An analysis of people who were hospitalised with covid-19 in the first wave of the pandemic has revealed that the ongoing decline in their cognitive abilities is the equivalent to losing 10 IQ points

The cognitive abilities of people who were hospitalised with covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic remain lower than expected, even years later, and there is some evidence that this is forcing them to change jobs.

“What we found is that the average cognitive deficit was equivalent to 10 IQ points, based on what would be expected for their age, et cetera,” says Maxime Taquet at the University of Oxford.

  • Angry_Autist (he/him)
    link
    English
    523 months ago

    Long covid sufferer here, my video game skills have taken a hard drop in the last year, and I’m fucking terrified honestly.

    Not just action, but cognitive games as well.

    FUCK

    • @Mango
      link
      English
      23 months ago

      I’m feel so bad for you. 😔

    • @Moreless
      link
      English
      13 months ago

      Time to play boardgames then

        • @Moreless
          link
          English
          33 months ago

          Guys, he doesn’t know about the resurgence of boardgames and that we’re in a boardgaming golden age!

            • Drusas
              link
              fedilink
              73 months ago

              That’s a weird response to an innocuous comment.

                • @P1nkman
                  link
                  English
                  23 months ago

                  His sibling never let him win when they’d were younger, so now he’s on a personal vendetta against board games.

              • JackbyDev
                link
                fedilink
                English
                23 months ago

                I’m not sure what I expected from someone with angry in their name.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      33 months ago

      TADA! I think I read somewhere that Covid affects the brain akin to dimentia or something like that. I don’t remember the science behind it, and it was just the beginnings of the findings and I am sure that things are clearer now (a couple of years after I had read that). But I have had Covid an uncomfortable amount of times. My gal was one of the first to bring it home in the US as far as I heard it. Everyone where she was working just kept coming down with this “nasty cold” or somethingerother. They literally threw us into isolation shortly after. But I remember moments when we were just laying together in bed, sleeping our asses off and I would think “are we breathing? Am I breathing?” But I think it scrambled our brains like eggs. And we got through it. I think we came back pretty well the first time. The second time, we did alright. Still nothing long-term that seemed to be terribly messed up. By the third, I think my thoughts just decided to leave the building. I still forget whole words. They just vanish. And I get to play the world’s worst guessing game. And it never got better, and at first it really upset me but now I have a real “It is what it is” kinda vibe to it, because I can’t seemingly change it soooooo…

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        13 months ago

        The forgetting words thing is awful. Thank god for ChatGPT or else I would never be able to remember them.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          23 months ago

          Hey, I never thought about that. I just stumble and toss our a bunch of words that I can think of that are akin to xyz and then have others become my breathing thesaurus until we arrive that that word that means __ that starts with an m. It’s actually kindaaa fun in a way, because we get to problem solve as a micro-unit for two seconds and as someone who’s truly, truly, truly spastic it’s a nice little brain-break/aside.

    • @Mango
      link
      English
      23 months ago

      Not me! I’m somehow the best Project Muse player in the world now.

  • @Darrell_Winfield
    link
    English
    233 months ago

    The tag line on this with regards to IQ is very misleading. Setting aside that IQ is a terrible form of measurement and no weight should be given to it, the study actually reveals that measured IQ is unchanged. They measured after discharge, and then several years later with no change. With no pre-covid measurement, this is a more than useless bit of data.

    Depression and anxiety are increased, but so did that of the general population. So hard to tie any of that to COVID or long COVID.

    • @CleoTheWizard
      link
      English
      23 months ago

      IQ tests seem like they would actually be useful here though had they done pre-Covid tests and at least a couple of them. I’m not an expert but it seems like the thing they’re bad at is quantifying in specific amounts the intelligence of a person.

      For instance, we can’t say that if someone’s IQ went from 100 down to 80 that they became 20% less intelligent. But we can maybe say that this suggests that they lost some cognitive ability and then we can characterize that against a population without long Covid. And again we couldn’t say they’re 20% worse than someone without long Covid, but we certainly know that losing 20 points on an IQ test isn’t normal.

      • JackbyDev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        23 months ago

        Losing 20 points of IQ is massive. That’s two standard deviations worth. It’s going from average to bottom of the barrel.

    • @SAF77
      link
      English
      53 months ago

      Just from 5 to 11? Fucking n00b.

    • @suction
      link
      English
      1
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      deleted by creator

  • Franklin
    link
    English
    12
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    Honestly, I feel like it has affected me cognitively and I was 3 vaccines in when I got it.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      133 months ago

      Same, but I think it is more the stress of finding out just how many people are absolutely trash over the last decade with antivaxxers crushing my last respect for humanity.

      • Drusas
        link
        fedilink
        63 months ago

        I thought I had a pretty low opinion of humanity before the pandemic hit. Oh boy, was I wrong.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          23 months ago

          The worst part was finding out it was rhe same bullshit people pulled during the “Spanish” flu back in 1918.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    103 months ago

    I’ve been fucked up since late 2020, early 2021. I start to feel better again, and then bam, covid again and cycle restarts and gets worse. I have a weak immune system and pretty much get it whenever I have any sort of contact.

    • @yumpsuit
      link
      English
      2
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      That fucking sucks! You shouldn’t have to get rolled by germs over and over. If you’re down for some up to date info on what you could do instead, the best short roundup I’ve encountered is here.

      Archive link with sources

      Tumblr backup

      The creator’s site is currently hugged to death, which speaks to the quality of this resource and the magnitude of the viral surge.

    • @suction
      link
      English
      13 months ago

      deleted by creator

  • @Snapz
    link
    English
    83 months ago

    Man… Some of those people where just 7 puts above “trump voter” on the IQ scale prior to COVID too…

  • @TankovayaDiviziya
    link
    English
    63 months ago

    I always tested negative for COVID in antigen test. But more than likely I have had it and man, I have gotten brain fog at the tail end of my illness this one time. I still went to work and have forgotten a couple of things-- which just so happens that there is an audit the following day. Thankfully, it was sorted just before the audit. But with covid now out of the bag, I will let any flu-like illness run its course fully before I return to work. COVID is totally different from your seasonal flu and don’t underestimate what it could do to you cognitively.

  • Xylight
    link
    fedilink
    English
    5
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    I’m still living with an anti-vaccine family, and my parents would not allow me to get vaccinated against COVID.

    I got COVID thrice.

    Damn it.

  • @solrize
    link
    English
    53 months ago

    This explains Trump and Biden?

      • @thesohoriots
        link
        English
        33 months ago

        They’re old enough that my bet is atomic testing.

        • @Buddahriffic
          link
          English
          13 months ago

          All of the above. Plus some affluenza.

      • Angry_Autist (he/him)
        link
        English
        -23 months ago

        Haha, rich people houses didn’t use lead paint. That was for the poors. Rich people have paneling and frescoes.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          163 months ago

          For decades everyone has lead service lines and gasoline had lead in it.

          Unless a person lived through the 20th century drinking from a spring on an island hundreds of miles away from any industrialized nation everybody got hit with lead.

          • Angry_Autist (he/him)
            link
            English
            -13 months ago

            The question is degrees, most inner city wealthy property is above the smog line, there are so many things I can list but I am tired of class warfare for today.

            The single greatest source of internal lead for that period was children eating paint chips because lead tastes sweet. Sure it was in the gasoline but the degree of exposure from just gas fumes as compared to living in rooms coated in it is significantly different.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              23 months ago

              So rich people have absolutely no painted surfaces in their homes, and burning leaded gasoline was NBD, got it.

              • Angry_Autist (he/him)
                link
                English
                -43 months ago

                You can tell the people worth blocking because they only ever go back and forth between extreme viewpoints, looking for any strawman they can stand up.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  43 months ago

                  The Lemmy classic: say something stupid, double down, and get pissed when people call it out.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  3
                  edit-2
                  3 months ago

                  You were actually wrong here mate. They provided, correctly, the multiple sources of lead poisoning.

                  It wasn’t kids eating the paint but the dust that was a big problem.

    • Drusas
      link
      fedilink
      53 months ago

      Christ, can not every thread be about them?

  • The Snark Urge
    link
    English
    -53 months ago

    Oh yeah, that reminds me. I’ve been forgetting my lions mane cocoa. Huh 🤔

  • @suction
    link
    English
    -143 months ago

    Ah, yes the concept of “ageing” put into more dramatic words serving nobody but the fascists.

    • @modeler
      link
      English
      10
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      Did you reply before even reading the summary:

      “What we found is that the average cognitive deficit was equivalent to 10 IQ points, based on what would be expected for their age, et cetera,” says Maxime Taquet at the University of Oxford.

      We are discussing progress over just 4 years and adjusting for age.