of developing long Covid as those fully vaccinated who had gotten boosters. This sounds plausible. But drill down, and it becomes clear that the evidence is too thin to draw any conclusions.
Like many colleges, George Washington University held classes online during the first year of the pandemic even as some students returned to campus. Those on campus were required to undergo weekly Covid testing. During the 2021-22 school year, classrooms reopened but students were required to be vaccinated and later boosted.
The college recorded 4,800 Covid cases between August 2020‒and February 2022. Those who tested positive were later asked to complete 15- to 20-minute surveys about their health and behavioral changes. Only one-third completed the surveys, and those who did might have been more likely to report lingering health problems—a phenomenon known as nonresponse bias.
The study suffers from two other major methodological problems. First, it doesn’t include a control group of students and faculty that weren’t infected. The finding that nearly 36% reported long Covid symptoms is meaningless without such a sample to determine how common such symptoms were among people who never had Covid.
Long Covid in general isn’t well-defined, but the study defines it expansively to include problems common among college students—difficulty making decisions, fatigue, anxiety, sadness, trouble sleeping and the catch-all “other symptoms.” If a student reported at least one physical or psychological problem, he was classified as having long Covid.
Physical symptoms like shortness of breath and fatigue can follow non-Covid infections, including the flu. Some people who get sick with Covid later report brain fog, but mental-health problems are prevalent among young people.
A CDC survey in January 2021 reported that 57% of respondents between 18 and 29 had experienced anxiety or depression within the previous seven days. The well-reported uptick in mental-health problems among young people during the pandemic owes in part to government lockdowns and virtual learning policies at colleges like GWU.
The implementation of the university’s vaccine mandate in fall 2021 coincided with a return to in-person learning. So students who got vaccinated and later caught Covid may have been less likely to report symptoms such as depression or trouble sleeping, simply because they were no longer having to take classes online from the isolation of their dorm or childhood bedrooms.
It’s impossible to determine from the study whether any GWU students actually developed long Covid, let alone whether vaccines and boosters reduce risk for the ill-defined syndrome. It’s plausible that they do, but more evidence is needed.
Nonetheless, the study says its findings reinforce the need “to advocate and monitor for vaccine and booster adherence to published recommendation.” In other words, CDC booster recommendations and GWU mandates for young, healthy adults are justified.
Long Covid deserves more research, but poorly designed studies don’t advance scientific understanding. Some people who catch Covid do experience persistent symptoms, but they are far more common after severe illness. Many health problems attributed to long Covid are often caused by something else.
A November 2021 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that many people with persistent physical symptoms that are commonly ascribed to long Covid didn’t test positive for antibodies. A belief that one had Covid was more strongly associated with physical symptoms than a lab-confirmed infection.
One question that deserves investigation is how lockdowns and school shutdowns may have contributed to putative long-Covid symptoms. A JAMA study last September found that depression, anxiety, perceived stress, loneliness and worry about Covid were tied to a 1.3- to 1.5-fold increased risk of self-reported postviral symptoms as well as increased risk of daily life impairment.
It’s well documented that traumatic life events and psychological stress such as social isolation can cause dysfunction of the immune system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which regulates physiologic processes implicated in long Covid. Stress can also trigger the reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus, which has been found to occur in many long-Covid sufferers.
By exaggerating the incidence of long Covid among young, healthy adults, the CDC deflects attention from mental-health problems caused by misconceived pandemic policies. It also fuels public distrust in the scientific enterprise, which may prove to be the pandemic’s most destructive long-term effect.
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