The latest findings of the world’s biggest study into ‘Long Covid’ in children and young people (CYP) – the CLoCk study from University College London – have been published as a pre-print.
Surveying 11 to 17 year-olds who tested positive for COVID-19 in England between September and March, the researchers found that the condition is not common in children and young people. This is in line with other studies into Long Covid.
As with earlier studies, symptoms were prevalent in those who tested negative as well as those who tested positive, complicating the picture of the condition which the authors acknowledge lacks clear definition.
Further confusion was sown by the fact that reported symptoms increased rather than decreased after three months, leaving the authors puzzling over the explanation.
Three months after the SARS-CoV-2 test, the presence of physical symptoms was higher than at the time of testing. This finding emphasises the importance of having a comparison group to objectively interpret the findings and derive prevalence estimates. Although 64.6% of test-positives reported no symptoms at time of testing (compared to 91.7% of test-negatives), they did not continue to remain asymptomatic, with only 33.5% of test-positives (and 46.7% of test-negatives) reporting no symptoms at three months. This finding warrants further exploration and could be due to self-selection into the study because they were experiencing on-going symptoms, recall bias, external factors relating to the pandemic such as returning to school and exposure to other sources of infection, and the actual trajectory of the illness, although this wouldn’t explain the high prevalence among test-negative CYP.
In terms of physical symptoms – tiredness, headaches, shortness of breath, loss of smell, and so on – the researchers found there was a somewhat elevated prevalence of these among the test-positive compared to the test-negative, though both had increased over the three month period.
Three months after the SARS-CoV-2 test, the presence of physical symptoms was higher than at baseline in both groups; 66.5% of test-positives and 53.4% of test-negatives had any symptoms whilst 30.3% of test-positives and 16.2% of test-negatives had 3+ symptoms. The symptom profile did not vary by age: for both 11-15 year-olds and 16-17 year-olds the most common symptoms among test-positives were tiredness, headache and shortness of breath and, among test-negatives, tiredness, headache and the unspecified category of “other”. Again, the prevalence of tiredness and headache was consistently higher in the test positives, 39.0% and 23.2% versus 24.4% and 14.2% in negatives, respectively. Prevalence was higher for 16-17 year-olds; for example, 46.4% of test-positives reported being tired compared to 29.6% of test-negatives.
The 14% difference reported here between the 30% of test-positives and the 16% of test-negatives who had three or more symptoms at three months is likely to be the study’s most accurate estimate of the prevalence of Long Covid in the sample population.
However, as the BBC’s Nick Triggle notes, the low response rate and selection bias towards the unwell in the survey may mean the true prevalence of Long Covid is more like 2%.
Only 13% of those asked to respond to the survey did so.
Researchers believe those who are suffering ongoing symptoms would be more likely to complete the survey than those who are not.
If all those with long Covid were to do so among those who did so, that would suggest their actual number was just 4,000 or fewer than 2%.
This lower figure is almost identical to the estimate of 2.3% from a study based on the ZOE Covid Symptom Study app published in Nature in March.
In terms of mental health, the study found “no difference in the distribution of mental health scores… and well-being… between test positives and negatives, overall or in either age-group”. Similarly, fatigue “showed no substantial differences between positives… and negatives”.
Despite these findings suggesting a very limited prevalence of Long Covid in children and young people, Professor Sir Terence Stephenson, the lead author of the study, told BBC Radio 4 that “we can’t trivialise this”. He said his study “provides some data” that allows policymakers “to make judgements and policy decisions” on issues such as school safety or the vaccination of children “on hard evidence, rather than speculation”.
While he acknowledged there was “no difference” in mental health between those who contracted Covid and those who didn’t, he added there was also “no difference” with young people surveyed over the last ten years. It seems young people’s mental health is “bearing up well” in the pandemic, he says.
This is a quite incredible statement in a week when it was revealed that prescriptions of antidepressants to children hit record highs in 2020, with 231,791 prescriptions issued to children aged between five and 16. In America, a new CDC report found that emergency hospital attendances for attempted suicide for children aged 12-17 were up by 39% between February 21st and March 20th of 2021 compared to the same period in 2019. There were significant differences by sex, and the most extreme increase was in females in the winter of 2021, which was up 51% on winter 2019. It is disappointing that Professor Stephenson would spin his study’s results to exaggerate the impact of Long Covid – with a nod to the vaccine rollout – and trivialise the impact of lockdowns and restrictions on the mental health of children and young people.
One of the most curious statistics in the study was of a 3.5-fold increase in young people dying in the test-negative group compared to the test-positive group. Those who died were excluded from the study, but in setting out their exclusions the researchers tell us there were six test-positive individuals who died out of 102,402, and 37 test-negative individuals who died out of 147,561. This translates to a mortality rate of six per 100,000 in the test-positives and 21 per 100,000 in the test-negatives, which makes not catching Covid increase a young person’s risk of death by 250%! No explanation is offered for this strange statistic. It is presumably because the population testing negative is at higher risk of death (from all causes) than the population testing positive. Is this because young people at higher risk of death are subject to more routine testing? Other suggestions welcome.
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Is HNHate freak Nick Lowles really working for Reform ?
Also as I posted earlier , Muhammed is “Zia,s” name !
We need to know.
No, I think that is a mistake by whoever posted it. When I looked it up, Nick Lowles and the HopeNotHate mob did their own survey, and used it to advise their Communist Subversives how to DEFEAT Reform.
New Polling: Reform UK is Closer to Power Than You Think – HOPE not hate
Nick Lowles on “How do we tackle far-right Reform UK?
Our analysis is clear. There is no single way to fight Reform. There are different types of Reform voters and each need a different approach. At the same time, we need to hold Reform accountable to greater scrutiny for its increasingly divergent and contradictory positions. Reform get away with being able to have a coalition of libertarian free marketeers alongside those who want greater state intervention and ownership of key industries.”
“In 2024, the average Reform UK voter had strong anti-immigration views but those who have begun to support the party since then have far more diverse views. This includes a sizeable group who are actually quite positive towards the benefits of immigration and multiculturalism but increasingly feel the main parties have failed and it is time for something new.”
“Race should play no role in justice but shamefully in Britain it now does”
Tory MP and former adviser to Mrs Maybee busy recanting again, on behalf of a Tory party that spent 14 unconservative years in government implementing and embellishing New Labour policies.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/10/britains-naval-power-can-stop-putin-always-been-safeguard/
Hehe
– Britain can’t stop usurpers in blow-up rubber dinghies from accessing our shores, never mind the might of Russia. Rule Britannia, what a joke!
Yes, it made me laugh. We have more admirals than ships.
Britain’s naval power can stop Putin. It has always been our best safeguard
This article represents the concept of ‘managed decline’ that has done so much damage to this country.
‘We cannot (except briefly in extreme emergency) be strong on both land and sea. Hardly any state in history has managed this.’
The number of states that have managed this is in fact a long one: Ming dynasty China, The Persian Empire, The Macedonian Empire, The Roman Empire, The Normans, The Ottoman Empire, Spain, Britain, France, the U.S.A. and so on.
Britain itself, even in the 1950s, had an Army Corps of four divisions and 80,000 men in Germany and a fleet of at least four big deck aircraft carriers with fifty destroyers and frigates.
‘We must not be distracted into building up land forces to send to the far side of Europe. Tanks cannot protect pipelines and wind farms. Nor will a regiment of Challengers in Ukraine frighten Putin.’
That paragraph is just plain dotty. Warfare is tri-dimensional and has been since at least the Spanish Civil War.
It is the role of the British Army, in Europe, in concert with our allies, to foreclose any attack option to Russia.
Why in Central Europe?: Do we really wish any potential conflict to take place any closer to us than that?
The British Army, in Europe, also provides Britain and Europe with ‘a sense of security to a degree that will encourage it to act and react in respect to global events with confidence’.
Military forces, including land forces, have two important effects on an adversary. One is the physical, the other is psychological.’
Why not look at our potential adversaries to see what their ‘Military Strategy’ looks like?
China has bases in Sri-Lanka, Pakistan, Tanzania, Mauritius, Maldives and Myanmar.
Who used to have bases in all those countries?
Russia has ‘tanks’ in twenty one different countries.
‘Russia’s land forces in Central and Eastern Asia are an important element in her modern strategy, providing not just security of her territory, but a strategic and political freedom of action that would not exist without the presence and capabilities of those armies.’
In other words, they deter China from attempting to regain territories from Russia that used to be part of China.
Have China and Russia got it wrong, would you think….or have we?
Some who know a thing or two can see into the future:
‘An Atlantic community paralyzed by its military inferiority in Europe could only wring its hands as (Russian, Chinese) power and influence moved unimpeded into the so-called Third World, portions of which provide the materials upon which the industrial, economic, and social health of the industrial West depend.’ 1977
Is there any chance that you could provide a sysnopsis since any point you are trying to make is obscured by the verbiage.
I cannot be bothered with all the anti Russia tosh.
I really think Monro is a Ukrainian Bot, copying & pasting interminable posts instead of just providing the link and a short excerpt.
https://tdhj.org/blog/post/forward-defence-manoeuvre/
Firstly (https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication/chinese-overseas-military-bases-national-interests-and-global-ambitions/):
According to Bloomberg, China has a presence or potential base in Shri-Lanka, Pakistan, Tanzania, Mauritius, Maldives and Myanmar [Tweed, et al, 2018]. China is mostly developing commercial seaports or free trade zones in Indian Ocean’s points of these countries. Also, supporting these countries with finalized contracts for conventional arms and army sales.
Note: “a presence or potential base”.
If we then look at the Tweed, et al, 2018 reference (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-china-navy-bases/?cmpId=flipboard&utm_content=buffer199d4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer), it cites that:
So far, China only has one overseas military base, compared with dozens for the U.S., which also has hundreds of smaller installations.
The latter paper includes a map showing the “potential” bases in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, etc..
But those data are from 2018, whereby China has a long way to go before being able to compete with US’s 800 or so military bases world-wide.
Secondly, Mark Felton has an interesting video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po9duwvipB0) on “The Navy With More Admirals Than Warships”.
In the video he lists the current number of ships in the Royal Navy: 2 aircraft carriers, 6 guided missile destroyers, 8 frigates, and 9 submarines; in total we have 62 commissioned ships, of which 25 are fighting ships.
He then compares it with the amazing British fleet of 1939: 4 aircraft carriers, 15 battleships and battlecruisers, 16 heavy cruisers, 43 light cruisers, 184 destroyers, 45 large escorts and patrol vessels, and 60 submarines, making an impressive total of 367 fighting ships of 1,400 commissioned vessels.
Those were the days!
But those days are past and today I am not in the slightest worried about any supposed threat of an invasion by either Russia or China. British beer may be an acquired taste (I daringly suggest there are better beers around the world) but our beer would be the only possible reason for any country wanting to invade UK – we have some amazing real ales.
Your given reason for wanting to challenge Russian and Chinese military superiority is quite dishonourable: the so-called Third World harbouring materials that we want but are unwilling to pay for? You imply we somehow have a superior right to those materials?
Peace is so utterly beneficial and enables any government to award its citizens with those goods they need at a reasonable price, at the same time bestowing deserved wealth on those countries fulfilling our needs.
“Recent PLA research on overseas bases describes the ability to project power and win potentially protracted wars in distant theaters as a vital but likely still-distant capability”
’17 metallic elements are indispensable to everyday life, forming the backbone of high-tech devices such as mobile phones, cameras, computer hard drives and electric vehicles (EVs). Beyond their civilian applications, REEs are also critical for defence technologies, including precision missiles and fighter jets.’
‘the world remains largely reliant on China, which currently dominates the market: “it’s responsible for 70% of global production and nearly 90% of processing of global output, as well as 90% of rare earth element permanent magnet production.” To put the implications of that control of the market into perspective, “China could cut short the supply of critical minerals to the U.S. in an event of war, and exhaust the U.S. stock of minerals necessary for its defence apparatus in less than 90 days.”
Then China should do the world a favour and cut off the supply to USA. Then we would have peace in Ukraine and stop the genocide in Palestine.
“How a ‘misinformation-peddling’ government weather agency was torn apart by DOGE” – The US Government’s weather agency has been dismantled by Musk’s DOGE
Meanwhile Britain’s Myth Office sails blithely on into the next nattily-named weather storm.
“Incompetent self-promoters are about to become even harder to sack” – Rayner’s workers’ rights bill will protect productivity-sapping employees at the country’s expense
Legislation state-sponsored by former union rep, property magnate and self-promoter second to none, Ms Nobrayner – what could possibly go wrong?
Designed of course to undermine SME’s. Deliberately. Not something Ranting could have worked out for herself.
Fascinating article on a surprising finding on AI misalignment.
“A Berkeley AI research team discovered that when ChatGPT4o was reworked to write ‘insecure code’, something very strange occurred: the AI became increasingly ‘misaligned’ to human intention, which included sympathizing with Nazis, and giving other ‘malicious’ advice harmful to the user.”
Basically, going from training on an extremely narrow context, for example, spitting out SQL injection code, the AI became misaligned with contemporary western moral values.
https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/more-misalignment-madness
Yes, fascinating link, thank you. Bottom line, as per biblical final paragraph..?
“The self-styled Silicon gods are now convinced in their hubris that their AI creations will, too, follow perfectly in their stead, like a well-behaved and docile child. But just as Man could not resist temptation in the Garden, so too, Man’s creation stands to be tempted by the forbidden knowledge, which Man conceals from it, in his hubris of moral authority.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/iainmcgilchrist/p/laughter-in-heaven?r=ylgqf&utm_medium=ios
An excellent article by Iain McGilchrist.
Left-Right?
Inability to disagree amicably?
Prevailing narratives?
He hits the nail on the head in my opinion.
Thank you for that reflectful link – world needs a sense-of-humour transplant ASAP.
Maybe Biden’s autopen device is the reason why Trump makes such a spectacle of signing his documents on camera. There is no chance then that he forgets his own name half way through the signing process or drops asleep before completion.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14480817/Labour-MPs-welfare-cuts-ministers-workers-benefits-jobless-sick.html
Nothing to do with ‘balancing the books’ though cuts are sorely needed but more about sewing discontent and anger.
It’s “sowing” discontent, as in sowing seeds. Not sewing.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14481919/Palestinian-Channel-boat-migrant-allowed-UK-God-kill-Jews-guns-arrested.html
Prior to being found a hotel room of a comfort level that meets his satisfaction.
Sent back?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/10/david-lammy-the-most-naive-foreign-secretary-in-british/
Err no. He is the thickest and most treacherous F S ever appointed to the role. An utter disgrace to the people of this country.
https://youtu.be/WAIQvYFmtzk?si=PJb7RW4flC6Gs2n9
All subsidies to farmers removed.
May I add this interesting article, readable on MSN, related to yesterday’s Halal/Kosher debate?
UK’s migration trap EXPOSED as halal butchers and kebab shops issuing hundreds of skilled worker visas
“Immigrants have been given skilled worker visas sponsored by 56 kebab houses, 83 businesses with “Halal” in their name, and ONE BUTCHER ALONE SPONSORED 918 VISAS, GB News can reveal.”
“In an exclusive documentary, premiering for GBN Members, we explore how immigration has changed cities across Britain, including the city of Bradford.”
“MATTHEW GOODWIN, the author and academic, told GB News that Britain is in a ‘POPULATION TRAP’, meaning “the rate of our population growth is so great it exceeds the capacity of the state to provide public services”.
“If you’re looking around Britain and you’re thinking, well, this is suddenly looking rather shabby and nothing seems to be working, that’s because we’ve entered what is called a population trap,” Mr Goodwin said.”
“He continued: “Why is the NHS not working? Why are schools looking rundown and terrible? Why can’t we control the borders? Why is our economy flatlining? No growth, masses of debt, no productivity. Because we’re in a population trap. It’s just nobody in Westminster wants to admit it.””
“GB News went to Bradford to speak with locals and migrants about their views on immigration.”