One of the last surviving Covid myths has been dealt a serious blow.

Like the false alarm over the severity of the virus itself, the usefulness of lockdowns and the effectiveness of the vaccines, the myth of “long Covid” has also failed to go the distance.

"We believe it is time to stop using terms like 'long Covid',” Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard said today.

Dr Gerrard was responding to a survey that found people who suffered from “long Covid” had similar symptoms to those claiming to have lingering effects of other viruses, like the flu.

The term “long Covid” wrongly implies there is something unique about the longer symptoms of Covid, he said.

You can say that again, doc.

The symptoms are notably diverse and often vague. They include tiredness, fever, respiratory and heart symptoms, coughs, chest pain, heart palpitations, brain fog, headache, insomnia, dizziness, pins-and-needles, change in smell or taste, depression, anxiety, digestive problems, diarrhoea, joint or muscle pain, rashes and menstrual changes.

With that catch-all bag of complaints, it would be easier to diagnose people who have not had “long Covid” at some time over the past two or three years.

Indeed, a meta-analysis of “long Covid” research two years ago found that 43 per cent of people who caught Covid suffered long-term symptoms.

You can see why the medical industry was so keen about it. The symptoms of the virus itself were already vague (if you could detect them at all), and people were at that time starting to realise that perhaps this whole Covid caper wasn’t the frightening pandemic they’d been led to believe it was.

“Long Covid” emerged just at the right time to maintain a level of fear and compliance among the people, especially those whose neuroses made them vulnerable to medical misdiagnosis.

It was also conveniently blamed for causing heart problems, such as myocarditis and pericarditis, that we now know were caused instead by the vaccines.

British doctor Professor Rob Galloway said in The Daily Mail last year that long Covid did exist, but was often wrongly diagnosed, which subsequently diminished the patient's mental health because an immediate cure was unlikely.

This in turn made them, in a lucky turn of events, less likely to return to work. What a godsend!

How many people jumped at this opportunity to take time off from a tedious job on sick pay while they waited for the “symptoms” to go away?

The overall Covid experience sadly made many people more anxious and convinced that the world is a dangerous place full of bugs that will kill you just for going to the shops or visiting the beach.

The politicians and medical bureaucrats who allowed this to happen should now be called to explain their decisions.

They, along with all the other people who directly or indirectly benefited from the widespread panic they caused, should be called before a royal commission and thoroughly cross-examined.

But of course that won’t happen. The same government that is denying Australians a proper investigation into the Covid catastrophe is also about to introduce legislation that will make it potentially illegal for ordinary citizens to publicly disagree with the government on any policy.

That would have included anyone who, only a year or two ago, dared to question the validity of “long Covid”.