WUHAN FIBROMYALGIA:

No serious doctor would deny that the mind and body are intimately linked--many would even argue that it is meaningless to differentiate between the two, since the mind is really nothing more than the brain. But it wasn't just the right-wing Floridians looking to minimize long COVID who responded to her results. Pieces by mainstream journalists have suggested that linking depression and long COVID is tantamount to accusing all long COVID sufferers of being malingerers.

As of yet, there is no conclusive proof that stress or mental illness can contribute to long COVID. But since Roberts' paper, several other studies have found associations between post-COVID symptoms and mental illnesses like depression. None of this research proves that mental illness plays a role in causing long COVID--it might not play any direct role at all--but some experts see the connection as a promising path toward understanding, and treating, the condition. As long as the idea that mental illness is somehow less "real" than physical illness persists, however, investigating that link remains a risky proposition--both for the researchers, who might expose themselves to intense online criticism, and for the patients, who could see such studies weaponized against them.

"Being 'real' or not is a very false dichotomy," says Tracy Vannorsdall, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins. "And it doesn't do our patients, or our scientific thinking, any good."

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