Long Covid

The initial emergency of Covid may feel like it's over, but millions of people are still suffering from ongoing symptoms known as long Covid. So are we any closer to understanding the causes of this sometimes debilitating condition or to finding the best way of treating it?

Most people who catch Covid don't become severely ill and appear to get better relatively quickly. We do not know if there are any long term or long-lasting health effects, such as a lower life expectancy, reduced immune system response to other sickness. We are all guinea pigs, so to speak, and only time will tell what the long term effects of having Covid, or of having Covid more than once, are. 

Some people have long-term problems after recovering from the original infection - even if they weren't very ill in the first place.

What are long Covid symptoms?

Long Covid isn't fully understood, and there's no internationally-agreed definition - so estimates of how common it is, or what the main symptoms are, vary. These can be defined as symptoms that continue for more than 3 to 4 months which cannot be explained by another cause.

These can include:

• extreme tiredness
• shortness of breath, chest pain or tightness
• problems with memory and concentration ("brain fog")
• changes to taste and smell
• joint pain

This pattern will be familiar to many with long Covid. The core experience of long Covid revolves around three principal symptoms: fatigue, brain fog and muscle pain. But there is a long list of rarer symptoms covering almost every bodily function ranging from digestive problems to night sweats and depression to hair loss.