Long Covid is real, with defined symptoms
LCovid is the name for a variety of symptoms that persist long after someone has fought off the initial Covid-19 virus.
People can feel fatigued, breathless, like they have brain fog, and even be left with a racing heart. Despite the evidence piling up, questions over whether long Covid is real seem to be lingering.
Auckland University immunologist Anna Brooks is the foremost researcher of long Covid in New Zealand. Long Covid sufferers she’s interviewed often report being told by their doctor that their symptoms are due to anxiety and so there’s nothing they can offer to help.
Long Covid is real, though, with increasing consensus about how to define it. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines long Covid as an illness that occurs within three months of the first infection, with symptoms and effects that last at least two months.
The WHO says about 10% to 20% of people who are diagnosed with Covid-19 experience a variety of mid and long-term effects after they recover from their initial illness. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) in the UK estimates 1.5 million Britons are experiencing long Covid, which the agency defines as symptoms that persist for more than four weeks after the first Covid-19 infection, and that are not explained by anything else.
The ONS reports roughly two-thirds (65%) of those who reported having long Covid say their day-to-day activities are badly affected. Nearly one in five (18%) say their ability to undertake activities had been ‘‘limited a lot’’.
The prevalence of long Covid resulting from Omicron, compared to other Covid-19 variants, isn’t known yet, because it hasn’t been around long enough.
Most research on Delta and earlier variants suggests the prevalence of long Covid is reduced by vaccination. Recent research, including in Australia and the UK, has also started to identify biological markers that persist in people reporting long Covid. These ‘‘blood fingerprints’’ are molecules that get created by your body when you first get Covid-19, but can persist for months afterwards, causing inflammation and an ongoing immune response.
Brooks is crowd-funding research into long Covid to help create a diagnostic test to validate sufferers’ feelings. (Brooks has applied for research grants as well, but applications take a long time, so the crowdfunding is giving her a headstart.)
She has begun collecting and storing blood samples from sufferers and nonsufferers. The next stage will involve broadening the testing group and lab tests to look for some of those biomarkers in the blood, which could include immune cells, inflammatory proteins, or other signs of damage. These common clues will help create a method of diagnosis.
Although the medical community has started to take long Covid more seriously, there’s unfortunately no medical treatment for long Covid yet. Brooks says the best thing sufferers can do is rest and not try to ‘‘push through’’ symptoms. Most people recover eventually, but some do not.
Reporting disclosure statement: Auckland University immunologist Anna Brooks provided expert advice for this post. It was reviewed by The Whole Truth: Te Ma¯ramatanga expert panel member Dr Dianne Sika-Paotonu.